6EI:G

8A78E 4A7 E4AF?4G BA

LUISE VON FLOTOW

EB 78AG G 8F GB ?HE4? G 8F
Transcultural and translingual developments in the women's move-
ment and its various offshoots since the 1970s have implicated translation
in every aspect of text production and reception, and have enormously
expanded the thinking about and research on translation and gender.
Diverse research initiatives have investigated the role played by translation
in transmitting new socio-political ideas focused on gender and their
literary expression across cultural boundaries; the roles played by women
translators in the present and the past, their reception and influence have
been studied; the importance of and the dangers involved in translating
women's writing in an era of universalist notions about women, and the
challenges involved in facing and recognising great differences between
women have been discussed at length. Women's representation in lang-
uage, through language, and across languages, and women's participation
in this work of representation have underlain the entire period since the
early 1970s. More recently, ideas about gender instability have added new
dimensions to the discussions, and undermined the categories 'man' and
'woman' on which earlier debates were founded. Queer as well as gay and
lesbian studies, concerned with other gender identities and in particular
with individual choice in these matters, have taken debates into other,
though not necessarily new, areas. In the Anglo-American realm especially,
the focus on gender over the last part of the 20th century has powerfully
affected translation, and been powerfully reflected by translation.
In this chapter I will re-trace the first gender paradigm, the paradigm
that was shaped by the women's movement, feminist thinking, and femi-
nist activism, and that strongly affected translation and translation studies.
After briefly reviewing a number of early publications, I will explore the
work that has been done in the field since those first articles and books'
appeared. In the second part of the chapter, my focus will be on the destabi-
lisation of the term gender, on what I have called the second paradigm (von

92
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7J;: DEJ?ED J 7J JH7DIB7J?ED ?I 7 7HCB;II ;L;D 8;D;LEB;DJ EHC E
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98 A Companion to Translation Studies

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Gender and Translation 99

, ; .7J?97D :E9KC;DJ 9ED:;CD?D J ; 7KBJO JH7DIB7J?EDI FHE:K9;:

EL;H J ; F7IJ O;7HI ?D D B?I IF;7A?D 9EKDJH?;I ?I ;DJ?JB;: IJG 6B
JI :CI 86B 7D: 9B7?CI J 7J J ;H; ?I DEJ ?D ?D J ; KH9 I I79H;: J;NJI
J 7J MEKB: 7BBEM FH; K:?9; EH :?I9H?C?D7J?ED ED J ; 87I?I E ;D:;H EH H79;
L;HOJ ?D :;F;D:I ED J ; H? J ?DJ;HFH;J7J?ED M ?9 ?I J ; H;IFEDI?8?B?JO
E J ; 97J;9 ?IJ EH J ; EC?B?IJ Y DEJ J ; JH7DIB7JEH EH J ; JH7DIB7J?D
9ECC?JJ;; / 7J J ; .7J?97D 97BBI EH ?I L;HO I?CFB; B?JKH ?97B 8EEAI
C7HA;: 8O IEKD: :E9JH?D; M ?9 7H; ;N79J ?D MEH:?D H;; HEC 7BB ?:;E
BE ?97B ?D BK;D9; , ; .7J?97D I D B?I FH;II H;B;7I; ED J ; :E9KC;DJ 7I
7 IF;9?7B I;9J?ED ;DJ?JB;: :C9:G ! 9?J; J 7J F7II7 ; ;H; ?D KBB
Many languages have nouns and pronouns capable of referring to both
the masculine and the feminine in a single term. The abandonment of
these terms under pressure of criticism on ideological or other grounds
is not always wise or necessary nor is it an inevitable part of linguistic
development. Traditional collective terms should be retained in instances
where their loss would compromise a clear notion of man as a unitary,
inclusive and corporate yet truly personal figure, as expressed, for
example, by the Hebrew term adam, the Greek anthropos or the Latin
homo. Similarly, the expression of such inclusivity may not be achieved
by a quasi-mechanical change in grammatical number, or by the creation
of pairs of masculine and feminine terms.2

, ; JH7:?J?ED7B H7CC7J?97B ;D:;H E J ; F;HIEDI E J ; ,H?D?JO I EKB:

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C7B; J;HC JE H; ;H JE 7BB KC7DI J ; JH7:?J?ED7B H7CC7J?97B ;D:;H E
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7K ;HK: 7D: J ; 9ECC?JJ;; H;IFEDI?8B; EH , : !C8AJH K: 6C J6 :
:8I DC6GN IEK J JE :?C?D?I !D J ;?H L?;M J ; I;N ;D:;H E ";IKI
100 A Companion to Translation Studies

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Gender and Translation 101

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1 04 A Companion to Translation Studies

other discursively performative gesture – are complicated, essentially

located in the culture of the moment, and therefore contingent.
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ventions deliberately visible, choosing to translate only those authors/
texts that suit their politics,' or deliberately intervening to make a text fit
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BG8F
1. Interestingly, three books on 'gender and translation were written in Canada (De
Lotbiniere-Harwood, 1991; Simon, 1996; von Flotow, 1997). Located within the
Anglo-American 'gender realm', Canada has also been strongly affected by
translation owing to its politics of bilingualism.
2. The Vatican document was published in several languages, yet only the English
has a subheading clearly entitled Gender; the German and French consist of
numbered paragraphs and include a conciliatory justification of this ban on
inclusive language. Reproduced here is the first part of the German text plus
explanation (my italics mark the text missing from the English), which even
recognises and employs the word 'inclusive':
Gender and Translation 105

In vielen Sprachen gibt es Substantive and Pronomina, die fur das meinnliche und
weibliche Genus dieselbe Form aufweisen. Darauf zu bestehen, dass dieser Sprach-
gebrauch geandert wird, darf nicht notwendigerweise als W irkung oder Zeichen echten
Fortschritts der jeweiligen Sprache gelten. Obwohl wit Hilfe der Katechese dafiir zu
sorgen ist, doss solche W iirter weiterhin in diesem ' inclusiven' Sinn verstanden werden,
kann es in den Uberseztungen selbst dennoch nicht oft vorkommen, doss verschiedene
W iirter verwendet werden, ohne dass die im Text geforderte Genauigkeit, der
Zusammenhang seiner W iirter und A usdriicke und seiner Stimmigkeit Schaden
nehmen.
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