Abstract
This study is devoted to a critical review of the literary situation in Japan with respect to the way women are represented. Some studies propose that female characters are over-feminised in Japanese literature, whether original or translated. Indeed, this has been an established convention in the Japanese literary world since the late 19th century. Although scholars such as Nakamura (2007a) have investigated the link between gender ideology and women’s language, there have so far been few empirical analyses of these matters in translated texts. My study therefore provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis of some literary texts that were translated in the recent years and argues that the over-feminising convention has played a central part as a mediator of gender ideology in Japanese society.
