GENDER ASPECTS IN LITERARY TRANSLATION (as exemplified in O. Wilde’s tales translation)

Abstract

Literary translation is understood as transmitting the system of cultural values from one cultural tradition to another. Adequate translation requires adequate transfer of different aspects, including the gender component. This paper addresses the gender aspects transfer in O. Wilde’s tales translation. To perform an adequate translation, the translator has to apply to the results of studying stereotypes in a certain culture, including gender stereotypes, to transmit them to the representatives of another culture adequately. The author provides his characters with some personality traits that are perceived as typical of men or women in a particular society. The grammatical gender of nouns creates a specific gender-related perception of the character. The examples analyzed in the paper prove the necessity to keep the gender distribution in the translation, because sympathy between a male and a female characters is perceived by the readers quite differently from the sympathy between two male characters. The awareness of cultural stereotypes allows for the adequate transfer of the personification of characters.

Keywords

• literary translation, cultural tradition, gender stereotype, masculine and feminine images, personification of characters