E-chou Wu
Department of English, Providence University, Taiwan/Department of Translation, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
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Published in: On the Move: ACSIS conference 11-13 June Norrköping; Sweden 2013
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 95:3, p. 21-32
Published: 2014-01-17
ISBN: 978-91-7519-563-6
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
Feminist translation is not only to subvert cultures of patriarchal hegemony of translation; but also to manifest womanish language characteristics. In discussion of relationships between translation and ideology; feminist translation (or gender and translation; including the translation of queer writing) is more than an issue of assailing linguistic dominance from patriarchy; and this issue has contributed to the establishment of women’s subjectivity. Luise von Flotow’s major strategies adopted by feminist translation are supplementing; prefacing and footing; and hijacking; apparently all of which are interventionist approaches; intended for uncovering evidence that males have dominated linguistic expressions and translational norms. The foci of the feminist translation are: translating women’s body; recovering women’s lost works; asserting the translator’s identity; revising the rhetoric of translation; reading and rewriting existing translations. This paper is thus to; first; theorize how feminist translation studies can be appropriated by film adaptation; and then compare the novel of Sense and Sensibility to its film adaptations; based upon Emma Thompson’s screenplay; directed by Ang Lee; and the 2008 BBC version; directed by John Alexander and adapted by Andrew Davies. The two film versions; one by male adapter; the other female; provide an opportunity for the novel “on the move” to debate the issue of feminist adaptation in the comparison by the use of the strategies suggested by von Flotow. Its aim: to expose the model of female aestheticism and to achieve equal treatment for female translation.
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