How to eliminate the negative influence of man-made language?

1. FROM HIStories to HERstories
through FEMINIST
TRANSLATION STUDIES
ASSIST. PROF. DR. MUZAFFER DERYA NAZLIPINAR
SUBAŞI
KÜTAHYA DUMLUPINAR UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETING
DEPARTMENT

2. PURPOSE ??
• CREATE AWARENESS
• NEVER ACCEPT THINGS AS THEY ARE
PORTRAYED
• ALWAYS READ BETWEEN THE LINES
• THINK WHILE READING &
TRANSLATING
• FIND THE WAYS LEADING TO A
DEEPER INTERPRETATION of THE TEXT
• REFLECT WHAT YOU GET INTO YOUR
WRITING & TRANSLATION

3. LET’S BEGIN 
• NE OLURSAN OL, ADAM OL…
• NE OLURSAN OL, ADAM GİBİ ADAM OL…
• NE OLURSAN OL, KADIN OL…
• NE OLURSAN OL, KADIN GİBİ KADIN OL…
• BE A MAN!
• BE A WOMAN / LADY!
• ADAM GİBİ…
• KIZ GİBİ… (KADIN GİBİ????)

4. •the myth of male
superiority and its
established system
•its most powerful vehicle:
the ‘man-made language &
ideologies’

5. LANGUAGE????
• Is language just a medium for creating, communicating and storing
information?
• “Language combines the functions of a mirror, a tool, and a
weapon: [It] reflects society … human beings use it to interact with
one another ... [and] language can be [used] by groups that enjoy
the privileges of power to legitimize their own value system by
labeling others ‘deviant’ or ‘inferior’".
(Frank, Language, Gender and Professional Writing, p.108)

6. If the norm is male, then female
characteristics are automatically
wrong or negative, which is called
the ‘negative semantic space’

7. The ‘no-choice
choice’
situations
• ‘double-bind’ of oppression by
the language
• Man-made / patriarchal /
phallocentric language….
• LANGUAGE SHAPES US…
• Gökberk ‘e göre (1997: 69-71):

8. • ERKEK = NORM / ÖZNE - KADIN = NESNE
• AN OBJECT FOR MALE GAZE
• Othering process
• «KADIN DOĞULMAZ, KADIN OLUNUR…»
• O halde “dil masum ve yansız bir olgu degil,
egemen ideolojinin anlam yüklemeleriyle
donanmıs ve onun sürdürülmesinde önemli rol
oynayan bir araçtır. Egemen ideoloji ataerki
oldugu için kadın, ataerkinin belirledigi söylem
çerçevesi içinde kalmıstır”(Berktay,1994:12)

9. Trapped in this double-bind situation
• this bind must be broken and de(con)structed.
• Women must stop defining themselves in accordance with the
appropriate behavior and language created by men
• Women must change their submissive and secondary position.
• «… attack, deconstruct, or simply bypass the conventional
language they perceived as inherently misogynist” (von Flotow,
1991: 72).
• understanding how phallocentric concepts (re)construct, (re)produce
and maintain the oppressive situation of women

23. • Paul’s effeminate handshake did not impress his new boss, who believes
salespeople need a firm handshake.
• Paul’s weak handshake did not impress his new boss, who believes
salespeople need a firm handshake.
• You throw like a girl.
• You do not throw well.
• Last month, France and her citizens woke up to snowfall.
• The ship slipped her moorings.

25. • https://eige.europa.eu/publications/gender-sensitive-
communication/test-your-knowledge/quiz-1-policy-document
• https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus
• https://eige.europa.eu/publications/gender-sensitive-
communication/challenges/stereotypes/avoid-gendered-stereotypes-
descriptive-terms
• https://www.marshall.edu/wcenter/sexual-assault/rape-culture/
• https://eige.europa.eu/publications/gender-sensitive-
communication/challenges/stereotypes/avoid-irrelevant-information-
about-gender

32. • A woman’s coming to writing:
• “Literature is open to everybody. … there is no gate, no lock, no bolt,
that you can set upon the freedom of [the] mind”.
(Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, p. 65).
• the privileges of authorship – the male’s sphere: ‘author(ity)’
representing the Divine Creator & male power
• a “procreator and an aesthetic patriarch whose pen/is is an
instrument of generative power” (Gilbert&Gubar, 1984, p. 6)
• Mary Ann Evans known by her pen name George Eliot
• Nihal Yeğinobalı (by some American writer, Vincent Ewing, who has
never existed. )

33. • having been discouraged from participation in the public sphere &
writing, women turned to translation as the humble alternative to
authorship.
• Man vs. Woman / Original vs. Translation
• the woman's and the translator's place in history and culture??
• Translation = inadequate representative of the original in another
language and culture
• Translator = mediator, hardly representing or substituting the original
• translation occupying a secondary and temporary position in relation
to what it substitutes - reproductive & passive

34. Feminist translation theory
• The very beginning of feminist translation is related to the status of
the translator and of translation.
• Translators and women have historically been the weak figures -
translators in relation to writers and women in relation to men
• woman translators have a double heritage of inferiority.
• Lori Chamberlain (1992) explains how translational relations have
been expressed in terms of gender stereotypes and the power
relations between the sexes through sexist metaphors

35. Steiner proposes a four-part process of translation. The first step, that of "initiative
trust," describes the translator's willingness to take a gamble on the text, trusting that
the text will yield something. As a second step, the translator takes an overtly
aggressive step, "penetrating" and "capturing" the text (Steiner calls this "appropriative
penetration"), an act explicitly compared to erotic possession. During the third step, the
imprisoned text must be "naturalized," must become part of the translator's language,
literally incorporated or embodied. Finally, to compensate for this "appropriative
'rapture,'" the translator must restore the balance, attempt some act of reciprocity to
make amends for the act of aggression.

36. sexist metaphors
• les belles infidèles (unfaithful beauties).
• A metaphor establishing an analogy between the word
“traduction” (translation), which is feminine in French, and
woman.
• introduced by the French rhetorician Ménage (1613)
• the metaphor declares that if translation is unfaithful, then it is
beautiful
• if it is faithful, then it is not beautiful, as it is observed with
women.
• The “secondary” and “untrustworthy” nature of translation is
resembled to the so called “secondary” and “unfaithful” nature of
woman.

37. sexist metaphors
• Another sexist metaphor for the translation theory among many
others is George Steiner’s male-oriented image of translation
as penetration
• In this metaphor, translation is not labeled as feminine, but text
is represented as a female.
• COVID-VIRGIN
• COVID-VIRGIN - COVID-FREE

38. Fidelity: The Role of the Translator Reconstructed
• Within the feminist translation practice, the woman becomes an
active agent and collaborates with the auther
• During this process, the translator is no longer invisible. She
follows an interventionist style.
• “Womanhandling” the text (Godard , 1989, p. 50)

39. •WOMAN’S PLACE IS
IN THE HOME
•STILL ENJOYING A
BACHELOR’S LIFE
•DON’T HAVE A
LITTLE MISS
WAITING

40. • GENDER-OFFENSİVE
• Herkes bilir ki kadının yeri,
erkeğine leziz yemekler
yapacağı evidir. Ama hala
‘bekarlık sultanlıktır’
diyenlerdenseniz ve evde sizi
bekleyen bir ‘hatununuz’
yoksa, aperatif sulu yemekler
için Hardee tam da size göre…
• GENDER-SENSITIVE
• Evli ya da bekar fark etmez, iyi
beslenmek herkesin hakkı…
Evde sulu yemekler için
zamanız yoksa, Hardee tam da
size göre…

42. Womanhandling
• The visible feminist translator aims to
- create awareness
- make her work as a part of a political act
- make the language speak for women
• While the concept of fidelity is questioned, the
translator’s role is reconstructed.

43. How to “womanhandle” the text
• a feminist translator uses certain strategies in order to
“womanhandle” the text, in order to leave her signature, in order
to be visible.
• These strategies, especially used by Canadian feminist translators,
have been categorized by von Flotow, as follow:
1. Supplementing
2. prefacing/footnoting
3. hijacking the text

44. Supplementing
• “[T]he source text is supplemented by its translation, matured,
developed, and given an afterlife” (Walter Benjamin, quoted in von
Flotow, 1991, p.75).
• Supplementing is a voluntary shift in order to create the feminist
experimental effect.
• “[E]ven if [a language] doesn't have exactly the same problems of
gender or etymology, there are other places in the text where a similar
déplacement of language can be carried out” (von Flotow,1991, p.75)
• Compensating for the differences between languages, supplementing
is a call for interventionist moves by the translator, thus it has a
political facet.

45. • There is a good example in Scott's translation of Bersianik's L'Euguélionne. In a
text where the politics of abortion are held up for scrutiny, the following line
occurs:
• "Le ou la coupable doit être punie."
• The extra "e" on the past participle "puni" clearly indicates that it is the woman
who is punished for aborting.
• But this subtlety is not directly transferable into English which lacks gender
agreements.
• Scott’s "voluntarist" solution supplements this particular lack in English and
reads as follows :
• "The guilty one must be punished, whether she is a man or a woman.
• This feminist translator thus recoups certain losses by intervening in, and
supplementing another part of the text
• He also supplements the original text by making its critique of language apply to
English, and meaningful to an English-speaking readership

47. Prefacing/Footnoting
• Prefaces and footnotes, constituting an important part of paratexts, are
used in many different translations for many different purposes.
• Most of the time, these are not gender-conscious notes, or they do not
underline a certain ideology.
• However, in feminist translation, prefaces and footnotes remind the
reader that this is a feminist political activity. They function
- To make the translator visible
- To give the robbed status back to the translator
- To emphasize that this is a writing project, a co-work
- To challenge patriarchy.

48. • “It is becoming almost routine for feminist
translators to reflect on their work in a
preface, and to stress their active
presence in the text in footnotes.” (von
Flotow, 1991, p.76)
• My translation practice is a political activity
aimed at making language speak for
women. So my signature on translation
means: This translation has used every
translation strategy to make the feminine
visible in language (de Lotbinière- Harwood
qtd. in Munday, 2008, p.129).
• The translation of Virgin: The Untouched
History by Emek Ergün is prefaced by remarks
that describe the work as a feminist translation.
• Ergün prefers to make feminist word play in her
preface, in order to raise awareness on the
issue:
• «Bu bağlamda, bekâret sözcüğünü ‘bekâr/et’
olarak da okuyabiliriz: Ataerkil düzende bakire
kadın bedeni, henüz evlilikle sahiplenilmemiş bir
et parçasıdır» (2012: 14)

49. • Bekâretin yüzyıllardır aile, eğitim, tıp, yasa, din gibi ataerkil kurumlar tarafından
bedenlerimiz üzerine inşa edilen gerçekliğini bir anda yok etmeye belki şimdilik
gücümüz yetmez. Ama bir yerden başlamak gerek –susmamaya, soru sormaya,
eleştirmeye, görünmeyeni görünür kılmaya, yıkıp yeniden kurmaya. İşte bu
önsöz, bu kitap böyle bir başlangıç niteliği taşıyor. Bekâretin tarih boyunca ne
olduğunu ya da olmadığını sorgulayarak bedenlerimiz, cinselliklerimiz ve
yaşamlarımız üzerinde kurduğu kanlı hâkimiyete bir son vermek için Hanne
Blank’le birlikte çıktığımız bu yolculuğun amacına ulaşması dileğiyle… (Ergün,
2012: 33).

50. • Bunun Bekâretin El Değmemiş Tarihi ’ndeki en açık örneği sanırım, “hymen” sözcüğünü “kızlık zarı”
olarak değil de, “himen” olarak çevirmiş olmam. “Kızlık zarı” ifadesini kullanmayı reddetmemin nedeni,
ataerkil zihniyetin bariz bir yansıması olan kadın/kız kategorileştirmesini çevirimde sürdürerek bu erkek-
egemen söylemi güçlendirmek istememem. Kadınlığa, yani yetişkinliğe ve olgunluğa giden yolun ille de
bekâret kaybından, yani penisten geçtiğini ima eden falus-merkezli bu kadın/kız ayrımından kaçınmak
için de genelde tıp metinlerinde ya da doktorlar tarafından kullanılan “himen” sözcüğünü tercih ettim.
Dipnot vererek de bu kararımı ve arkasındaki nedenleri açıkladım. Böylece de hem çevirmen olarak “ben
buradayım” dedim, hem de politik kimliğimi ve bunun çevirimi nasıl etkilediğini okurla paylaştım
(dipnot, önsöz gibi yöntemler feminist çeviride bu nedenlerden dolayı sıkça kullanılıyor) (Bora 2009, 84)

51. • Another feminist translation strategy, suggested by von Flotow, is known as
hijacking.
• von Flotow uses the term in order to indicate the interventionist role taken by the
translator.
• Contrary to supplementing, the source text is not necessarily a feminist one. A
neutral, even a sexist text can be hijacked in order to feminize it.
• Briefly, it means appropriating a text whose intentions are not necessarily feminist by
a feminist translator for the purpose of
- creating awareness
- making the woman/translator visible.
Hijacking

52. • "correction" is the translator's deliberate feminizing of the target
text, which she announces in her preface as a political
intervention:
• Lise Gauvin is a feminist, and so am I. But I am not her. She wrote
in the generic masculine. My translation practice is a political activity
aimed at making language speak for women. So my signature on
a translation means: this translation has used every possible
translation strategy to make the feminine visible in language.
Because making the feminine visible in language means making
women seen and heard in the real world. Which is what feminism is
all about. (De Lotbinière-Harwood, 1990, p. 9)

53. •"la victoire de l'homme" becomes "our victory
[...] over the elements";
•she puts the female element first in expressions
like "women and men," "her or his,"
•and uses inverted quotation marks to emphasize
some of the absurdities of conventional English,
•for example, the reference to women as "masters"
of the kitchen.

54. wordplay
• Luise von Flotow describes women's writing as full of wordplay
on aspects of culture and of invented words.
• These are difficult to translate:
- First, because the cultural situations are different
- Second, because there is usually no immediate linguistic
relationship that can be exploited.
• Mary Daly's book Gyn/Ecology (1978), dealing with radical
American feminism of the 1970s, is full of wordplay on aspects of
American culture, such as

55. the-rapist
bore-ocracy
womb-tomb
herstory
re(her)ality
Woman – woe-to-man
A school of etymology that says woman was formed because
she brought woe to man
Woman – wombman
The term is a compound of WOMB and MAN … thus making a
woman.
It is a person of mankind that has a womb
Silenced women
Sus(turul)an kadınlar
Ehlileş(tiril)en kadınlar
S/Müslüman

56. As a conclusion
• In feminist theory, translation is viewed
as production, not reproduction.
• It makes the masculine less visible
and the feminine more visible in
language.
• It refuses phallocentrism in language
and opens up the possibility of a
different language – female
language, all-encompassing
language. Thus, the masculine is no
longer dominant.

57. As a
conclusion
• Feminist translation theory has enriched Translation
Studies with new insights into the process of
translation and into the translator's identity.
• Feminist translation has reformed such concepts as
difference, fidelity and equivalence in translation and
has challenged the view of the translator's invisibility.
• Therefore,
- translation ceases to be a passive linguistic transfer
from one language into another
- it becomes an active process influenced by the
translator's identity, views of the world and
environment.

58. • Prof. Dr. Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar, Kelimelerin Kıyısında: Türkiye'de Kadın
Çevirmenler
• Valerie Solanas'ın SCUM Manifestosu'nu Erkek Doğrama Cemiyeti
Manifestosu adıyla çeviren Ayşe Düzkan
• Hanne Blank'in Virgin: The Untouched History kitabından
yaptığı Bekâretin 'El Değmemiş' Tarihi başlıklı çevirisiyle Emek Ergün
izledi.
• https://www.5harfliler.com/
• https://catlakzemin.com/

59. • http://esitsozluk.com/#sozluk
• https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus
• https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus/browse
• https://eige.europa.eu/publications/gender-sensitive-
communication/test-your-knowledge
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYvWhzSKoc4

60. • 'Ce soir j'entre dans
l'histoire sans relever ma
jupe’.
• The line is from the play, La
nefdes sorcieres (1976),
translated as A Clash of Symbols
(Gaboriau 1979)
• In the play, there is a number of
figures of women, symbolizing
various roles women play/present
themselves

62. • The translation of 'Ce soir j'entre dans l'histoire sans relever ma
jupe’, 'tonight I shall enter history without lifting up my
skirt'.
• produced for performance on stage, was, "tonight I shall step
into history without opening my legs" (Gaboriau 1979:35).
• It was acclaimed as being particularly effective despite the fact
that it mistranslates, and overstates what Brossard, one of the
participating authors, actually wrote.
• The translation works dramatically, and strikes the listening
audience more forcefully than would the more careful
version, 'tonight I shall enter history without lifting up my
skirt'.

63. • Further, the reference to 'opening my legs' carries on
into the next line,
• 'I step into history opening my mouth not my legs',
i.e. speaking and making myself heard.
• For 1970s feminist writers, such as Mary Daly or France
Theoret, women live in exile in patriarchal language;
• punning expresses their pain, but it is also a way to
fight back.
• Translating puns, on the other hand, has proven to be a
form of 'punishment' in much feminist work.

64. the-rapist
bore-ocracy
womb-tomb
herstory
re(her)ality
Woman – woe-to-man
A school of etymology that says woman was formed because
she brought woe to man
Woman – wombman
The term is a compound of WOMB and MAN … thus making a
woman.
It is a person of mankind that has a womb
Silenced women
Sus(turul)an kadınlar
Ehlileş(tiril)en kadınlar
S/Müslüman

65. Rereading and Rewriting Translations
• Rewriting Existing Translations – The Bible

66. • Haugerud's solution is to use neutral and plural
pronouns in order to eliminate male bias.
• Another solution used whenever possible in both
translations is to repeat a name rather than
employ the masculine pronoun he.

67. • (Haugerud 1977:ii);
• "since God is beyond sex, just as God is beyond race or any
other limiting attribute" (Inclusive Language Lectionary,
Introduction).
• Instead, the Inclusive Language Lectionary uses phrases such as
'God the Sovereign One’,
• or more dramatically, 'God [the Mother] and Father',
• where 'the Mother' is bracketed in order both to emphasize the
addition, and make it optional in church communities unable to
accept such innovation.

68. •The argument given in the introduction for this
'Mother and Father' translation is that the
relationship which the Father/Son imagery of
the New Testament seeks to describe is that "of
Jesus being of the same substance as God".

69. Psychological bisexuality – all encompassing

70. •The phrase 'God the Mother
and Father' is thus an
attempt to remove male
bias from the descriptions
of God

72. • The point about the chauvinist patriarchal aspects of the
society in which many of the biblical texts originated is
doubtless true.
• It is, however, also true that over the course of one
thousand years of rewriting and translation by the
Church, these texts have been subject to 'patriarchal‘
translation.
• Feminist translators do not seek to change historical
fact, they want to overcome some of the patriarchal
excesses imposed on the Bible through translation.

74. • Original Book
• ‘‘When Mrs. Pontellier folded the letter, it was for her time for her to dress for the early dinner’’ (Kate Chopin,
Awakening, p.10)
• First Translation
• ‘‘Mrs. Pontellier mektubu katladığında, erken yenecek akşam yemeği için giyinmeye gitmesinin vakti gelmişti.’’
(Translated by Burcu Şahinli, p.6)
• Second Translation
• ‘‘Bayan Pontellier mektubu katlayıp ayaklandığında artık yemeği hazırlama vakti gelmişti.’’ (Translated by Buğra
Özmüldür, p.14)
• The English translation of the second translation is as follows:
• ‘‘When Mrs. Pontellier folded the letter and stood up, it was time to prepare the meal.’’

75. https://naarisamata.org/my-story/
https://dothegreenthing.com/issue/man-made-disaster-how-
patriarchy-is-ruining-the-planet/

78. • “Why does a MASTER wield authority, while a MISTRESS waits
patiently for her lover and master to come to her?” “Why are
CHEFS male, while most of the COOKS on this planet are
women”?

79. THANK YOU…