INTRODUCTION. “BEING A TRANSLATED BEING”: WOMAN AND TRANSLATION

Abstract

Most of the developments in Translation Studies that have occurred since the 1980s derive from what is known as “Cultural Turn”. In this context, we observe that the translation thought and the feminist theory are both interested to define identity at the linguistic, social and gender level, contributing, in this way, to place the transfer of meaning between different languages in the field of poststructuralism. This has had very important consequences for the translation thought in our times.
The theory of feminist translation investigates the legacy, which is persistent in history, of a double "subalternity": that of women and that of translation. The way in which translation has been “feminized” over time is clearly due to gender constructions, as Lori Chamberlain already showed in 1988 in her essay “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation”. Beyond the desired and essential visibility that the female-translator shares with the male-translator, the redefinition of this female translator subject from less essentialist and more cultural positions requires a new poetics, as well as an ethics and politics that feminist translation has strived to define and achieve, with its lights and shadows, constantly questioning and reinterpreting key concepts about translation, such as “fidelity” to the original, and advocating the revision of conventional translation strategies.
Starting from an initial overview of the connections between feminist theory/ies and translation thought, and the contributions of Feminism to the latter, this introduction to the special issue of TRANSFER for the year 2020, entitled “Translating in the Feminine: Textual and Political Practices”, presents a total of 15 essays on this topic, from different perspectives and with diverse methodological approaches, which show the interest in this issue and the vitality of this line of research at present.