A Feminist Study Of The English Translation Of Hunger Descriptions In Zhang Xianliang’s Novels

Feminism found its root in women’s eagerness of equal rights. Based on this, the gendered translation theory calls for equality of female by ways of translation, which leads translators to breach the norm, changing what have been overwhelmingly held against translation and women, to offend the power-related discourse, and to achieve their overall subjectivity through the means such as manipulative and adaptive strategies. Feminism in translation shows women towards a more aggressive and resistant direction.Published in the 1980s, Zhang Xianliang’s novels have always been a heated topic with their bold expression of long-lasting hunger of human and cynic tone against the defection of political and social situation. They are so philosophical and have a magical thought provoking power that many translated versions of them have spread the voices to the whole world, therefore this study is dedicated to bringing more attention to Zhang’s works abroad. With the English translation of two most focused books Half of a Man is Woman and Mimosa as the case, this research expects to shed more light on how feminism has influenced the ways novels are translated. The research narrows down the script to the theme of "Hunger" within the works, and tries to disclose in what ways feminist translation theory has functioned.The study tries to feministically view the translation in three aspects:First is translators’awareness of female identity; the second is their evaluation of male identity and the third is their fight against ideologically unfriendly texts. The findings of this research are:1) the female translators manipulate the target text by boldly expressing women’s aesthetic values, and deliberately make changes in the patriarchal discourses that are considered offensive and sexist; 2) the translators create rational, equal and male-friendly texts which indicate their rational and liberal feminist concept. The approaches being applied include the sympathetic tone added to derogatory discourses that belittle the male figure, and their equal attitude towards men’s natural desire, as well as their critical eye over the weakness and defects within men; 3) the translator persistently fight against the ideology that they find opposite to their own. This goes two ways between the translators:Martha Avery, who has translated Half of Man Is Woman, wages a war against the political ideology within the source text, and in order to win this war, she makes use of the means such as preface, footnote, language form, and the literal translation. Gladys Yang, translator of Mimosa, tries her best to fight with the unacceptable ideology although being restricted for a number of reasons. She diminishes the political and critical tone, and creates ambiguous meaning to disclose her resistant effort.