The Issue of Gender in Translation of Terms

Compared to translating from English to Chinese, translating from French to Chinese requires special attention to the issue of gender in nouns. As is well known, in French, many nouns have different spellings based on their masculine or feminine forms, such as "étudiant" for male students and "étudiante" for female students; "acteur" for male actors and "actrice" for female actors. However, in English and Chinese, one can use "student," "actor," "学生," and "演员" to refer to all genders without making corresponding changes based on the speaker's gender. This creates a dilemma in translation: when should we specifically indicate that this is a "female student" or "female actor," and when can we ignore this gender difference?

Many times, presenting the feminine and masculine forms of nouns indicating professions is to reflect the speaker's respect for gender equality in society and the workplace. For example, in emails sent to students by schools, it is common to start with "Etudiant,e,s," a practice that has become as ordinary in France as the famous opening "Ladies and Gentlemen." However, in English and Chinese contexts, people generally do not have such an expression habit and，默认职业称呼是不分性别的。 If we强行翻译为“男学生们，女学生们,” not only will it fail to achieve the purpose of indicating gender equality, but it may also draw excessive attention to gender. In this case, we can simply refer to them as "students."

There is also the case of the pronouns "celle" and "celles" referring to people, meaning "that woman" and "those women." For example, in the sentence "À celle qui m'a porté, à celles qui m'ont supporté," when translating into English, one can choose not to emphasize gender and translate it as "To the person who gave me birth and to those who supported me," or one can highlight the "female" identity and translate it as "To the woman who gave me birth and to those women who supported me." In the current context, the second translation method should be preferred. Firstly, in the first half of the sentence, "To the person who gave me birth," the action of "giving birth" can only be completed by women, so it is acceptable to directly translate it as "to the one who bore me." However, in the second half of the sentence, the action of "supporting" can be performed by both men and women, and since the speaker uses "celles" instead of "ceux," it indicates that the group he refers to does not include men. Therefore, this sentence should be translated into Chinese as "To the woman who gave birth to me, and to the women who supported me."

There are many similar examples, but there is usually no universal rule to guide us on when to emphasize gender and when to use a general term in specific contexts. This requires us to analyze each issue on a case-by-case basis. This is also a point that needs special attention when translating from French to English and Chinese.

◀️：Translation

▶️：Exploring the Differences in Expressions between Chinese and English from Context and Word Order