Translation as adaptation and selection: a feminist case

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe notion of ‘translation as adaptation and selection’ was first proposed by Hu Gengshen in 2001 with reference to the Darwinian principles of adaptation and selection. Based on oriental wisdom and occidental concepts, it has gradually developed into eco-translatology, an ecological approach to translation, clarified and refined in Hu’s later studies. Since its emergence, eco-translatology has attracted increasing scholarly attention, mainly in China, with some interest from outside China. However, little research concerns translation of feminist texts. This paper presents a feminist case of translation as adaptation and selection through the comparison of two Chinese translations of The Vagina Monologues. From a feminist vantage point in general, it examines the translators’ adaptive transformations in their linguistic, cultural, and communicative dimensions and the effects of the adaptive transformations in the translational eco-environment to explain why one translation gains better survival than the other in the specific translational eco-environment. It will demonstrate how the translators’ different degrees of multi-dimensional transformations influence the survival of the translations and/or the reception of Western feminism in China. It hopes to provide better understanding of eco-translatology and contribute to the further development of eco-translatology, as it is still in the process of growth.