On Female Translator’s Subjectivity -A Case Study Of Gladys Yang’s C-E Translation Leaden Wings

The emergence of female translators has epoch-making significance in translation history. Over centuries, female translators have been playing a significant role in translation theory and practice. However, they have hardly received extensive concern of the academia. Therefore, studies on female translator’s subjectivity are of great importance for promoting the translation of female works and advancing the researches on the translator’s subjectivity.With the emergence of "cultural turn" in translation studies, researches on translator’s subjectivity gain a growing concern. Moreover, with the extensive development of studies on culture, translators’ cultural identity, including nationality, race, class, language, occupation, gender, etc., has become an important research subject. The alliance of feminism, one of the most influential thoughts in the 20th century, and translation develops an utterly new perspective for studies on translator’s subjectivity, that is, translator’s gender.Gladys Yang, as a well-known translator, made an outstanding contribution to Chinese literature. Her unique cultural identity, together with fruitful translation practice, makes her an ideal research object on translator’s subjectivity. What makes things more meaningful is that her identity as a female translator offers a brand-new gender perspective to this study. Over her independent translation activities, her female subjectivity has been fully played, and she has actively translated various Chinese women writers’ works. Furthermore, her translated works win relatively ideal communication effects, promoting powerfully the "going out" of Chinese female literature. Accordingly, probing into how Gladys Yang displays her female subjectivity in female writers’ works, the selection of the original and specific translation strategies included, is of great significance. For one thing, taking gender perspective into translation studies can increasingly deepen the research on translator’s subjectivity and meantime, can enrich feminist translation theory. For another, studies on Gladys’ female subjectivity greatly benefit the communication of Chinese female literature, and offer Chinese female translators a valuable reference for the C-E translation of female writers’ works.This thesis seeks to analyze Gladys’ female subjectivity in her C-E translation, taking the English version Leaden Wings as a case. The comprehensive analysis will be conducted from the selection of the source text and specific translation strategies. In addition to the analysis on Gladys’ selection of the original, by using the methods of exemplification, comprehensive analysis and summary, this thesis makes a comparison between the original text and the translated one at the micro-level, by illustrating specific examples. The major findings are presented as follows:As a translator with double cultural identity, Gladys Yang succeeded both in comprehending the original and in conveying its spirit and flavors for her profound understanding of Chinese and English, and meanwhile, she always takes readers’ expectation and reading habits seriously. As a female translator, her female identity exerts great influences on her selection and translation. While translating, with due respect to the original text, Gladys Yang adopted gentle and flexible translation methods to enhance female awareness and attach importance to female theme. Firstly, through the analysis on paratext, Gladys Yang’s special care for women not only reflects in her translator’s preface and the added character list, but in her invitation of Davin, with the help of the patron. Secondly, while translating the main text, she adopted diversified women-favored translation strategies to foreground female characters, in lexical, syntactic and textual level.