RSS

#7 Nov 9 - Gender ＆ Translation

張貼者： NTNU GITI BLOG on 2009年10月27日 星期二
標籤：
#7 Nov 9 Santaemilia, José ed. Gender, Sex, and Translation: The Manipulation of Identities. Manchester: St. Jerome, 2005.

**proposal submission: one page in length with a working title, brief description of your topic,methodology, and bibliography

5 意見:

明哲 提到...

Since translation per se cannot be independent from its original, there always exists an inseparable association binding the translated and the context to which it is ascribed. Luise Von Flotow in her essay enumerated four driving forces and correlative exemplars as proof of her argument. I am surprised to find Julia Evelina Smith’s publication of her single-handed translation of the Bible (which, of course, deserves great respect) was the result of social-political kinetics, rather than her initial dedication to justifying God’s Word. Similarly, the American translation of the 18th-centruy French women’s abolitionist writing was produced in specific service of the subjectivity of translators. In feminist terms, this act is dubbed “hijacking.” In biological terms, the entire process otherwise resembles that of genetic engineering. The “gene(self)” is modified(translated) by scientists(translators) for the use of the body(context).
Antoine Berman highlighted the role that translation plays in the constitution of the “Bildung” in German culture, implying that through translation can the “otherness” be touched by the “self” and so as to rediscover and confirm the “self.” This is true as well of the Americans’ purposeful gayed translation and the second-wave feminist translated discourse.
Janet S. Shibamoto Smith gets this very idea to make sense in another perspective. She compares the Japanese category romance with its harlequin-styled counterpart, arguing that the translation and introduction of the latter into Japan, a stereotype patriarchal society, is actually a subversive protest against the authoritative masculinity that dominates the way of Japanese thinking. In fact, such an “occidental longing” for “western-style” love pattern also echoes Berman’s appeal for the forging of a new “self,” just as can be observed in the Galician nationalist translation.
We read about the Xeracion Nos group’s exertion to construct the nationalist self-image by translating carefully-selected Irish texts, particularly those of Yeats’. Thanks to that, the gendered hierarchy was reinforced under the righteous nationalism manipulation. In other words, translation as an approach not only helps create the “context” but also falls subject to it. The relationship between Taiwan and the mainland is subtly tantamount to that between Ireland and the UK. I wonder if there is any comparable translation in Taiwan’s independence movement that adopts the same strategy.

2009年11月12日 晚上11:24
加真 提到...

I just think that men in history can clearly distinguish the symbolic women from the physical women around them. Women can mean a lot in men’s poems; they could be the divine ideal in Dante’s Divine Comedy, or as the symbol of national identity in Yeats’s play, “Our Lady of the Hills.” Just like what Carmen Rios and Manuela Palacios said, women are “only relevant inasmuch as she stands for something else.” When it comes to the physical existence of women, men forgot their humility and assumed their patriarchal attitude.

In the case study of the Galician group Xeracion Nos, a gender bias is obvious in their translations of Irish texts into Galician. Such phenomena can also be seen in the late Qing translations. Very few works of female writers were translated. This is probably affected by male literati’s general disdain of women’s literature (as shown in Liang Qichao’s deny of cai culture in Chinese history and also in Hu Shi’s 胡適 criticism that most of women’s works are low in literary value). No wonder that in the reading log of some male literati at that time, we sometimes can see the exclamation made by them when they read some outstanding writings by western women.

2009年11月14日 晚上9:09
素勳 提到...

We’ve got three articles of various topics here. First is about the context of translation.
It seems that the context decides the translation. Recently, I am trying to recontextualize the 70s when Victoria Holt and Barbara Cartland’s novels are first introduced into Taiwan, but that was kind of far away. Any idea what it was like then?

The second article is about nationalism and translation--how the translation perpetrating the patriarchal discourse. First, no women’s work is included in the translation. Then, there is the gendered image—the colonized and suffering mother land waiting to be saved by the heroic males. I wonder-- when we talk of our native land in Chinese, we say 祖國--- which should be a patriarchal (or phallic) term, but sometimes we do refer to our country as Mother. As I can recall, there is a Taiwanese song called “Mother’s name is Taiwan?” What about in the Late Ching Dynasty? (p.s. I saw 加真 mentioned that there was few translation of women’s work in Late Ching. But what about the translation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin?)

It is interesting to find that in one of Barbara Cartland’s romance, a Plantation owner came to settle down in Srilanka(錫蘭) and fell in love with this exotic land--- for “she” is soft, obedient, and beautiful. His love of this exotic land is parallel to his love of the heroine, who also needs to be saved from her tyrannical father. What does this tell us? A nice text for a postcolonial reading?

In the third essay, the author makes a comparison between the Japanese Domestic romance and translated Harlequin series. It seems that there are quite a lot of differences. However, does the translation change the domestic writings? For it is definitely the case in Taiwan. Many domestic romances writers begin by imitating the translated romances, and then they gradually develop a style of their own…

2009年11月14日 晚上9:51
Lisa Liao 提到...

Janet S. Shibamoto Smith分析Harlequin愛情小說的日文翻譯版和日本原創愛情小說之差異，相當有趣，其中有一個例子我特別覺得好奇，那就是Mitchell和Gwen這對男女主角初相遇的情節，Janet S. Shibamoto Smith認為女主角使用的人稱代名詞和動詞不合日本的情境(為了彰顯距離而使用的敬語等等)，我比較好奇的是，Janet S. Shibamoto Smith若認為這種帶有”poor little me”的暗示用法”clearly not a Japanese heroine”，那麼該用什麼呢?我不懂日文，所以不能夠想像在這種糟糕的初相遇，這對男女該用什麼用語稱呼對方?如果使用敬語來吵架，場面應該很奇怪吧?!

2009年11月15日 中午12:15
Craig 提到...

Translation can be seen as a value-adding activity since it extends the discourse surrounding a text. The rich contexts outlined by the authors of our three essays this week are compelling and liberating, reminding us of what translation can be, rather than limiting us by saying what it has to be.

2009年11月16日 凌晨12:25

張貼留言