Talking Translation: Is Gender an Issue?

It is a well-known fact that most translators are women and it is a fact which is often mentioned in translation discourse: translation is a so-called female occupation. But is this also a relevant fact and in which ways? In this article we aim to investigate how male and female translators talk about their occupation and whether gender is a relevant factor in how translators perceive their work. Our data consists of 18 narratives written by 9 male and 9 female non-literary professional translators who have been asked to write about their occupation as translators (in a semi-structured way). The data will be analysed and our findings structured by means of Greimas’ actantial model. A general conclusion is that whereas male and female translators choose to talk about the same themes they sometimes talk about them in different ways emphasising different aspects.