2021-04-29 12th Lecture - Translation and gender.pptx

1. Translation and gender
Presented by
Dr. Nighat Ahmed
Department of English (UGS)
NUML, Islamabad
BS-English (Afternoon)
Course = Introduction to
Translation Studies
7th Semester
Section A,B & C
Semester : Spring 2021
12th Lecture (Online)

2. Translation and gender
The interest of cultural studies in translation has inevitably
taken translation studies away from purely linguistic
analysis and brought it into contact with other disciplines.
Though this ‘process of disciplinary hybridization’ has not
been very straight forward. In this context, Sherry Simon
criticizes translation studies for often using the term
culture ‘as if it referred to an obvious and unproblematic
reality’.
Simon in her work ‘Gender in Translation’ : Cultural
Identity and the Politics of Transmission (1996)
approaches translation from a gender-studies angle. She
sees a language of sexism in TS with its images of
dominance, fidelity, faithfulness and betrayal.

3. Typical is the 17 century image of les belles infideles,
translations into French that were artistically beautiful but
unfaithful.
The feminist theorists see a parallel between the status of
translation which is often considered to be derivative and
inferior to original writing, and that of women, so often
repressed in society and literature. This is the core of
feminist translation theory, which seeks to identify and
critique the tangle of concepts which relegates both
women and translation to the bottom of the social and
literary ladder.
Simon gives examples of Canadian feminist translators
from Quebec who seek to emphasize their identity and
ideological stance in translation project.

4. In this context Barbara Godard theorist and translator is
openly assertive about the manipulation this involves:
‘The feminist translator, affirming her critical
difference, her delight in interminable re-reading and
re-writing, flaunts the signs of her manipulation of the
text.’
Another feminist translator, Susanne – de-Harwood
explains her translation strategy in political terms as
follows:
‘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 feminine visible in
language.’