Cover not available

Article published In: Target
Vol. 37:3 (2025) ► pp.384–413

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Beyond conformity and empowerment

Redefining Jo March in early Chinese translations of Little Women

ORCiD logo with link | Dalian University of Technology
ORCiD logo with link | Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Published online: 14 July 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.23113.tao
Abstract
Jo March, the protagonist of the classic Little Women, has often been viewed as a ‘creative intellectual’ in pursuit of a literary career. While Jo has attracted scholarly attention across different disciplines, research on her portrayal in early Chinese translations during the New Culture Movement (a critical period marked by the introduction of Western ideologies in China) is limited. Adopting Culpeper, Jonathan, and Carolina Fernandez-Quintanilla. 2017. “Fictional Characterization.” In Pragmatics of Fiction, edited by Miriam A. Locher and Andreas H. Jucker, 93–128. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar characterization model, this article aims to investigate how the iconoclastic protagonist was reconstructed in the two earliest Chinese translations. It utilizes a mixed model that encompasses textual aspects of narratorial and translatorial control, self-/other-presentation, and explicitness/implicitness, demonstrating that Jo was portrayed as a demure lady in the 1920s and as a masculine woman in the 1930s, shaped by prevailing ideologies, poetics, and patronage. Integrating narratology and cognitive stylistics within Descriptive Translation Studies, the research sheds light on the dynamic interplay between cultural ideologies and literary representations.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Jo March: A character of ambivalence
    • 2.2Translations and re-characterization of Little Women
    • 2.3Characterization
  • 3.Theoretical framework and methodology
    • 3.1Theoretical framework of the study
    • 3.2Methodology and research design
  • 4.Data analysis
    • 4.1Prior knowledge in ST and TT
    • 4.2Characterization cues
      • 4.2.1Narratorial/translatorial control
      • 4.2.2Self-/other-presentation
      • 4.2.3Explicitness/implicitness
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1The changing image of Jo March in the early Chinese translations: From conformity to empowerment
    • 5.2Explanation for the re-characterization of Jo March
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (97)
References
Abate, Michelle A. 2008. Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adams, Michael. 2017. “The Pragmatics of Estrangement in Fantasy and Science Fiction.” In Pragmatics of Fiction, edited by Locher A. Miriam and Jucker H. Andreas, 329–363. New York: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alberghene, Janice M., and Beverly Lyon Clark. 2013. Little Women and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alcott, Louisa May. 1880. Little Women. Global Grey Ebooks. Accessed August 8, 2021. [URL]
. 1925. 四姊妹. Orig. Little Women. Translated by Sung Tsing Ying and Martha E. Pyle. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society for China.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1927. 贤妻模范. Orig. Good Wives. Translated by Sung Tsing Ying and Martha E. Pyle. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society for China.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1933. 小妇人. Orig. Little Women. Translated by Zheng Xiaocang. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1935. 好妻子. Orig. Good Wives. Translated by Zheng Xiaocang. Shanghai: Chinese Science Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Little Women. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, Kristin J., and Campbell Leaper. 1998. “Meta-Analyses of Gender Effects on Conversational Interruption: Who, What, When, Where, and How.” Sex Roles 39 (3): 225–252. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anthony, Laurence. 2022. AntConc (Version 4.0.10). [URL]
Auerbach, Nina. 2013. “Waiting Together: Alcott on Matriarchy.” In Little Women and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays, edited by Janice M. Alberghene and Beverly L. Clark, 7–26. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bailey, Paul J. 2012. Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century China. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bedell, Madelon. 1983. “Introduction.” In Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, ix–lv. New York: Modern Library.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beijing Library. 1987. 民国时期总书目 [Bibliography of Republican-era publications]. Beijing: Bibliography and Document Publishing House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burnett, Frances H. 1914. 小公主. Orig. Sara Crewe. Translated by Laura M. White and Chou Tsai-Lan. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society for China.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Busse, Beatrix. 2020. Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation in a Corpus of Nineteenth-Century English Narrative Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen R. 1987. “Reported Speech in Written Narrative Texts.” In Discussing Discourse, edited by Malcolm Coulthard, 149–167. Birmingham: University of Birmingham.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chinese Dictionary Compilation Office. 1948. 国语辞典 [Chinese dictionary]. Shanghai: Commercial Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
CLS. 1921. The Thirty-Fourth Annual Report of the Christian Literature Society for China. Shanghai: Shanghai Mercury Limited.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1928. 广学会出版书目 [Publication list of CLS]. Shanghai: CLS.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croll, Elisabeth. 1978. Feminism and Socialism in China. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Language and Characterization: People in Plays and Other Texts. 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Carolina Fernandez-Quintanilla. 2017. “Fictional Characterization.” In Pragmatics of Fiction, edited by Miriam A. Locher and Andreas H. Jucker, 93–128. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Defoe, Daniel. 1923. 库若索探险记. Orig. Robinson Crusoe. Translated by Isaac Mason. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society for China.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Desmet, Mieke K. 2007. Babysitting the Reader: Translating English Narrative Fiction for Girls into Dutch (1946–1995). Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ding, Ling. 1931. 一个人的诞生 [Birth of a person]. Shanghai: Crescent Moon Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Doleželová-Velingerová, Milena, Oldřich Král, and Graham Sanders. 2020. The Appropriation of Cultural Capital: China’s May Fourth Project. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dollase, Hiromi Tsuchiya. 2010. “Shōfujin (Little Women): Recreating Jo for the Girls of Meiji Japan.” Japanese Studies 30 (2): 247–262. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eder, Jens, Fotis Jannidis, and Ralf Schneider. 2010. “An Introduction.” In Characters in Fictional Worlds, edited by Jens Eder, Fotis Jannidis, and Ralf Schneider, 3–66. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eiselein, Gregory, and Anne K. Phillips. 2019. “The Newness of Little Women.” Women’s Studies 48 (4): 363–365. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eysenck, Michael W., and Mark T. Keane. 2005. Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. NY: Psychology Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feng, Jin. 2004. The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feng, Keng, and Shu Luo. 1998. 红的日记 [Hong’s diary]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fishman, Pamela M. 1980. “Conversational Insecurity.” In Language: Social Psychological Perspectives, edited by Howard Giles, Peter Robinson, and Philip Smith, 127–132. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fu, Rengan. 1933. “小妇人 [Little women].” Huanian 2 (48): 956–957.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gao, Yunxiang. 2006. “Nationalist and Feminist Discourses on Jianmei (Robust Beauty) during China’s ‘National Crisis’ in the 1930s.” Gender & History 18 (3): 546–573. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gilmartin, Christina K. 1995. Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women, Communist Politics, and Mass Movements in the 1920s. London: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giugliano, Marcello, and Elia Hernández Socas. 2019. “Ambivalence, Gender, and Censorship in Two Spanish Translations of Little Women.” Meta 64 (2): 312–333. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gu, Mingdong. 2019. Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hanks, Patrick, Kate Hardcastle, and Flavia Hodges. 2006. A Dictionary of First Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet. 2006. Gendered Talk at Work: Constructing Gender Identity through Workplace Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hui, Qun. 1928. 女性与文学 [Women and literature]. Shanghai: Qizhi Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
IBM Corp. 2010. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 27.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jannidis, Fotis. 2009. “Character.” In Handbook of Narratology, edited by Peter Hühn, Jan C. Meister, John Pier, and Wolf Schmid, 14–29. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kent, Kathryn R. 2003. Making Girls into Women. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kruger, Haidee. 2011. “Exploring a New Narratological Paradigm for the Analysis of Narrative Communication in Translated Children’s Literature.” Meta 56 (4): 812–832. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuhn, Annette. 1994. The Women’s Companion to International Film. California: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kwok, Pui-Lan. 1996. “Chinese Women and Protestant Christianity at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” In Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, edited by Daniel H. Bays, 194–208. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lathey, G. 2016. Translating Children’s Literature. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Le Brun, C. 2003. “De Little Women de Louisa May Alcott aux Quatre Filles du Docteur March: Les traductions Françaises d’un roman de formation au féminin [From Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women to Doctor March’s Four Girls: French translations of the women’s formative novel].” Meta 48 (1–2): 47–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Tzu-yi. 2018. “Communicative Functions and Characterization in the Chinese Graphic Novel Adaptations of Little Women.” Linguistica Antverpiensia 171: 58–70.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey N., and Mick Short. 2007. Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. 2nd ed. London: Pearson Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lefevere, André. 2017. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Dechao. 2019. “The Dramatization of Characterization in the Literary Translations of the 1910s in China.” In Translating Chinese Arts and Modern Literature, edited by Yifeng Sun and Chris Song, 54–79. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lu, Xiaofei. 2008. “Improving Part-of-Speech Guessing of Chinese Unknown Words Using Hybrid Models.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 13 (2): 169–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Margolin, Uri. 1983. “Characterization in Narrative: Some Theoretical Prolegomena.” Neophilologus 67 (1): 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1989. “Structuralist Approaches to Character in Narrative: The State of the Art.” Semiotica 75 (1–2): 1–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, James R., and Peter R. White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mastropierro, Lorenzo L. 2020. “The Translation of Reporting Verbs in Italian: The Case of the Harry Potter Series.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 25 (3): 241–269. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McDermott, Shawna. 2019. “The Tomboy Tradition: Taming Adolescent Ambition from 1869 to 2018.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 44 (2): 134–155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MED (Middle English Dictionary). n.d. “Gọ̄d wīf.” Accessed September 18, 2021. [URL]
Meret, Susi. 2015. “Charismatic Female Leadership and Gender: Pia Kjærsgaard and the Danish People’s Party.” Patterns of Prejudice 49 (1–2): 81–102. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montoro, Rocío. 2012. Chick Lit: The Stylistics of Cappuccino Fiction. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor. 1997. “Indexing Gender.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, edited by Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin, 335–358. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
OED (Online Oxford English Dictionary). n.d. “Little woman.” Accessed September 7, 2021. [URL]
Petersen, Sharyl B., and Mary A. Lach. 1990. “Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Books: Their Prevalence and Influence on Cognitive and Affective Development.” Gender and Education 2 (2): 185–197. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Proehl, Kristen B. 2018. Battling Girlhood: Sympathy, Social Justice, and the Tomboy Figure in American Literature. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quimby, Karin. 2003. “The Story of Jo: Literary Tomboys, Little Women, and the Sexual-Textual Politics of Narrative Desire.” GLQ 10 (1): 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rayson, Paul. 2021. Wmatrix5 system. [URL]
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. 2005. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rioux, Anne B. 2018. Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruano San Segundo, Pablo. 2016. “A Corpus-Stylistic Approach to Dickens’ Use of Speech Verbs: Beyond Mere Reporting.” Language and Literature 25 (2): 113–129. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shanghai Education Bureau. 1932. “介绍郑晓沧译小妇人 [Introduction to Little Women translated by Zheng Xiaocang].” Education Weekly 1741: 8.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shealy, Daniel. 2019. “‘Wedding Marches’: Louisa May Alcott, Marriage, and the Newness of Little Women.” Women’s Studies 48 (4): 366–378. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spees, Lisa P. 2014. Missionary Women in China: Changing China, Changing Themselves. Atlanta: Emory University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trites, Roberta S. 2009. Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel. Iowa: University of Iowa Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van de Weijer, Jeroen, Ren Guangyuan, Joost van de Weijer, Wei Weiyun, and Wang Yumeng. 2020. “Gender Identification in Chinese Names.” Lingua 2341: 1–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun Adrianus, and Walter Kintsch. 1983. Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. Cambridge: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Varotsi, Lina. 2019. Conceptualisation and Exposition: A Theory of Character Construction. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, Megan, and Conrad Perry. 2022. “It’s the Words You Use and How You Say Them: Electrophysiological Correlates of the Perception of Imitated Masculine Speech.” Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 37 (1): 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wamitila, Kyallo W. 1999. “What’s in a Name: Towards Literary Onomastics in Kiswahili Literature.” AAP 601: 35–44.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weinsheimer, Joel. 1979. “Theory of Character: Emma.” Poetics Today 1 (1–2): 185–211. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, M. Laura. 1912. “圣玛革锐图说 [The lessons of St. Margaret].” Nü To Pao 2 (1): 1–3.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xu, Renhan. 1962. “申报七十七年史料 [Historical records of Shun Pao in 77 years].” Shanghai: Shanghai Archival Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zeven, Katinka, and Aletta G. Dorst. 2021. “A Beautiful Little Fool? Retranslating Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.” Perspectives 29 (5): 1–15. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Tianyi. 1932. “大林和小林 [Dalin and Xiaolin].” Beidou 2 (1): 96–114.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Yun. 2015. “Nationalism and Beyond: Writings on Nüjie and the Emergence of a New Gendered Collective Identity in Modern China.” Nan Nü 17 (2): 245–275. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhao, Minru, and Li, Dechao. 2021. “Translator Positioning in Characterisation: A Corpus-based Study of English Translations of Luotuo Xiangzi.” Perspectives 30 (6): 1074–1096. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zheng, Xiaocang. 1932. “今日教育的根干事业 [The essential enterprise of education today].” Popular Education Quarterly 1 (2): 1–3.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zheng, Zhenduo. 2016. “儿童读物问题 [On children’s books].” In Collection and Commentary on Children Literature of Republican China, edited by Quangen Wang, 131–134. Taiyuan: Xiwang Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zipes, Jack. 2012. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue