Misc,
Ä Feminist Woman with a Given Female Language: A contradictory figure in the Japanese translation of Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman"
(2012)
Abstract
The acclaimed Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood published The Edible Woman in 1969 when feminism was becoming an influential trend in North America. Although this story has a radical feminist voice, The Edible Woman was translated by a male translator, Oura Akio, in 1996, and his language choice for the protagonist is excessively feminine. The theme of this novel, Marian's rejection of gender roles in society, would be in accordance with a rejection of the socially expected ideal female speaking style. This is especially so when it comes to Japanese because women's language was constructed culturally and ideologically in the late nineteenth century (Okamoto 1995: 317). The belief about how women should speak has been shaped politically and socially through history (Inoue 2006: 15). Nevertheless, in the Japanese translation, readers are likely to find a contradictory figure in Marian in the Japanese translation and she seems to be happy to use impeccable women's language given and promoted by male-dominant authorities. The contradiction can be an obstacle to conveying the author's message to the readers who read the novel in Japanese. The author's intention can thus be lost in the translation. Even if the content of the novel has not been changed, the readers would perceive the wrong sort of character. In the Japanese translation, Marian seems to be obedient to the male-dominated idea because of her language use. This fact interferes with the novel's feminist purpose. I therefore examine the effect of Marian's language use in the Japanese translation from a reader-response theory and a relevance theory point of view
