Preserving Of The Foreign In Translation-from The Perspective Of Memetic Selection And Norm Theory

Communication has been fostering translation, either interpretation or translation, through which, the foreign elements in the source language (text) may be absorbed by and preserved in the target language and vice versa. The degrees that the foreign elements are accepted by the target language are different. Some are completely transplanted into the target language; some are partly accepted; and some penetrate into the target language in a progressive way. Memetics is a newly-born theory devoted to the study of cultural transmission, with the focus on the study of whether there exists a gene-like unit in the cultural evolution. As for the topic in question, the thesis attempts to explore the law of the patterns of preserving of the foreign from the perspective of memetic selection criteria in light of norm theory, for the source text and the target text are products of norms in different cultures.This thesis argues that translation is an activity of transmitting the foreign memes from the source language to the target language, during which not all the memes in the source language can survive in its long course of transmission and be accepted by the target culture. The survival of the foreign memes is up to the two factors: first, a successful meme must stand the selection criteria in the four memetic transmission stages; second, the foreign memes must be accepted by the target language norms.With the combination of theory about memetic selection criteria and norm theory, the author puts forward two patterns of preserving of the foreign memes: authoritative memes and non-authoritative memes. The former, being of authority over the receptors in the target language and conforming to the authority criterion in the memetic transmission, tend to be translated literally, with the translated text moving to the norms of the source language. Therefore, the foreign memes can be remarkably preserved in the target culture. Certainly, due to different times, places, cultures etc, the degrees that the authoritative memes can be preserved in the target culture are different. The selection criteria change diachronically, which results in the modifications in the norms accordingly. The interactions between the two will lead to changes in attitudes that the target culture holds toward the foreign memes. In other words, the acceptance of the foreign memes in the latter is in a progressive way.The research is a tentative macro-study of the law of preserving of the foreign, but the real situations are much more complicated. What the research expects is to make some suggestions on how to treat the foreign in the course of translation and to make some contributions to the study of norm theory.