Translators’ subversion of gender-biased expressions: a study of the English translation of The Three-Body Problem trilogy

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Three-Body Problem trilogy, a work by Cixin Liu, won the Hugo Award, making it the first Asian science fiction work to achieve this. The English translation of this trilogy has garnered significant attention from academics, emphasizing its literary significance. However, the androcentric and gender-biased expressions in the original text, as well as the subversive translation used to mitigate them, have received little attention. This mixed methods study, based on Theo Hermans’ concept ‘modalities of normative force’ (1996), aims to examine the translation norms in this regard and discuss how these norms define the relation between source and target texts. The findings indicate that translators Ken Liu and Joel Martinsen were required to employ subversive translation norms to eliminate gender-biased content that might cause discomfort and aversion among the target audience. This highlights the importance of translators’ subjectivity in balancing divergent social and cultural contexts during the translation process.