Until the feminism movement emerged in the 19th century, feminist found language as an approach through which they can use for improving women’s social and political status, they took translation as a mean to carry on language reform. They tried to get more rights in the process of translation. 文献综述

Feminist translation theory was a new theory that focused on the problem of the translator’s subjectivity from the viewpoint of feminist translation study, especially in China. In fact, it promoted a new angle of interventionist and asked for feminism creation to the context. This thesis tries to probe the manifestation of feminist awareness in Chinese female translations, and come to a conclusion about the characteristics of Chinese female translation. 

The whole paper is made up of six sections, and it proceeds in the following ways: Section 1 gives a brief introduction to the thesis topic. Section 2 reviews some scholars’ opinions on both feminist translation theory and translator’s subjectivity. In Section 3, a brief analysis of feminist translation theory is offered: firstly, discussing the definition and history of feminist translation theory, secondly, exploring the impact and reform to the translation, and finally, tackling the strategies of feminist translation theory. Section 4 is devoted to the definition and general review of translator’s subjectivity, as well as the process of combination with feminist translation theory. Section 5 will illustrates the application of female translator’s subjectivity in the version of Love on a Barren Mountain which was translated by Professor Kong Huiyi. The last section is a conclusion summarized from the all above study.

2. Literature Review源:自/吹冰-·论,文'网·www.chuibin.com/

“Translators and women have historically been the weak figures in their respective hierarchies. Translators are handmaidens to authors, women are inferior to Men” (Sherry Simon, 1996:1). Studies on the connection between the feminist translation theory and translator’s subjectivity in western countries could be dated from a long time ago. Since the late 1960s and early 1970s when the second wave of the feminist movement emerged in western English-speaking countries, people have been paying attention to the inherent link between female and translator. 

When the second wave of the feminist movement emerged, feminist in the western world devoted to strive for women’s speech. So the researchers in the West started to study translation and gender. Feminist want to change the situation that women had little right in the society, the political field and other areas. They need to use translation to rebuild their right of speech. They devoted in promoting the development and use of non-sexist, such as use more neutral words rather than he/man language. This reform get wild application in the area of business, education and press especially academic publish.(Cameron,1985:17) “The study of translation made people doubt the traditional status and gender position, then researchers question the definition of faithfulness and the general standard of social value.”(Sherry Simon, 1996:8)Translator’s subjectivity study has been considered as an important field in the process of feminist translation theory study. A typical example of translator’s subjectivity is the four steps of translation process described as four stages: trust, aggression, incorporation and restitution. The Translator’s Invisibility—A History of Translation written by Lawrence Venuti has become a great breakthrough in the study of translator’s role and made a great contribution to the study of translator’s subjectivity. In this book, Venuti firstly declared the traditional translator’s invisibility opinion and indicated his opposite view with an effort to make translators from background to foreground. The main purpose of the book is to make the translator more visible in order to change the conditions under which translation is shaped today. “In the prevail translation studies, a successful translation is based on standard whether it is ‘fluent and transparent’, and whether reader feels like an original not like translated” (Venuti, 2004:1).