Adaptation And Selection:An Eco-Translatological Approach To The Classic Of Tea

Adopting the similarity and isomorphism between translational eco-environment and ecological eco-environment, eco-translatology enlarges the context into translational eco-environment, and systemically explores a series of translation issues such as "what is translation", "who is to translate", "how to translate" and "why to translate". This theory conducts translation studies from a general view while considering the details as well. It not only stresses on the comprehensiveness of translation studies but also lays emphasis on concrete translating approaches, making the theoretical framework an all-around research paradigm. In addition, memetics is applied jointly here to explore the features and transmission of memes as "information gene units," studying the relations between meme and language, translation, and communication. As far as language study is concerned, the foundation and development of memetics provide an unique angle for both horizontal and perpendicular study of language, making language study visualizable and cognitive. Based on the two theories, the author puts forward an integrated model for translation studies, against which translation is perceived as inter-lingual transmitting process based on adaptation to the translational eco-environment of both the source language memes and the cultural memes’. By virtue of this schema, the research takes The Classic of Tea and its English translation as corpus, and adopts the viewpoints "translator centeredness", "adaptation and selection" and "translational eco-environment". to interpret features of successful translation memes and summarize corresponding translation strategies and methods so that it can provide a new angle for other tea classics’translation studies and practices.This research totally includes five chapters:Chapter One is introduction in which the research background, purposes, significance, methodology, difficulties and structure are introduced.The next chapter reviews previous translation studies home and abroad on The Classic of Tea, eco-translatology and memetics. Based on the review, the innovation of this research becomes clearer.Chapter Three is the theoretical framework in which relevant theoretical viewpoints are introduced and a schema for the case study is built up.Chapter Four is the main body part. In this chapter, a muti-dimensional analysis of the translational eco-environment of The Classic of Tea is carried out, and then a detailed interpretation of the translator’s adaptation and selection for the translation and the inter-lingual transmission of translation memes is conducted.At last, the author concludes the whole thesis and indicates the following conclusions: the feasibility and practicality of applying the two theories into the translation studies of The Classic of Tea is proved; the translation strategies and methods are summarized; the experience for successfully transmitting memes is concluded; and the translator’s responsibilities are specially pointed out. All in all, it is hoped that this research could offer some inspiration for other scholars and make due contribution to the career of tea classics.