Abstract:
This thesis concerns the translation and analysis of six texts regarding the arrest and detention of five Chinese feminists, known as the Feminist Five, in March 2015.
The first text is a news article by the Chinese journalist and activist Zhao Sile, which describes the events that led to the arrest, detention and release of the five feminist activists and also their previous effort in social initiatives in the framework of the re-emerging Chinese feminist activism. It furthermore describes the international and local campaigns of support that spread out after their arrest and that led the authorities to release them after 37 days of detention. The other five texts are five letters of thanks written by the five activists after they had regained their freedom, published by the online newspaper chinadigitaltimes.net, just like the news article.
In order to give further understanding of the topic of this dissertation, the translations are preceded by an introductive chapter that describes the history of the Chinese feminist movement, starting from an excursus on the society’s transformations regarding women’s rights during the 70s and 80s, which is necessary to better comprehend the current situation and the governmental policies about these matters. The chapter than focuses on the changes brought about by the UN World Conference on Women in 1995 and the following growth of non-governmental organizations and then analyses Xi Jinping’s policies in regards to women’s rights as well as the authorities’ censorship. Finally, the chapter describes the background of the Feminist Five, their arrest and its consequences.
The second chapter is dedicated to the translations of the six texts, while the final one consists in a commentary where the translator describes the main characteristics of the texts, the problems of the translation process and strategies adopted in order to solve them. Because the five letters of thanks share the same typology and the same textual genre, they are analyzed all together , while a separated commentary is dedicated to the news article, because of the fact that it responds to more defined stylistic criteria.
