1. Introduction
The last two decades have seen a growing trend towards how female translators rewrite the original and achieve equal footing with male in translation field, which started to be concerned since 1970s. Learning form history, feminist movements, not only help girls gain respect form the society but also help them pursue an unfamiliar ground--translation, is also worth mentioning. The specific objective of this study is to resolve the question that mentioned above by analyzing the feminist translation theory. The present paper presents a set of criteria for selecting such a component. To be specific, the main body of this paper is divided into five parts, such as the definition of feminism, the development, main ideas and so on. At the same time, every part has several branches to express the idea in detail. This study may exert a huge impact on English majors in learning translation, giving the students some different suggestions and methods.
2. The Definition and Development of Feminism
Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes.
2.1. Liberal Feminism
Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism, is a main branch of girl power characterized by its focus on accomplishing women’s liberation through constitutional reform within the foundation of liberalism. First of all, the representative thought of liberal feminism in the early age promotes to be rational, and dare to challenge the authorities. This theory stands for the equality among people, according to the conjecture that everyone is born with coequal logical potential. And equality is mainly explained as having equal opportunity for all in traditional liberalism. What’s more, the root of being oppressed is individuals and groups lose their chances to be educated and compete fairly. However, some people argues that liberal feminism ought to be as it would be the menace to cultural variety. Preventing women to be liberal can be harm to their positivity, respite cultural diversity has its advantages. Liberal education, focusing on a wide range of higher education that brings up liberty by boost sovereignty. Whereby, womankind would particularly put themselves in boosting liberalism among young ladies. People have the capability of choosing their living styles, rather than being reluctant to choose a conservative and feudal lifestyle. Male and female are motivated to perceive another as parities, meanwhile, education makes sure that girls are capable of getting benefits from work and no longer dependent on their husbands. These practices lay a foundation of feminist translation[1].
2.2. Marxist Feminism
A feminist philosophy that embraces and develops Marxist theory is known as Marxist feminism. The main distinction from liberalism is the way in which it perceives human nature. Liberal feminism appeals to the human essence and reason; while Marxist feminism argues that there is no abstract essence of man, that all human traits are products of society, and that the essence of man is the total of all social interactions. Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory written by Lise Vogel believes that the proponents of Marxist feminism considered themselves to represent a unique political science which argues that patriarchy and capitalism are interconnected. And the purpose of this political science is to address gender, class conflict, and racial issues[2].
2.3. Radical Feminism
Radical feminism is a patriarchal philosophy which emphasize that men and women are not equal. To be specific, it is a society that man dominates woman. Radicalism also believes that rights, powers, and privileges are divided for the most part of gender, thereby oppress female and privilege male. The oppression girls suffered from is the most painful one in a form of institutionalized exploitation and the foundation of other various kinds of oppression. Consequently, radicals attempts to find ways to help girls to get rid of oppressiveness.
Radicals believe that the primary cause of women's oppression is traditional languages. Consequently, it constructs its own linguistic norms at random, disregarding the inherent rules and structure of language. These deliberate mistranslations are the opposition to feminist translation theory and fidelity[3].
2.4. Socialist Feminism
Often confused with Marxist or materialist feminism, socialist feminism is actually a subset of that movement that is distinct from both. It was heavily influenced by Marxism, but dissatisfied with its gender blindness and inability to address the "women's question," so it set out to create a political theory and practice that would incorporate radical feminism's insights and the Marxist tradition that had emerged at the same time, while avoiding the problems with each. If liberal feminism and radical feminism ignore socio-economic factors because of their emphasis on gender, Marxist feminism underestimates gender because of its overemphasis on economic factors, and only socialist feminism, with its emphasis on both gender and class and its belief that women's oppression stems primarily from capitalist patriarchy, is now a relatively well-developed branch of feminism. Socialist feminism is not only a political struggle for women's reproductive and educational rights, but also a critical practice in the literary sphere. Feminist literary criticism focuses on gender as the lens of criticism, analyzing gender differences in texts and promoting the idea that men and women are equal or even superior to men. Women authors emerge in the literary field and opened a further way for female translators in literary works[4].
2.5. Postmodern Feminism
Although the word "post" may easily give rise to some kind of postmodern feminist and post-modernist assumptions about the relationship between postmodern feminism and postmodernism. Postmodern feminism is neither a feminist "vision" of postmodernism nor a postmodernist frenzy. It is the result of a sophisticated development of ideas and theoretical excellence through the invocation and effective adaptation of postmodernist anti-essentialism, anti-dualism and power discourse theories. The birth of postmodern feminism is not simply the result of the arbitrary application or mere transplantation of various postmodern academic concepts. It is a feminism that emerges from the experience of the feminine position and directs postmodern theory toward a critique of patriarchal culture through a distinctive feminine mode of thought and expression. It subverts the masculine order by constructing a feminine discourse system that focuses on difference and emphasizes pluralism, and eradicates the patriarchal influence of traditional feminism[5].
3. Theories and Methods
3.1. Break Binary Opposition Symbiosis
There is not a clear expression of the gender of the translator in the field of translation for over thousands of years, like linking translation into an unfaithful belle. Translation is placed in the same rank with women. The original is perceived as a strong and productive man, while the translation is regard as a delicate woman. Western feminist translation theorists argue that long-term suppression by patriarchy causes translation in a weak position. Translation reflects that women usually take a back seat in social culture on account of patriarchal domination. In the meantime, Translating, a cross-cultural language activity, is also seen as a subordinate part, and a derived part, which in turn is feminized and marginalized. Women find their similarities and analogous bases with translation in a common historical situation, thereby, has caused the symbiosis between them[6].
3.2. Translator’s Subjectivity
Feminist translation theory plays a unique role in translator’s subjectivity. For one thing, it lists the neglect of translator’s gender as a factor into the research of translator’s subjectiveness, and then expound it. Thus reveal how sex plays a impact on changing something that is written or spoken into another language. For another, female translators even announce in public, using the writers subjectivity to call for the opportunity of regarding translation as rewriting. So they can fight against articles that perceive male as primary and female as secondary to underline the status of women. On this account, girls can get more respect in real life[7].
3.3. Redefine Faithfulness
In the era of theology rule, there is no doubt that faithfulness is the translation ethics, rather than translation standard. This is because ethics, belonging to system and morality, regulate the relationships between men and women, meanwhile, establish the right power between the original and translation during the translation progress[6]. Etienne Dolet, the father of French translation and the first person who put forward translation theory systematically in modern European history, published La manière de bien traduire d’une langue en autre in 1540, where he presented his thoughts on translation, as well as five essential translation principles: 1. comprehend what the original article wants to express and the words in target-text; 2. know the background of the source text; 3. avoid translating word by word; 4. translate in straightaway language; 5. use appropriate words and order to make the target text have a forthright and harmonious style. The third one especially believes that do not to be the slave to the original which redefine faithfulness to some extent[8].
3.4. Political Behavior
The early development of feminist translation theory overemphasizes its political aspirations, and translation has become nothing more than a tool of ideological struggle once again. In the domestic context, it is an indisputable fact that feminist translation theory is a marginal discourse. There are only a few theoretical translations, and its practice is even less known. On the surface, it appears to be a radical resistance, exposing the gender metaphors and representations of translation and manipulating the production of texts with pragmatic political intentions.
A number of female translators approach the literature they translate from a political standpoint now and then. They think that some writings include so many offensive depictions of women or of men that it is important to try to reduce and remove them from the translation. They believe it is legitimate to draw attention to and make visible source materials that, whether visible or not, include a feminist awareness; alternatively, they might incorporate feminist concepts into a translation of a source text that was originally written without any feminist overtones. They might either include feminist concepts into the original work, which was never intended to be feminist. The criticism of masculine aggression in translation practice and discourse in such so-called feminist translations is more violent, repeating the logic of the oppressor. This is a prime example of how hypocritical their translation intentions were. Ayolo correctly notes that these feminist translators share the same political prejudices and ideological inclinations as the authors or theories whose works they are trying to undermine[9].
3.5. Gender in Translation
When translating from source languages where gender is grammatically treated differently than in the target language, it can be challenging for translators. When grammatical gender and the sex of the referent are the same, these issues may be made more difficult. For instance, when the first-person pronoun in the original text lacks gender difference but displays linguistic sexual identity agreement patterns that may have the consequence of producing gendered consciousness through gender harmonious, and the primary pronoun in the chosen language exhibits neither gender distinction nor grammatical gender consent. For example, Nissen provides an illustration where the original (Spanish) displays grammar according to gender in a certain way whereas the translation does not (English). As a result, the translators face challenges in expressing the information about the subject's gender. Romaine offers yet another illustration of the challenges that the gender in grammar may provide for translators. She claims that it is impossible to say anything like "you are tired" in Spanish or a variety of European languages and do not emphasize the gender of the recipient and the speaker's relationship to them. She clarifies that the phrase "estas cansada" does not basically mean "you are tired," but rather that the addressee is female (contrast the male version, "cansado") and the speaker is familiar with her to use the personal another people singular form rather than the civil version, "este"[10].
4. Representatives
4.1. Sherry Simon
As Simon says, feminist translation theory focus on recognizing and criticizing those concepts that push women to the bottom of society and literature. To do so, it must explore the process by which translation is "feminized" and try to shake the authoritative structures that maintain this connection[6].
4.2. Lori Chamberlain
Lori Chamberlain is one of the pioneering researchers to examine gender perspectives in translation. She looks at how translation is portrayed in relation to gender. Her work is based on comparing the status of women in various cultures and the inadequacy of translation to the "original" text. In the book Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation, she claims that there is a difference between translation and writing, and translation is either beautiful or faithful. In French, les belles infidèles means disloyalty women in order to on behalf of the female in the bottom of society. It discloses that women are in a stigmatized social position as well. In fact, faithful ought to be the first choice when translating, nevertheless some translators only emerge to show their opinions which leads to translations departure from the source texts[11].
4.3. Luise Flotow
Luise Flotow is famous as an international translation theory writer, and the pioneer of feminist translation theory. In 1980s, feminist translation comes to a climax, while women as a important group is abandoned since 1990s. The decline of Feminism and the concomitant biological gender differences between men and women have been replaced by social sex. Social sex theory makes the concept of gender generalized and blurred, although it avoids the absolute dichotomy between men and women. Flotow argues that precisely because of the uncertainty of the concept gives rise to the absence of a legitimate object in women’s translation, and gets stuck in a rut[12].
5. Feminist Translation Strategies
Female translators tend to involve themselves in the articles and try to change the meaning, and sometimes they will also write the articles in a different way in order to improve it by using three translation strategies, such as supplementing, prefacing and foot-noting, and hijacking. Supplementing is a way to express the gender of the the author. For example,in the translation of Bible, writers will add sisters before brothers in order to tell the readers they are woman. Prefacing and foot-noting plays a role in explaining the progress of the translator’s translation strategies and theories. For instance, female translators can write a foreword to say they are feminists. The definition of hijacking is to rewrite the words which not conform with feminism. Basically, female translators are keen on using supplementing and hijacking.
Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte portrays an image of a woman who is uneasy about the status quo, unwilling to be humiliated, and dares to fight. And this book is full of feminism. There are numbers of translations of Jane Eyre in China, and translators are both man and woman. In this paper, Wu Junxie’s and Zhu Qingying’s translations will be chose as a contrast to illustrate how women translators reflect feminism during translation practice. The following is an example to show how supplement is used in translation[13].
Had he been a handsome, heroic looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him against his will and offering my services unasked... I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination…[14]
Wu :如果他是个漂亮英俊的年轻绅士，我准不敢站在这儿这样不顾他的拒绝向他发问，而且不等要求自请帮忙......我从理论上对漂亮、文雅、殷勤、迷人十分看重......[15]
Zhu:要是他是个漂亮英俊的年轻绅士，我就不敢这样 站着违拗他的意志问他问题，不等请求硬要帮忙......我对于美、文雅、殷勤、魅力，抱有一种理论上的崇敬......[16]
This is the first time Jane has saw Rochester and gives her opinion on his appearance. When Wu translates the second sentence, he adds a word “准” in the translation. This word massively affirm that Jane is afraid of facing a young man straightly, at the same time, the word also reveals that Wu has a massive sense of male-centered. In contrary, Zhu does not do like that. What is worth mentioning is that in the third sentence Wu uses “自请” to put down women. In another word, it means girls ought to yield to boys. However when Zhu translates this word, she chooses a word“硬”, which vividly display that Jane has the sense of revolting and personality independence[13].
6. Conclusion
The analysis in this paper shows that feminist movements have a positive effect on feminist translation in a majority of fields, like politics, literature and so on. From then on, women have the right to publish and translate articles in their own way to let the world know their opinions and no longer look down on them which is a huge progress human society has made. People can also find a lot benefits in this paper in accordance with the five feminism and ideas. However, some female translators are urged to express their visionary mentality which causes the emergence of various extreme words in translations, especially in politics. This is undoubtedly a drawback of feminist translation theory.