Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Results and Discussion

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Gender in Literary Translation

Part of the book series: Corpora and Intercultural Studies ((COINST,volume 3))

  • 457 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter the results of text analysis in terms of the language use of the female and male translators and the gender representation in both translations will be presented; also, the possible factors that influence the linguistic performance of the translators will be discussed. The first part focuses on the translators’ language use along the dimensions of corpus statistics, modality, transitivity and pragmatic features while the second part deals with the gender representation through translator’s mediation and the translations by the two translators of the gendered discourses in the source text.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, if the word women occurs 10 times in a small corpus, the number of token of the word is 10, but it only counts as one type of word.

  2. 2.

    For example, the Chinese sentence “这部电影受到少年儿童的欢迎”, which literally means “This film is (was/has been) well-received among teenagers.” does not include any word that signifies tense, yet it is perfectly correct Chinese. Readers or hearers who speaks Chinese will know the instant they read or hear it whether it relates something that is true at present or was true in the past depending on the information in the context.

  3. 3.

    In fact, Chinese relies heavily on adverbs to indicate tense, be it the past, the present, the progressive, or the future.

  4. 4.

    Strings of sentences that are cut out are counted as one omission.

  5. 5.

    Yang has never claimed herself as a feminist in her life. Although her translation strategy appear most feminist, she is not regarded a feminist translator in China.

  6. 6.

    https://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/.

  7. 7.

    The web page is accessed through http://www.virago.co.uk/about/.

  8. 8.

    The review was titled “Chinese Lessons: HEAVY WINGS by Zhang Jie translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt” published on December 10, 1989, by Richard Eder. It was retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/1989-12-10/books/bk-426_1_reformers on 20 Dec, 2014.

  9. 9.

    The definition is adopted from Lefevere (1992/2010) with modification. In Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, Lefevere developed his idea of the factors that systematically govern the reception or rejection of a literary text, taking literary translation as the central concern. According to him, the professionals within the literary system, the patronage outside the literary system and the dominant poetics are the three main factors which function to control translation in a given literary system.

  10. 10.

    The Dynasties of Jin (265–420 AD) and Sui (581–618 AD) in Chinese history witnessed the climax of Sanskrit translation.

References

  • Ansarin, A.A., and M.S. Bathaie. 2011. Hedging as an index of gender realization in research articles in applied linguistics. Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies 2: 85–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, M. 2000. Towards a methodology for investigating the style of a literary translator. Target 2: 241–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, P. 2014. Using Corpora to Analyze Gender. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, P., A. Hardie, and T. McEnery. 2006. A Glossary of Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauer, L., and W. Bauer. 2002. Adjective boosters in the English of young New Zealanders. Journal of English Linguistics 3: 244–257.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradac, J.J., and A. Mulac. 1984. A molecular view of powerful and powerless speech styles: Attributional consequences of specific language features and communicator intentions. Communication Monographs 51: 307–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradac, J.J., A. Mulac, and S.A. Thompson. 1995. Men’s and women’s use of intensifiers and hedges in problem- solving interaction: Molar and molecular analyses. Research on Language and Social Interaction 2: 93–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cameron, D. 1990. The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cameron, D. 1997. Theoretical debates in feminist linguistics: Questions of sex and gender. In Gender and Discourse, ed. R. Wodak. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cochrane, K. 2013. Has Virago changed the publishing world’s attitudes towards women?. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/14/virago-changed-publishers-attitudes-women. Accessed 20 Dec 2014.

  • Davin, D. 1987. Afterwords. In Leaden Wings, 175–180. Trans. G. Yang. London: Virago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dixon, J.A., and D.H. Foster. 1997. Gender and hedging: From sex differences to situated practice. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 1: 89–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eckert, P., and S. McConnell-Ginet. 2003. Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Eder, R. 1989. Chinese lessons. Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1989-12-10/books/bk-426_1_reformers. Accessed 20 Dec 2014.

  • Genette, G. 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Trans. J. E. Lewin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldblatt, H. 1989. Translator’s preface. In Heavy Wings. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graddy, D. B. 2006. Gender salience and the use of linguistic qualifiers and intensifiers in online course discussions. American Journal of Distance Education 4: 211–229.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halliday, M.A.K. 2008. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatim, B. and I. Mason. 1997. The Translator as Communicator. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hellinger, M. and H. Bußmann. 2002. Gender across languages: The linguistic representation of women and men. In Gender Across Languages: The linguistic Representation of Women and Men, vol. I, eds. M. Hellinger and H. Bußmann, 1–25. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hermans, T. 1996. The translator’s voice in translated narrative. Target 1: 23–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, J. 1990. Hedges and boosters in women’s and men’s speech. Language & Communication 3: 185–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, J. 2005. Power and discourse at work: Is gender relevant? In Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. M.M. Lazar, 31–60. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hyland, K. 1996. Writing without conviction? Hedging in science research articles. Applied Linguistics 4: 433–454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hyland, K. 1998. Boosting, hedging and the negotiation of academic knowledge. Text 3: 349–382.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jespersen, O. 1922. Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin. London: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ito, R., and S. Tagliamonte. 2003. Well weird, right dodgy, very strange, really cool: Layering and recycling in English intensifiers. Language in Society 2: 257–279.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff, R. 1975. Language and Woman’s Place. New York: Harper and Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lazar, M. 2005. Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lefevere, A. 2010. Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maier, C. 1998. Issues in the practice of translating women’s fiction. BHS 75: 95–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martínez, I. M. P. 2009. “Quite frankly, I’m not quite sure that it is quite the right colour.” A corpus-based study of the syntax and semantics of quite in present-day English. English Studies 2: 180–213.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mills, S. 2008. Language and Sexism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Munday, J. 2008. Style and Ideology in Translation. London and New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Palmer, F. R. 1990. Modality and the English Modals, 2nd edn. London and New York: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech and J. Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and New York: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmid, H. J. 2003. Do men and women really live in different cultures? Evidence from the BNC. In Corpus Linguistics by the Lune, eds. A. Wilson, R. Rayson and T. McEnery, 185–221. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharp, G. 2012. That is so feminine! An investigation of intensifiers as characteristics of female speech through the use of so and really in modern television programming. Griffith Working Papers in Pragmatics and Intercultural Communication 1: 14–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, P. 1993. Language, Ideology and Point of View. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, P. and A. Mayr. 2010. Language and Power. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sunderland, J. 2006. Language and Gender: An Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tagliamonte, S. and C. Roberts. 2005. So weird; so cool; so innovative: The use of intensifiers in the television series Friends. American Speech 3: 280–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Talbot, M. 1998. Language and Gender. London: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ure, J. 1971. Lexical density and register differentiation. In Applications of Linguistics, eds. G. Perren and J. L. M. Trim, 443–452. London: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Flotow, L. 1991. Feminist translation: Contexts, practices, theories. TTR 2: 69–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xiao, R. and H. Tao. 2007. A corpus-based sociolinguistic study of amplifiers in British English. Sociolinguistic Studies 2: 241–273.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yang, G. 1987. Translator’s preface. In Leaden Wings. London: Virago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Yue-hua, Pan, Wen-yu & Gu, Wei. 2001. A Practical Guide to Modern Chinese Grammar. Beijing: The Commercial Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Languages, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Lingzi Meng

Authors
  1. Lingzi Meng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lingzi Meng .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Meng, L. (2019). Results and Discussion. In: Gender in Literary Translation. Corpora and Intercultural Studies, vol 3. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3720-8_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3720-8_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-3719-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-3720-8

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation