Abstract:

This article, focusing on Turkish and English, explores various intersections between feminist translation and feminist sociolinguistics to bring the fields into conversation and expand their intellectual and geopolitical scopes. The first section discusses the broad historical points of connection by concentrating on the critiques of sexist language. Thus, it demonstrates how the fields share a common feminist politics of language. This intersection is illustrated by an example from my Turkish translation of Hanne Blank’s Virgin. The second section explores a more specific alliance by examining feminist critiques and manipulations of pro/nominal gender systems. This discussion is supported by more examples from my translation, as well as examples from Cemile Çakır’s Turkish translation of Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. The last section provides feminist sociolinguistics and translation teachers with ideas on how interdisciplinary cooperations can expand students’ political awareness of gender/sexuality dynamics with regard to language and translation. The significance of this intersection is demonstrated by a translation experiment.

Author: Emek Ergün