How gender influence translation-a comparative case study on two Chinese versions of the Villette from the feminist translation perspective

• Main Author: Jiang, Yang
• Other Authors: Cui Feng
• Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Humanities::Language
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/157259
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Over the past few decades, gender, translation, and feminism have attracted increasing attention. Particularly in the 1980s, under the influence of deconstructionism, the field of translation studies experienced a turning point-cultural turn. As a result, the research focus has shifted from textual analysis to broader cultural studies. Translation has been considering as a form of mediation rather than a simple textual replication process. Gender is at the core of feminist and cultural studies, offers the inevitable possibility of the combination of gender, translation, and feminism. Feminist translation theory sought to identify and criticize the causes for the marginalization of women and translation, as well as to increase the visibility of women in society and translation. In the nearly thirty years since feminist translation entered China, Chinese scholar’s research perspectives on feminist translation have developed from the theoretical to translation practice in the context of China. Given that feminist translation practice in China is still in its infancy, this paper attempts to explore the differences in translation under the influence of gender, by comparing the feminist text Villette by British author Charlotte Brontë and the two Chinese translations, one by the female translator Xie Sutai and the other one by the male translator Wu Juntao. The results reveal that the gender of the translator does have an influence on practice, articulately when it comes to translating female characteristics and feminist consciousness from the original texts. This paper attempts to further bolster the research interest in feminist translation and translation practice in China. Key words: Gender, Feminist translation, Villette, Charlotte Brontë