Female voices and feminist translation in German and Austrian literature, 1924-1996

我的研究是一个理论翻译项目，将考察20世纪用德语写成的小说，女性第一人称叙述者。我将对那些作者声称在为女性的声音和经历创造空间方面存在困难的作品特别感兴趣。我的原文语料库将暂时跨越1924-1996年：Arthur Schnitzler的Fräulein Else(1924)，Irmgard Keun的Gilgi(1931)和Das Kunstseidene Mädchen(1932)，Marlen Haushofer的Die Wand(1963)，Ingeborg Bachmann的Malina(1971)和Marlene Streeruwitz的Verfuhrungen(1996)。仔细阅读这些文本将使我形成一幅图景，展示跨世纪创造特定女性声音的方法，以及反对不断变化的女权主义背景的方法。我将考察整部作品的语言模式，以及某些叙事技巧或正式实验的使用，作为创造女性声音的尝试(或失败)，特别是考虑到作者哀叹语言过于男性化而无法做到这一点。我将审查这些文本的现有英文翻译，记住三个广泛的问题：英语译者是否准确地捕捉到了作者试图开辟女性语言利基的尝试？男性译者和女性译者使用女性主义翻译技巧，如劫持或前言，呈现不同的女性声音吗？英国和德语国家不同的文化历史是否会影响译者对女性声音的理解，从而影响他们的翻译选择？我将论证重新关注女性主义翻译理论的必要性，因为它是一种独特的理论，可以解决原著作者试图表达女性角色的问题。女性主义翻译通常被定义为女性主义文本的翻译，尽管它经常与更广泛的术语--性别敏感的翻译--互换使用。现有的定义相当不明确，这表明女性主义翻译遭到了忽视；作为一种可信的、全面的翻译方法，它几乎没有受到关注。然而，由于女权主义翻译在魁北克发展最快，很少有人专门针对德英翻译进行讨论。事实上，最近一本关于女权主义和翻译中的性别敏感性的全面手册(von Flotow and Kamal eds.，2020)分析了来自20个国家的工作，但忽略了德语国家。通过对这一疏漏的研究，我将对翻译研究领域做出独到的贡献，为今后对女性主义翻译的研究奠定基础，并可能成为一种可与经常教授的目的论和对等理论相媲美的全面的翻译理论。我的研究被置于一个活跃的领域，即在21世纪性别语言意识和语言变化的背景下，考虑到性别身份的新表达。这种变化的例子包括过去十年个人使用非标准代词，如ze和zir；以及最近在医疗、教育和政治领域高调取消性别语言。仅2021年以来的例子就包括分娩慈善机构和NHS信托基金发布指导，在众议院的所有文件中使用中性的术语，如“乳房喂养”、“围产期”和“生育父母”，而不是“母乳喂养”、“产妇”和“母亲”；圣保罗女子学校废除了“首席女孩”的标签；美国众议院在所有众议院文件中取消了“母亲”和“女儿”等性别术语。取消专门针对女性的术语使我的研究具有现代意义，我研究了独特的女性声音的创造和再创造：今天的女性身份应该如何讨论、阅读和翻译？

My research, a theoretical translation project, will examine twentieth-century novels written in German, with female first-person narrators. I will be particularly interested in works whose authors claim to have had difficulties in creating space for women's voices and experiences. My corpus of source texts will provisionally span the period 1924-1996: Arthur Schnitzler's Fräulein Else (1924), Irmgard Keun's Gilgi (1931) and Das kunstseidene Mädchen (1932), Marlen Haushofer's Die Wand (1963); Ingeborg Bachmann's Malina (1971); and Marlene Streeruwitz's Verfuhrungen (1996). Close readings of these texts will allow me to form an image of approaches to creating a specifically female voice across the century, and against shifting feminist contexts. I will examine linguistic patterns throughout the works, and the utilisation of certain narrative techniques or formal experimentation as attempts (or failures) to create a female voice, especially in light of the authors' lamentations that language is too male-oriented to allow for this.I will examine existing English translations of these texts, bearing in mind three broad questions: have the authors' attempts to carve out a female linguistic niche been accurately captured by English translators? Do male and female translators render female voices differently, making use of feminist translation techniques such as hijacking or prefacing? Might different cultural histories across the UK and German-speaking countries impact translators' understanding of female voices and, therefore, their translation choices? I will demonstrate the need for a renewed focus on feminist translation theory, as a theory which is uniquely equipped to address the original authors' attempts to voice female characters.Feminist translation is usually defined as the translation of feminist texts, though it is often used interchangeably with the broader term 'gender-sensitive translation'. That the existing definitions are rather unclear is a sign of the neglect that feminist translation has met with; it has received little attention as a credible, comprehensive translation approach. Recent attempts to revise this neglect are commendable however, as feminist translation has developed most rapidly in Quebec, it has seldom been discussed with specific reference to German-English translations. Indeed, a recent, comprehensive handbook of feminism and gender-sensitivity in translation (von Flotow and Kamal eds., 2020) analyses work from 20 countries, yet overlooks German-speaking countries. In addressing this oversight in my research, I will make an original contribution to the field of translation studies; laying a foundation for future research into feminist translation, and possibly for this becoming a comprehensive translation theory comparable to the frequently-taught skopos and equivalence theories.My research is placed in an active field, namely, in the context of twenty-first century awareness of gendered language, and linguistic change to account for new expressions of gender identity. Instances of such change include individuals' adoption of non-standard pronouns such as ze and zir in the last decade; as well as recent high-profile eliminations of gendered language in healthcare, education, and politics. Instances from 2021 alone include childbirth charities and NHS trusts issuing guidance to use gender-neutral terms such as "chestfeeding", "perinatal", and "birthing parent" instead of "breastfeeding", "maternity", and "mother"; St Paul's Girls' School abolishing the label "head girl"; and the United States House of Representatives eliminating gendered terms such as "mother" and "daughter" in favour of "parent" and "child" in all House documents. The elimination of terms specific to women lends modern relevance to my research into the creation and re-creation of uniquely female voices: how should womanhood today be discussed, read, and translated?