Translation and negotiation of gender stereotypes: metamorphosis of female characters in the English version of a Chinese classical novel

Abstract

ABSTRACT Feminist translation scholars have addressed a number of translation and gender issues since the 1980s; nevertheless, their strong political agenda has come under heavy criticism. Consequently, recent decades have seen a growing number of scholars involved in the study of translation and gender beginning to look beyond this early feminist perspective to approach gender-related issues. The present study follows this line of thought to examine how stereotypes against women are articulated in a well-known misogynist text, Shuihu Zhuan, a novel rooted in the social values of traditional Confucian Chinese culture, and more importantly, how translators bridge the language and cultural divide when trying to deal with such stereotypes. Through a descriptive comparison of the original misogynist text and one of its modern English translations from between the 1960s and 1970s, the study reveals how the translator has a wide range of options at their disposal to negotiate and temper the extreme patriarchal gender stereotypes of feudal China for a foreign readership less inclined to accept ethnic, racial or sexual discrimination. This analysis may inspire further studies in regard to the impact of gender issues on translation and how best to bridge differences in gender ethics across languages and cultures.