Summary This article explores the problem of difference in translation under the influence of deconstruction, with particular reference to four French-Canadian feminist texts by Nicole Brossard and their feminist translations into English (two translations by Barbara Godard and two translations by Patricia Claxton). These translators claim to utilise innovative translation strategies in challenging certain conventional views on translation. It is because of their explicit rejection of traditional views on fidelity and their emphasis on the individualistic and creative nature of translation as expressed in metatexts that feminist translators' work is seen as a threat to mainstream translation discourse. Equally, it is for precisely these reasons that feminist translators may make a contribution to contemporary translation studies, should their claims be substantiated in practice. But in my view, no critic to date has really questioned the basis upon which feminist translation rests: the contention that through the utilisation of innovative translation strategies a feminist translation becomes a deliberate mistranslation and extension of the source text, and that feminist translation, unlike conventional translation, constitutes difference and not derivation. If, following Derrida, all translation is transformation, we need to examine how feminist translation differs from conventional translation. And thus, my contention is, firstly, that in the texts analysed the feminist translation discourse is not substantiated by actual translation practice and secondly, that the unusual translation techniques used constitute a minor feature of the translations. 1 Introduction Translation theorists have always grappled with one specific problem in translation--the fact that translations are not the same as their originals and can never be the same. This is clearly reflected in their theories, which, despite different approaches, have all depended on some notion of equivalence (whether aesthetic, formal, dynamic, functional or cultural) to evaluate translations. But the advent of deconstruction and the privileging of form over meaning have changed all this, resulting in a radical redrawing of the questions upon which translation theory is founded. Instead of being seen as reproductions of an exact meaning, translations are seen as texts in their own right which are always in the process of modifying, deferring and displacing the original. The translation process itself can be conceived of as an action in which the movement along the surface of language is made visible, and the limits of language and intertextuality explored. Thus the term "difference" in translation, traditionally a negative term signifying distortion or deviation, is seen in a new light under the influence of deconstruction (as differance, meaning both difference and deferral), and many translation researchers believe that the notion of translation itself should also be reassessed. Gentzler points out that deconstruction is not an approach normally associated with translation theory in Anglo-American circles, but suggests that
the shift to a more philosophic stance from which the entire
problematic of translation can be better viewed may not only be
beneficial for translation theory, but ... after such a
confrontation, the discourse which has limited the development of
translation theory will inevitably undergo a transformation,
allowing new insights and fresh interdisciplinary approaches,
breaking, if you will, a logjam of stagnated terms and notions.
(Gentzler 1993: 145)
In this article, I explore the problem of differance in translation under the influence of deconstruction, with particular reference to four feminist prose works written in French by French-Canadian Nicole Brossard and their feminist translations into English, two of which were translated by Barbara Godard and two by Patricia Claxton (also Canadian): Sold-Out: Etreinte/ Illustration (Brossard [1973]1980), translated as Turn of a Pang (Brossard 1976) by Patricia Claxton; French Kiss: Etreinte-Exploration (Brossard 1974), translated by Patricia Claxton as French Kiss or a Pang's Progress (Brossard 1986); L'Amer ou le chapitre effrite (Brossard 1977), translated as These Our Mothers or: The Disintegrating Chapter (Brossard 1983) by Barbara Godard; and Picture Theory (Brossard [1982]1989), translated by Barbara Godard as Picture Theory (Brossard 1991). The analysis of Canadian feminist texts and their translations is interesting, because it provides a vehicle for the concrete examination of the work of a group of translators who claim to have broken the "logjam of stagnated terms and notions" in their application of deconstructive and feminist principles found in the feminist texts they translate. In their metatexts feminist translators have indicated both their intention to examine translation theory itself as discourse as well as their intention to use translation to context the self-evident legitimacy of a discourse and its producers. Canadian feminist translator Barbara Godard has commented in this regard that
to raise the issue of the [translation of French feminist texts] in
the framework of language, gender and ideology is to ask about the
theories of discourse advanced in these texts and the theories of
translation which have produced the English version.
(Godard in Basnett & Lefevere 1990: 91)
On the basis of these translations, I set out to examine the contention (made by Barbara Godard in particular) that through the utilisation of innovative translation strategies, a feminist translation becomes a deliberate mistranslation and extension of the source text, and that feminist translation practice, unlike conventional translation practice, constitutes difference and not derivation. Clearly, given the constraints of space and the limitations of my corpus, any conclusions drawn must inevitably be conditional ones, but I nevertheless believe that it is possible to make some preliminary remarks (cf. Wallmach 1999 for more detail). In the next section, I discuss the influence of deconstruction on the discipline of translation studies and then examine the concerns of Canadian feminist translators as expressed in metatexts. I then focus on the question of creativity in the context of translation and develop an analytical framework for the analysis of feminist translation strategies by refining Delabastita's (1993) and Vinay and Darbelnet's (1995) categories in an attempt to establish whether the translation strategies used in the four translations could be said to be "different" or "derived". 2 The Influence of Deconstruction on Translation Studies How has deconstruction influenced the body of scholarly work that constitutes translation studies? While not offering a specific "translation theory" of its own, deconstruction is a useful tool not because it necessarily defines another approach, but because it deepens and broadens the conceptual framework by which the very field itself is defined. Deconstructing a discourse implies demonstrating how it undermines the philosophy it asserts, or the hierarchical oppositions on which it relies, by identifying in the text the rhetorical operations that produce the supposed ground of argument, the key premise. Deconstructivists such as Jacques Derrida use translation to challenge the limits of language, writing and reading as well as suggesting that it is in the process of translating texts where one comes as close as is possible to that elusive notion or experience of differance which underpins the entire philosophic enterprise (Derrida in Graham 1985: 150). The act of "deconstructing" or interpreting a text is not seen as recovering some deeper "given" objective meaning which controls and unifies the text's structure, but as exposing what is usually suppressed, namely the infinite possibilities, the "free play" of meanings. Each deconstruction, each interpretation, opens itself to further deconstruction. Derrida challenges the reader and the translator to think and rethink every moment a translation solution is posed, an item named, an identity fixed, or a sentence inscribed. With each naming gesture he suggests a footnote, a note in the margin, or a preface, to retrieve those subtle differing supplementary meanings and tangential notions lost in the process of transcription. Thus, both writing and translation are seen as "the endless displacement of meaning which both governs language and places it for ever beyond the reach of a stable, self-authenticating knowledge" (Norris 1982: 29). The rise of translation theory as an academic discipline was strongly influenced by structuralist linguistics, since this seemed to offer translation a systematic framework within which to work. But already at that time, in the writings of Roland Barthes, whose "Death of the Author" appeared only three years after Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, and Catford's A Linguistic Theory of Translation, approaches were beginning to emerge which, as they worked their way through a variety of disciplines towards the phenomenal success they currently enjoy in literary theory, would later have considerable influence on translation theory (Fawcett 1994: 247). In fact, theories of translation have generally drawn on three adjacent disciplines for their notions of the "contents" and purposes of their study as well as for general methodological stances: linguistics, poetics, and philosophy. It is perhaps no accident that these three disciplines, as well as the many other areas of study for which they have provided models, provided a focus of attention for poststructuralist inquiry. Rosemary Arrojo, who was instrumental in introducing deconstruction to translation studies in the early 1990s, is of the view that translation has been conquering a more defined space within language and cultural studies since the 1980s partly as a result of the increasing popularity in translation circles of the philosophical approaches to translation formulated in previous years and grouped under the umbrella term of poststructuralism. "As we regard translation as a form of transformation, we finally begin to move beyond the old stalemates which have paralysed reflection on the area for at least two thousand years" (Arrojo 1998: 25). The first significant effect of these theories on translation is that postmodernist theories propose a radical revision of the traditional dichotomy that has always put practice under the alleged control of theory. According to Ingberg,
[p]oststructuralist theorists have explored in detail the
implications of the existence of varying perspectives for our
understanding of the nature and function of discourse. They have
argued that our traditional notions of the unity and
self-sufficiency of textual products, including theoretical and
ideological constructs, are largely illusions fostered by the blind
spots each perspective creates.
(Ingberg 1986: 6)
Thus, poststructuralist approaches support a view of theory and practice as dialogically related, a view where neither concept governs the other but where both function as contesting and complementary, as dialogical forces within discourse. Theory and practice, in such a view, are not thought of as essences or discrete functions or operations; rather they are seen to represent theoretical formulations of positions which in practice can be applied only temporarily and alternately. Arrojo (1998: 26) supports this, stating that only within a theoretical framework that does not depend on such a gap can the study of translation effectively grow and prosper. In her view, translation theorists have tended to propose a fundamentally authoritarian, generally fruitless relationship between theory and practice as they envision an ideal scenario in which what is commonly implied, in the name of science or rational expertise, is that it is the exclusive business of theory to establish definitions and models and to set translation rules and standards, while it is the translator's role to accept and blindly follow them (Arrojo 1998: 26). Secondly, and no less importantly, poststructuralist conceptions of meaning have directed attention away from the authority of the author towards the role of the reader as well as undermined the notion of the "original" as a stable, objectively transferable entity. This is a change which has far-reaching implications for translation theory. As Arrojo puts it:
If there is no stable "original" to which one could be objectively
faithful without interfering with its allegedly intrinsic meaning,
the traditional issues which have concerned translators and
theoreticians for as long as this complex activity has been
practised take a radically different turn and begin to liberate
the general reflection on translation from the unrealistic
expectations and dead-end arguments which have transformed its study
into a series of failed attempts at giving definite answers to the
perennial question of how translators could possibly become
transparent in order to be faithful to the languages and cultures
involved in their task.
(Arrojo 1998: 26)
Many theorists have criticised deconstruction in translation studies as a rather reckless and pointless activity that implies "bottomless chessboards and random, accidental development, without an end", as "play without calculation, wandering without an end or telos" (Gentzler 1993: 159,167). But from such a stance, what have traditionally been regarded as the "theoretical problems" of translation begin to be recognised as being part of a world view that insists on searching for the alleged hidden core or model that would finally put an end to all the relative, local, finite interpretations with which our perspectives are traditionally constructed. Since it takes the implications of the Saussurian theorisation of the arbitrary, conventional sign to its last consequences, thereby questioning the possibility of stable meanings that could be reproduced and recovered in their sameness, deconstruction implicitly and explicitly challenges all the traditional notions usually associated with translation as an idealised form of meaning transferral from one language to another, and from one culture to another, without the interference of either the translator or his or her circumstances. If meaning cannot be fully repeated even within the domain of that which we still call the "same" language, that is, if it is difference which is the basic trait of any process of signification, the traditional notion of the text as the immobile, protective container of its author's intentional, supposedly recoverable meaning is radically revised. From the point of view of deconstructive thought, since translation
practises the difference between signified and signifier ... we will
never have, and in fact have never had, to do with some "transport"
of pure signifieds from one language to another, or within one and
the same language, that the signifying instrument would leave virgin
and untouched.
(Derrida 1987: 20)
Consequently, translation begins to be recognised as a form of "transformation": a regulated transformation of one language by another, of one text by another (Derrida 1987: 20). And it becomes possible to conceive of a theory of interpretation that is not constructed around the interrelated poles of loss and recovery (cf. Derrida's Living on Border Lines (1979), Des tours de Babel (1985a) and The Ear of the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation (1985b); Difference in Translation (Graham 1985); Oficina de Traducao: A Teoria na Pratica (Arrojo 1986) and Gentzler's Contemporary Translation Theories (1993), to mention only a few). Another important influence of deconstruction on translation studies can be found in the discussion of metaphor. Metaphor has traditionally been defined as a trope of resemblance, not just as resemblance between signifier and signified, but also the resemblance between signs, one of which represents the other. Derrida sets out to show that it is also a trope of difference (Godard 1991b: 112). This revisiting and rewriting of metaphor as a trope of difference has prompted translation theorists influenced by the poststructuralist paradigm to revisit metaphors relating to translation, which in turn has led to the establishment of approaches to translation which have taken up the call for resistance to established norms. In fact, the act of resistance to established norms or subversion of these norms has in itself become not only a metaphor used in translation, but an approach to translation which can be categorised under the umbrella term of resistive approaches to translation or "resistancy" (Venuti 1995). The most vocal proponent of these approaches to translation is Lawrence Venuti. Venuti (1995) uses the term "resistancy" or "resistance" to refer to the strategy of translating a literary text in such a way that it retains something of its foreignness; as such it is broadly synonymous with "foreignizing translation". This approach, strongly influenced by poststructuralist translation theory, was conceived as a way of challenging the assumption prevalent in Anglo-American culture that the only valid way of translating is to produce a target text which reads fluently and idiomatically and is so "transparent" that it would seem to reflect the foreign writer's intention and the essential meaning of the foreign text, and could therefore be mistaken for a product of the target culture. The translation gives the appearance of not being a translation at all, but the "original". For Venuti, what is so remarkable here is that this illusory effect conceals the numerous conditions under which the translation is made, starting with the translator's crucial intervention in the foreign text--"[t]he more fluent the translation, the more invisible the translator, and, presumably, the more visible the writer or meaning of the foreign text" (1995: 1-2). Venuti also strongly criticises the idea that an idiomatic translation (or what he calls "domestication") should be the default translation strategy taught to student translators and advocated for all types of text. Kwiecinski agrees with Venuti in criticising the implicit claim that
a functionalist domesticating stance represents some sort of
indisputable natural law in translation, a claim which consequently
reduces the epistemological self-awareness of the researcher and the
translator and ultimately effaces the role of cultural politics in
shaping translational behaviour.
(Kwiecinski 1998: 187)
In advocating "foreignising" translation, Venuti aims to make visible the "otherness" of the source text in translation culture, often by foregrounding the foreign linguistic form. In practice, therefore, "resistancy" may involve the translator choosing to translate a text that challenges the contemporary canon of foreign literature in the target language, or it may involve the use of unidiomatic expressions and other linguistically and culturally alienating features in the translated text so as to create the impression of foreignness. In concrete terms, the latter strategy would entail not only a freedom from absolute obedience to target linguistic and textual constraints, but also where appropriate the selection of a non-fluent, opaque style and the deliberate inclusion of source text (SL) realia or target language (TL) archaisms; the cumulative effect of such features would be to provide TL readers with an "alien reading experience" (Venuti 1995: 20). Venuti concedes that foreignising translations are just as partial in their interpretation of the foreign text as are domesticating translations, yet points out that they "tend to flaunt their partiality instead of concealing it" (p. 34). Translation therefore emerges as an active reconstitution of the foreign text mediated by the irreducible linguistic, discursive and ideological differences of the target-language culture. Venuti's stated aim is "to force translators and their readers to reflect on the ethnocentric violence of translation and hence to write and read translated texts in ways that seek to recognise the linguistic and cultural difference of foreign texts" (p. 42). This view of translation as difference ties in very closely with those of Philip Lewis's (1985) concept of abusive fidelity, which evolved partly as a result of problems created by the daunting task of translating Derrida's inventive and self-reflexive writing into English. In discussing an English-language version of Derrida's essay "La mythologie blanche" Lewis (1985: 31-62), argues for a more sophisticated translation strategy that acknowledges the complications poststructuralism has brought to translation, particularly the concept of meaning as a differential plurality, and that therefore shifts the translator's attention away from the signified "to the chain of signifiers, to syntactic processes, to discursive structures, to the incidence of language mechanisms on thought and reality formation, and so forth" (p. 61). What is at stake here is a "new axiomatics of fidelity" which Lewis terms "abusive": the translator seeks to reproduce whatever features of the foreign text abuse or resist dominant cultural values in the source language, yet this reproductive effort requires the invention of analogous means of signification that are doubly abusive, that resist dominant cultural values in the target language, but supplement the foreign text by rewriting it in that language. Lewis observes that
the real possibility of translation--the translatability that
emerges in the movement of difference as a fundamental property of
languages--points to a risk to be assumed: that of the strong,
forceful translation that values experimentation, tampers with
usage, seeks to match the polyvalencies or plurivocities or
expressive stresses of the original by producing its own.
(Lewis 1985: 41)
Abusive fidelity clearly entails a rejection of the fluency that dominates contemporary translation in favour of an opposing strategy that can aptly be called resistancy. Hence, Venuti (1992: 12) asserts, it has so far proved most useful in translating texts that foreground the play of the signifier by cultivating polysemy, neologism, fragmented syntax, discursive heterogeneity--namely poststructuralist theoretical statements, postmodern narratives, and feminist experiments in prose and poetry that reflect Helene Cixous's concept of ecriture feminine--such as the writings of Nicole Brossard, as we shall see in the next section. 3. Defining Feminist Translation in the Canadian Context Quebecois feminist writers in particular have appropriated Derrida's concept of transformation, and translation has become "a metaphor used by women writers to describe their experience; like translated texts they can be betrayed, transformed, invented and created" (Harwood in Homel & Simon 1988: 49). This is evident in the awareness and exploitation of intertextuality of writers such as Nicole Brossard, France Theoret, Louky Bersianik, Anne Hebert and Madeleine Gagnon in their concern to deconstruct the dominant discourse while giving form to a woman's vision of the universe, and in particular in their use of wordplay, neologism and sound patterning to explore language as a sign of difference. The radical feminist texts of Nicole Brossard are an excellent example of this trend. She herself characterises her writing as
an ecriture de derive (a writing that is both derived from
and adrift) somewhere at the border between what's real and
what's fictive, between what seems possible to say, to write, but
which proves to be, at the moment of writing, unthinkable, and that
which seems obvious but appears, at the last second, inexpressible.
(Brossard in Gould 1990: 89)
Often approaching their work in collaboration with their authors and professing to utilise innovative translation strategies to destabilise the notion of gendered positions within texts, feminist translators in Canada claim to produce "an extremely discontinuous textuality in which the author inventively joins in the production of meaning, undermining conventional representations that not only subordinate translator to author, but also metaphorise authorship as male and translation as female" (Venuti 1992: 12). In fact, my interest in Brossard and in the translations of her work by feminist translators is explained by the fact that it can be said about Canadian feminist translators as much as their authors that
they work words in different ways, in subversive ways, disrupting
the linearity of conventional discourse, deconstructing grammar,
sabotaging the symbolism of patriarchy, stripping words to their
bare meanings and breaking open language to let it say what is
unsaid and unsayable in the language of patriarchy. Through these
linguistic transgressions, they expand cultural space
to liberate territory for women's expression.
(Scott 1989: Preface to Lair)
Canadian feminist translation is therefore a phenomenon
intimately connected to a specific writing practice in a specific
ideological and cultural environment, the result of a specific
social conjuncture. It is an approach to translation that has
appropriated and adapted many of the techniques and theories that
underlie the writing it translates.
(Von Flotow 1991: 74)
It developed partly as a result of sociocultural facts such as the diglossic situation in Canada and the resultant negative view of mainstream translation in Quebec. Another factor which led to the phenomenon of feminist translation is the concern about language so characteristic of Quebec writing which arose out of the frustration of political and linguistic powerlessness. This concern with language, together with the upsurge in feminist writing on both sides of the Atlantic, inspired Quebecois women writers from the late 1970s onwards to begin developing innovative ways of writing which challenged patriarchal society through the manipulation of language (cf. Wallmach 1999). In other words, these feminist translators are so called because they wish to explore the original authors' innovative writing processes as part of the translation process. The writer Nicole Brossard's feminist works in particular clearly reflect the ideas and motivations of poststructuralism and deconstruction in her awareness and exploitation of intertextuality and in her use of wordplay to explore language as a sign of difference. In the four original prose works under discussion, Brossard's texts are discontinuous, containing no clear plot or setting for her characters, and are characterised by poetic alliteration, neologisms and linguistic wordplay. The only clues to theme are repetitions of words belonging to the same lexical sets, such as words relating to the writing process, to the female body, and to female sexuality. In fact, the cohesion in these texts depends largely on the introduction of a lexical item or items and then their exact repetition in close proximity in the text. Although punning and neologism are characteristic of her writing, they do not occur frequently enough to be the dominant style marker of her language. Rather, her texts are connected by "wordplay" in the broadest sense, by lexical chains woven through the text. For Brossard, meaning resides primarily in form, in the pattern of signifiers created by a text (Wallmach 1999: 162). From the evidence of their commentaries in prefaces, it would seem that Brossard's translators, particularly Barbara Godard, are influenced by these textual norms in producing their translations. Barbara Godard is of the view that the problematic nature of feminist texts, with their extensive use of punning and linguistic wordplay, calls for translation "for the signifier"--translation for form, rather than for meaning and in so doing, for the creation of a new and different text (Godard 1990: 112) (cf. Wallmach (2000a) for a discussion of feminist translation "for the signifier"). In the preface to her translation of Picture Theory Godard explains:
In the absence of narrative connections holding the text together,
or of leitmotifs, Picture Theory is linked by networks of
signifiers ... Picture Theory foregrounds a theory of the signifier
as continuous difference, of a network of sliding signs which
entails a theory of the transformativity of the translation
effect ... Though it bears the same title, this English version
differs greatly from the French version of Picture Theory. With
[my colleagues'] help ... its work on language, its status as text
enters yet another network of signifiers to extend its
productivity.
(Godard 1991a: 9-11)
Similarly, in the preface to These Our Mothers or: The Disintegrating Chapter (Brossard 1983), Godard indicates that her aim is the opposite of a faithful reproduction of the original. She tells her readers: "May the intensity of your involvement as reader be as great as mine and you extend its creation in new directions to make this the text of bliss it works to be." Godard was the first to point out the implications of this new poetics for translation theory. In her view, the concept of translation as transformation broadens the whole concept of translation, allowing the feminist translator to translate for the signifier and to use innovative translation strategies:
The feminist translator, affirming her critical difference, her
delight in interminable rereading and rewriting, flaunts the signs
of her manipulation of the text. Woman handling the text in
translation would involve the replacement of the modest,
self-effacing translator. Taking her place would be an active
participant in the creation of meaning who advances a conditional
analysis. Hers is a continuing provisionality, aware of process,
giving self-reflexive attention to practices. The feminist
translator immodestly flaunts her signature in italics, in
footnotes--even in a preface.
(Godard in Bassnett & Lefevere 1990: 94)
In contrast to Barbara Godard, Patricia Claxton makes far fewer comments regarding her choice of translation strategies. There is no preface to the translation of Sold-Out. Etreinte/Illustration (Brossard [1973] 1980) which is entitled Turn of a Pang (Brossard 1976). Like Picture Theory, Sold-Out is an experiment in narrative form where characterisation, theme and plot are minimal. However, Claxton has written a preface to her translation of French Kiss: Etreinte-Exploration (Brossard 1974), translated as French Kiss or: A Pang's Progress (Brossard 1986). Claxton (Brossard 1986: 5) specifies in her preface that her aim (agreed to by the author) is to make the translation a little more accessible than the underlying French, which is to say less hermetic. But only to a point, for she believes there is much to be found beneath the apparent surface of Nicole Brossard's book, and so it must remain. With accessibility in mind, Claxton states that she has included "occasional unobtrusive aids" for readers unfamiliar or not very familiar with Montreal and French and Quebecois literature and history. However, she also states: "While this English text may be a little more accessible than the underlying French, if it has succeeded in its purpose the character of the book in other respects remains intact" (Brossard 1986: 6, Preface). In other words, Claxton's initial norm (1) as expressed metatextually is not to betray the source text but to transfer it, making the translation slightly more accessible than the original. She acknowledges that "inescapable differences in cultural and linguistic outlook and hence resources" may mean that the translation has a weaker impact at certain points than one might wish (Brossard 1986: 6-7, Preface). But she also believes that this unavoidable semantic loss can be compensated for in other places in the text. Thus, particularly in Barbara Godard's case, instead of viewing translation as faithfulness, as fixing the same meaning in another language, translation is seen as allowing further room for play, extending boundaries, and opening up new avenues for further difference. This has far-reaching implications for the strategies used in translating a text, not least of which is the idea that "unfaithfulness" to the original is seen as something to be praised rather than censored. This in turn impacts on other myths now entrenched in translation, such as the necessity for the translator to remain invisible in the translation process; the idea that translation preserves exact meaning across languages; the myth of objectivity and transparency of translation, and the primacy of the source text. In fact, Canadian feminist translation could be said to follow many of the tenets of resistive translation discourse, (2) since the metaphor of "difference" which is pivotal to resistive translation theories is further entrenched in Canadian feminist translation by a diglossic sociocultural context in which language, literature, feminism and translation are all inscribed by "difference" (cf. Wallmach 1999: 101-149). It is precisely because of their explicit rejection of traditional views on fidelity and their emphasis on the individualistic and creative nature of translation that feminist translators' work may make a contribution to contemporary translation studies, should their claims be substantiated in practice. But are these claims really justified? In general, critics tend to examine the notion of feminist translation in terms of the metatextual commentary of feminist translators and academics and not according to the actual translations themselves. Where reference is made to the translations, isolated examples of feminist translators' prowess in deliberately mistranslating and overstating the original are mentioned. The implications of such a stance for translation theory are therefore discussed without attempting to examine and compare feminist translations with their originals on a less piecemeal basis. Without clear insight into the conditions underlying the production of these feminist texts and feminist translations as well as a comparative analysis of the texts themselves, it is impossible to determine whether the feminist translators' metatextual claims are substantiated by the textual evidence of their feminist translations and it is equally impossible to determine whether the feminist translation strategies used are truly innovative and "different" from conventional translation strategies. Accordingly, in the next section I attempt to categorise the feminist translation strategies used in the four translations with a view to discussing the creativity shown by the translators. Before doing this, however, it is necessary to examine the question of creativity in the context of translation in general. 4. The Question of Creativity: Analysing Strategies Used in Feminist Texts and Translations...
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