Gender Issues in Translation Studies: A Systematic Literature Review

This study aims to examine the prevalence and trend of research on gender issues in translation studies. Translation scholars have explored gender issues since the 1990s. However, a systematic literature review of the current trends and research foci in this field is lacking. Hence, the present paper is to fill in this gap based on the PRISMA framework.This study uses a systematic approach to review 73 articles on gender issues in recent translation studies. Web of Science and Scopus are the two databases used to retrieve data. All searches spanned from 2016 to 2020 and included journal articles published in English only. According to the publication year, the data are appraised and synthesized, research contexts, and research methods to suggest research trends. Research foci were also examined based on critical appraisal of the research objectives and categorized into five topics and seven sub-topics. Findings show that the number of articles on translation and mediation of gender portrayals in literary translation has significantly increased over the last five years, especially in translating gender-stereotypical portrayals. Nonetheless, there is still room for improvement in several aspects. For instance, to put gender stereotypes in a theoretical framework to explore the gender cultural differences in translation. The study findings provide significant implications and directions for translation researchers to conduct interdisciplinary studies on gender issues and translation studies. Additionally, the research in the translation of gender stereotypical portrayals in literary texts will provide implications for research on the translation of gender stereotypes in non-literary texts.