ABSTRACT
Feminist translation theory takes translation as a creative activity and regards translation as production rather than reproduction, because feminist translators exercise their agency and creativity in translation activities to serve feminist agendas. During the translation process, feminist translators revise and rewrite source text according to feminist truths, aiming at imbuing translation praxis with feminist consciousness and making women visible and resident in language and society. Feminist translation practices and studies were unknown in China in the 1980s when they appeared in Canada. At the beginning of the new century, Western feminist translation theory, together with post-structuralism and post-colonialism, still imposed cultural shock to Chinese scholars with traditional views of translation studies, who had been preoccupied with linguistic issues and literal versus free translation debates. Although feminist translation studies in China came over decade later and have not produced as much sound research, the existing research shows a similar trajectory of the development of feminist translation studies within and outside China.
