The images of women in translation in Hong Kong Chinese newspapers in the early twentieth century : a case study of the Chinese translation of the brotherhood of the seven kings in Yousuowei Bao (1905-1906)

The colonial culture cannot be fully articulated without translation in the colonies, and paradoxically mistranslation and misrepresentation are prevalent in the process of intercultural translation. This applies to Hong Kong scenarios in terms of literary translation in the early 20th century. The feudal ethical codes confined Chinese women at home, and the social inequality between the two sexes was immanent in Hong Kong at that time. When translating women images in popular English detective stones into Chinese, the male translators) struggle ed between introducing western women images and abiding to the feudal ethical codes. This article studies the women images in the Chinese translation of English detective stories in Hong Kong newspapers in the early 20th century. Textual analysis reveals the manipulation and manhandling of women images in the Chinese renditions. The immanent cause behind such rewriting is exponentially expounded with reference to the population composition, sex ratios, educational attainment, and occupational distribution.