Abstract
The early twentieth century witnessed both the thriving of Chinese newspapers in the British colony Hong Kong and the boom of Chinese translation of foreign literature. This article, through the translated literature in Chinese newspapers, explores the interaction among print media, Chinese women, and translation in the early twentieth century Hong Kong. It argues that many factors contributed to the prevailing ideology concerning women in the British colony, including the skewed sex ratio, Confucianism as the hegemonic ideology, and the conspiracy between elite Chinese and the colonial rulers, and thus that the manipulation of images of women in Chinese translations was ideologically motivated. Such pervasive ideology characteristic of Hong Kong at that given moment in history undoubtedly created pressures on the translators, which were exacerbated by the difference in the construction of the images of women in the English original and its Chinese translated counterparts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 270-283 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Media History |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2013 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
The early draft of this paper was presented at the International Conference on ‘Empire State of Mind: Articulations of British Culture in the Empire, 1707–1997’ held at Lingnan University of Hong Kong between May 25 and 27, 2011. The author is grateful to the audience for their comments. The author also takes this opportunity to express gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and detailed comments. Dr Mark Hampton's continuous encouragement and his input in the final stage are highly appreciated.Keywords
- Hong Kong Chinese newspapers
- Images of women
- Manipulation
- Translation