Rethinking Feminist Translation Theory And Its Strategies

In the 1980s,with the "cultural turn" of translation studies and the development of feminist movements in the West,various feminist schools began to go deep into the study of language and literature and changed their horizons to the field of translation.Thus,feminist translation came into being.Feminist translation theory challenges traditional translation theories in order to eliminate discrimination against women in translation studies and practice,raise women’s status and enhance the female sense of existence as well as redefine the relationship between the target text and the original text.Luise von Flotow also put forward three strategies of feminist translation theory:prefacing and footnoting,supplementing,and hijacking.As one of the most well-known female writers in China,Wang Anyi reflects her unique thoughts on women in her works.Chang Hen Ge,as a representative work,depicts the life of a Shanghai woman,Wang Qiyao.It reflects that although women at that time were oppressed by the patriarchal society,they still strove to live in their own small world and gave full play to women’s subjectivity.So Chang Hen Ge can be called a masterpiece about feminism.Co-translated by renowned sinologists Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan,the English version,The Song of Everlasting Sorrow,has been well received by western readers since its publication and has been nominated for the Best Translation Award of the American Modern Language Association.Based on feminist translation theory,taking The Song of Everlasting Sorrow as the research object,this dissertation analyzes how it reflects the feminist view of the original text with three strategies,namely,prefacing and footnoting,supplementing,and hijacking,proposed by Flotow,a representative of Canadian feminist translation.In the first place,this dissertation gives an overall introduction to the research background,research object,research purpose and significance,research method as well as layout.Then a literature review about feminist translation and The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is conducted.Afterward,an elaboration is given to the feminist translation theory,including the background,translator’s subjectivity,and three strategies(prefacing and footnoting,supplementing as well as hijacking).Based on former studies,this dissertation focuses on the three strategies of feminist translation theory and analyzes their application in the version.Finally,the conclusion is drawn:by supplementing,translators add the lost background information in intercultural communication and reflect women’s subjectivity as well as highlight feminine beauty.Meanwhile,the hijacking strategy is used to correct a few discriminatory descriptions against women of the original text,reshape the positive images of female figures and achieve a similar feminist reading effect to the original text.What’s more,according to the combination of supplementing and hijacking,the translation embodies the feminist view of original text and translators’ subjectivity.For readers’ acceptance,the application of feminist translation strategies in the version is of positive significance for breaking the barriers between Chinese culture and western culture,eliminating gender discrimination,and understanding the original author’s intention better.The deficiency lies in that the English version weakens the female aesthetic of the original language to some extent.