On C-E Translation Strategies Of Political Texts From The Perspective Of Memetics

Political texts are not only the embodiment of China’s attitude and standpoint but also a carrier of Chinese culture.With the further promotion of Chinese culture“Going Global” strategy,translating and delivering the cultural connotations in political texts accurately matter greatly to the construction of national image and confidence in Chinese culture,and to the expansion of international influence of Chinese culture.Translation of political texts can be seen as an information exchange activity across languages and cultures.A meme is a unit of cultural information and can be transmitted through replication.Likewise,cultural elements in political texts can also be defined as memes.This paper refers to the classification of culture of Nida,combines four stages of meme replication and selection criteria for memes put forward by Heylighen with Chesterman’s translation strategies to analyze the translation strategies for cultural elements in Xi Jinping: The Governance of China Ⅱ.There are three questions to be answered.First,what memes are contained in Xi Jinping: The Governance of China Ⅱ ? Second,what translation strategies are adopted to translate these memes? Third,how do these translation strategies affect the transmission and fitness of these memes?Through a detailed case study,here come the findings.(1)According to Nida’s classification of culture,four types of memes can be found in Xi Jinping: The Governance of China Ⅱ,namely material,ecological,social and linguistic memes,among which material and ecological memes are endowed with relatively fixed metaphorical meanings.Besides,social memes are the products of particular times,and linguistic memes cover the largest proportion,mainly including allusions and proverbs.(2)Each kind of memes is translated by certain translation strategies.Literal translation and trope change are adopted to translate material and ecological memes.Trope change and cultural filtering are preferred for social memes.And translation strategies for linguistic memes are more complex,including literal translation,unit shift,cohesion change,trope change,emphasis change,paraphrase,cultural filtering and partial translation.(3)Translation strategies show various influences on the transmission and fitness of memes.Grammatical strategies adjust memes’ internal structure to make the logic self-justified and simple,thus retaining the distinctiveness of memes,and attracting readers’ attention to Chinese culture.Additionally,semantic strategies deliver memes with complicated connotations directly,which accords with the simplicity and consistency criteria and reduces the cognitive burden of readers.At last,pragmatic strategies choose familiar items in the target language to match those in source language,which strengthens the affectivity and consistency as well as facilitates the understanding and retaining.Finally,it contributes to the expression of memes and improves their fitness in the new culture.