#16 Dec 30 - Studies on Translation Theories
#16 Dec 30 Gender and Translation ‘Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation’ by Lori Chamberlain in Venuti (2000): 314-329; “Gender and Translation” by Luise von Flotow in Kuhiwczak & Littau’s A Companion to Translation Studies (2007): 92-105.
2 意見:
In Chamberlain’s article, it is first stated that the pursuit of authority and originality in the history of literature has affected female’s status in creative writing/ composing. Because of this repressed status, female and translation are both seen as the representation of the original. From the metaphor, les belles infideles, it can be seen that the patriarchal family structure is seen as the guiding structure for translation in the literary system. That is, the author is seen as the legitimate source of the family, and the translator acts as the friend of the family who works hard to ‘protect’ the chastity of the text and endows it with the features in the source text. Under this metaphor, the inevitable criterion for translation is ‘fidelity’. In this sense, the relation between language and language use is tied with morality. Therefore, duplicity is intolerable, and the only thing to look up to in translation is the original. However, this is hardly true. In fact, every text is under the influence of intertextuality. That is, nothing is completely ‘original’. Hence, as Derrida suggests, translation can both be the original and the translation.
In another article, Flotow specifies the two paradigms of feminist movement. While the first paradigm is focused on the identification and self-identification of gender, the second paradigm is suggesting an instable identity of gender, which depends on the performativity that is realized. In this sense, translation is no longer merely translation. It is a representation of one’s performativity and therefore is invested with power.
From the above, I think what the feminist approach has brought to translation studies is the re-examination of the power that affects or is intended to affect the identity of translation as well as gender. By this woman-handling or woman interrogated approach to translation, translation may also has its performativity and be something more than the ‘copy’ of the original.
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