Falocentrismo e heteronormatividade na tradución: de como varren as mulleres e as lesbianas da historia cun golpe de penæ

Abstract

This transdisciplinary paper uses translation-based studies as a methodological tool for exploring the way translators seen as archetypicallanguage users can and do project socially dominant heterosexist norms masquerading as neutral interpretations via inappropriate language usage. The article specifically deals with andocentric language conventions which of necessity lead to gender and sexual stereotyping in general and heterosexism in particular. As well as analysing the way translation has been used quite consciously as a means of censuring non-malestream gender roles, especially female sexuality, within the theoretical framework of covert versus overt gender associated with the related concepts of semantic denotation and connotation, the article goes on to explore the way translation-based exercises using epicene and grammatical-gendered language pairs can be deployed as a way of bringing to the surface underlying preconceptions of which the translator cum language-user may not even be aware. On a broader level, the article shows that the implications that translation as a means of censuring not only socially marginalised sexualities but also as a means ofprojecting, wittingly or otherwise, a particular ideological world-view ofwhat is assumed to be normal and what is not, calling for a need to heighten translator awareness and responsibility regarding their own culturally and socially constrained expectations.