Feminist translation? No way! Spanish specialised translators' disinterest in feminist translation

Abstract

Synopsis In this paper I discuss why specialised professional translation in Spain has taken no interest in incorporating feminist proposals. Firstly, feminist translatology has focused on literary translation mainly; seldom has it dealt with translation as a professional practice. Secondly, feminist translation has been considered a North-American literary activity, far from practitioners' concerns. Furthermore, Translation Studies have magnified the subversive role of feminist translation, making it difficult to incorporate feminist proposals to professional activity. As a result, feminist Translation Studies have not joined the ‘linguistic’ translatology debate of the last decade, and there is a conspicuous lack of contributions on feminist aspects of technical translation in essays and journals. Application of the notion of discursive genre does not collaborate with feminist translation either. And there is also a shortage of data bases, glossaries or software which, from a tentative, provisional and temporary nature, may offer feminist textual models to practitioners of non-literary translation.