On Feminist Translation Theory And Its Translation Strategies: A Report On The Translation Of Beauty Sickness: How The Cultural Obsession With Appearance Hurts Girls And Women (Excerpts)

This translation project is an experimental translation practice resorting feminist translation strategies.The report is based on the translation of the book Beauty Sickness: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women.In this book,Dr.Renee Engeln expresses her concerns over emphasis on looks and body shape of girls and women.She thinks the cultural obsession with appearance is abnormal and it is hurting females,and she invented expressions “beauty sick” and “beauty sickness” to describe this obsession.The whole book discusses the beauty sickness phenomenon and offered suggestions on how to overcome it.The translation project involves three steps,namely pre-translation preparation,source text translation and post-translation proofreading.The original book is very sentimental and belongs to the “self-helping,inspirational book” category targeting at female readers.Besides,the book itself embodies obvious feminist theories,therefore feminist translation theories are applied in the translation of this book.A brief introduction of feminist translation theory is also included in the report.This translation practice shows the feasibility to apply feminist translation theories in China under the current social and cultural climate.Also,since feminist translation theories are vastly different from traditional ones in attitudes towards topics such as “fidelity” and “manipulation”,this translation practice experienced a lot of difficulties trying to maintain a balance between traditional translation theories and feminist ones.