The Influence of Feminism on TranslationAbstract: With development of translation study, translators and scholars started to pay attention to how culture factors influence upon translation work. Feminism is one of these new schools, proposed by a group of feminists that gender and sexual elements should be considered in translation. This paper aims to make a brief introduction of this famous school and tries to assess its influence in an objective and proper way.I.Background and Description of feminismTranslation studies, from traditional perspective, are mostly discussed in the interior of the text on such as lexicon level, grammar level, and discourse level. Until 1950s, scholars and translators gathered their focus on the “Cultural turn”: the term used in translation studies for the move towards the analysis of translation from a cultural studies angle. (Jeremy Munday, 2001). A lot of theories sprout up, of which most representative three are: rewriting, feminism and postcolonial translation theory. Feminism translation theories, with the most controversies among them, deserve a further discussion.In retrospection of the history of description of translation theories, we do find that most of them are related to gender, more specifically, to woman. Feminism translation theory is such a school focusing on this issue. To assess this series of theories critically, a comprehensive review and analysis is made about the influence of feminism on translation theories, translators, translation practices and translation works in this paper.II.Major points of view in this areaInitially, feminism is not a translational notion, but a sociological one. Feminism can be defined as a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Simon de Beauvoir’s most famous assertion, from her The Second Sex, that “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” can be seen as the fundamental theory of feminism. Deducted from Simon’s words, translation is also gendered not by its nature, but the impacts and definitions given by human beings.So early in 17th century did people start to connect translation and gender. A famoustranslator John Florio (1603) said “Translations are defective and therefore all translations are reputed females.”And Sherry Simon, the most well-known pioneer of feminism translation school, in her Gender in Translation: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Translation (Simon, 1996), originally takes gender-studies factor into account in translation. She states that “Both women and the translation to the bottom of the social ladder” (Simon, 1996).In a word, translation work, compared with the source text, is always so-called second rate, between which the relationship is similar in gender—women are always inferior to men. That similarity brings possibility of the combination of the female and translation (Geng Qiang, 2004).III.The influence on translationAs a new-generated school, feminism translation theory did infuse new blood in people’s notion on translation in modern time. But it brought about a huge impact against traditional theories, with both praise and criticism. In this part, an elaborated analysis is made upon the influence on translation in three aspects.1.On translation theoryThe most shocking earthquake occurred in translation theory. When illustrating problems like what translation is and how translation works, translators and scholars tend to use a lot of descriptive words and even metaphors to make their viewpoints vivid and easy to be understood. Unfortunately, many of them are involved with terms about women, which in feminists’ eyes, suggesting obvious sexism and crude inequality. The most widely-known one is perhaps an assertion by Gilles Menage’s “Les belles infidelles”, which means “unfaithful beauty”, used to describe those translation works full of fine words but are not so close to the original one. Feminists also criticize these widely-used words in translation like fidelity, faithful and traitor for they indicate an unequal relationship between wife and husband.Feminists hence propose to avoid using such feminine-oriented terms, or at least discriminative words about women when describing translation theories. The influence of this campaign is indeed positive and significant. Their proposals help removing malefic factors of negative old-fashion from translation theory and generating a healthy academic atmosphere for translators. By adding gender factor into consideration, a hot topic then in politics, feminists strengthened a progressive trend associating translation and culture background rather thandiscussing translation solely limited translation itself. Translation, is not only a literal and inter-culture movement, also could be a political weapon. Just as a famous paragraph said by a committed feminist translator, Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood is “My translation practice is a political activity aimed at making language speak for women. So my signature on a translation means: this translation has used every translation strategy to make the feminine visible in language.” (Cited in Simon, 1996)2.On translation practiceIn practice, feminists attempt to omit suspiciously discriminative phenomenon in any language and highlight those feminine factors in the text by using some translation methods. Louis von Flotow (1991) summarized three main methods feminists often use in their translation practice: supplementing, prefacing and footnoting, hijacking. Supplementing is a common methods not merely used by feminists translators. But in their translation, the method mainly aims to supplement those meanings about gender which are absent in source text. An instance is in word HuMan, an extraordinarily capitalized M ironically demonstrates the sexism hided in the text. Prefacing is a much more ordinary method, including explaining writing background, demonstrating author’s intention, and introducing translation strategies, in order to underscore feminine factors in translation works. Hijacking means operating and appreciating the text and rewriting according to translators’intentions. Feminist translators often rewrite a text without gender significance into a new version to make the text expose feminine meanings. These main methods and others show a sense of independence and creativity of feminists.The influence of feminists’ creation in translation practices, positively, increases variety of translation strategies and techniques. But some of them, especially hijacking, did receive a severe controversy and even serious criticizing words. First of all, one result of hijacking is destruction of the source text by adding many translators’ subjective intentions. In the second place, hijacking strategy confusingly mixes translation and composition. Given too much transfiguration, it is hard for readers to justify a text of feminist translators on earth a translation work or an originally writing one.3.On translatorsWhen talking about translator, the influence of feminism is quite beneficial, for not only increasing status of female translators, improving their rewards, but recognizing their contribution and their creativity in translation.Both in translation and politics, feminists achieved their purpose of letting voices of females be heard. More attention started to be paid on female translators and their works, in which differences translation style from male translators to be recognized. In this aspect, feminism deserves its high reputation in history of translation.IV.Problem and CausesThroughout feminism translation theory, the problems and controversies it caused are almost as many as its contribution. The most famous one, as just mentioned, is feminist translators operate and appreciate source texts too much, for political accomplishment, which renders a harmful result that a yawning gap between their translated works and the original one. It is totally unbeneficial for translation practice.This result may attributes to their over-emphasis on “feminism” rather than “feminism and literacy”. After all, translation is a study related to language and literacy. Culture elements such as politics, should be considered, but too much participation will goes to reverse.V.Proposed solutionA possible solution for problems caused by feminism translation theory could be Androgyny, which refers to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics (Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed.), is firstly used in ethics then in literacy and translation. Virginia Woolf, in her book A Room of One’s Own (1957), came up with this notion in literal composition for the first time. She says there is a sex ambiguity in one’s minds: one represents the masculine, the other the feminine and only when two sides stay in harmony, they could generate fantastic inspiration in a composer’s mind.Androgyny is perhaps a final target for all sexists. Indeed it is hard to be totally achieved in composition and translation, but some instances prove that it could be successfully accomplished in arts and literacy. One of four famous characters of Beijing Opera, Mei Lanfang is well-known for his marvelous and delicate performance as a woman, yet he is masculine performer. Most of great male writers also create many feminine characters in their fictions, poems or operas. Therefore, the same thing is likely to happen in translation as longas translators combine advantages of both sexes together when they try to adopt feminism translation strategy.VI.ConclusionIt is really a progress for translators and scholars to take external cultural elements such as politics, social ethics into account rather than only make a translation study in the Ivory Tower. Many new schools sprout up and majorities of new ideas grew up. It is necessary for translators to assess feminism translation strategy and its influence objectively and properly. What’s more, translators should have a capacity of avoiding too much external factors in translation practice. Best translation works, with no doubts, are those mostly close to the original text. Over emphasizing cultural factors may confuse and mislead translator, strain their focus from translation itself, which ultimately could be a catastrophe for translation. VII.References1 Munday J. 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