A Comparative Study On Two Chinese Translated Versions Of Gone With The Wind

The interplay between feminism and translation studies over the seventies of last century in the West ultimately exerted forceful influences upon the conventionally-held concepts of translation studies, necessarily yielding fruitful researches. However, domestically, only in the year 2002 could feminism actually exert influences upon translation studies. What's more, only the introduction of feminist translation theory in the West can be seen these years.Gone with the Wind, written by Margaret Michelle, is a novel full of feminist features. The chosen Chinese versions are respectively translated by Li Meihua (Female) and Fu Donghua (Male). Based on the comparative study of two translated versions from three aspects of women's gender identity, power relationship and body issue in feminist translation theory, this paper tries to find out the differences of two translators (Li and Fu) in different genders when they translate the famous feminist text Gone with the Wind, a novel written by a female writer and find out whether Li (a female) can demonstrate the feminist features better than Fu (a male) can when translating the famous feminist novel. Through the analysis, it can be concluded that Li Meihua, as a female translator, subconsciously, is more sensitive to feminist features in the source text and her understanding is closer to the novelist's thanks to her identity as a woman; that she can demonstrate feminist features in this novel better than the male translator can. Thus, it is necessary and practicable to introduce western feminist translation theory to the practice of English-Chinese translation, especially in the translation of works with feminist features like Gone with the Wind. In order to provide further support for this thesis and to get a general understanding of average readers'attitude or response to the different manifestations of feminist features, the author of this paper made a research on Li Meihua's and Fu Donghua's manifestations of feminist features in their versions of Gone with the Wind. The means adopted in this survey is a questionnaire. To make it more feasible as an academic survey, 80 English majors are chosen as the subjects, and the research result shows that the assumption that the female translator can demonstrate feminist features better than the male translator can do can be admitted by average readers and thus it provides factual support for this paper.