Translation Criteria In Feminist View

Feminism, which emerged in the second half of the 19th century, asserts that the patriarchal gender order of male and female is neither universal nor immutable, since it is not natural but constructed by social and cultural environment. The aim of feminism is to eliminate gender discrimination and achieve gender equality. With the development of feminism, the feminist theory began to penetrate into language, literature and translation. Especially towards the end of 19th Century, translation studies in the west began to focus on culture, which gave a brand new perspective to translation study. This happened to be a great chance for Feminism to inject new vitality into the translation field, with its own unique perspective and analysis angle. It was then that feminist Translation Theory came into being.Feminist translation theory is mainly concerned with translation from the gender perspective. It tries to dig out the gender discrimination hiding in translation criteria. To identify and oppose this discrimination, feminist translation theory puts forward feminist translation criteria, with the purpose of letting women's voice heard. This thesis will use deductive and inductive methods to analyze typical Chinese and Western translation criteria from the perspective of feminist translation theory.The thesis first summarizes the developments and main thoughts of Feminism and the nature of translation from the perspective of Feminist translation theory. Then it comes to the elaboration of typical Chinese and Western translation criteria and analysis on them from the feminist viewpoint. Lastly, a concrete case study is conducted to analyze the impact of feminist translation criteria on translation practice. Finally, the conclusion is drawn: in this particular perspective of feminism, the core of the translation criteria is to highlight the status of women and the initiative of the translator, in the hope of getting much wider awareness of gender discrimination in the traditional translation criteria and the old social concept.