Thesis Abstract and Dissertation Abstracts
Cross-dressing In Chinese Classics And Their English Versions
Abstract Category: Arts
Course / Degree: PhD in Applied Linguistics (Module Two, Paper Two)
Institution / University: The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Published in: 2010
Cross-dressing, or the act of adopting the role and many of the cutoms of the opposite gender, "implies different things in different cultures and has been viewed historically in widely varying ways." (Bullough and Bullough, 1993:3) To reveal the different attitudes and ideological assumptions about sex and gender in Western and Chinese cultures, I examine the portrayals of cross-dressing in three well-known Chinese stories: The Ballad of Mulan (500 - 600 A.D.), The Butterfly Lovers (850 - 880 A.D.), and Censored by Confucius: Ghost Stories (1788), as well as the representations in their English adaptations and translations.
From the comparative study, it is found that cross-dressing rarely "reveals the imitative structure of gender itself," (1999: 175) as Judith Butler suggests. In fact, in most texts, Chinese or English, the cross-dressing motif often serves to reinforce and confirm the existing distinctions between male and female, masculine and feminine, gay and straight. What is also noticeable is that in most English interpretations and translations, the representations of cross-dressing become more conservative and less 'problematic'. In almost all cases, the effect of the potentially subversive gender reversal is reduced.
Thesis Keywords/Search Tags:
adaptation, cross-dressing, gender, subversion, translation
This Thesis Abstract may be cited as follows:
Tso, Wing Bo. (2010). Cross-dressing in Chinese classics and Tteir English versions. Doctoral thesis (module two, paper two). Birmingham, U.K.: The University of Birmingham.
Submission Details: Thesis Abstract submitted by Wing Bo TSO from Hong Kong on 03-Jan-2012 07:31.
Abstract has been viewed 3555 times (since 7 Mar 2010).
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