On The Translation Of Cultural Information In Traditional Chinese Medicine: From The Memetics Perspective

Traditional Chinese medicine, abbreviated as TCM, originated in Chinese culture thousands of years ago. Its concepts, theories and clinical practice have accumulated profoundly and blended with Chinese culture in perfect harmony, which carries humanity factors such as philosophy, ethics and literature as well as medicine. TCM and its specific culture have always been regarded as the quintessence of our country as well as a valuable contribution of Chinese culture to that of the world. Nowadays TCM has gained increasing attention from all over the world, stimulating more and more experts and scholars in medical fields to study and do scientific researches on TCM. Internationalization of TCM has become a necessary trend and translation is a bridge to propagate TCM in the world.In light of the previous studies both in China and abroad, it can be said that the previous studies of translation of TCM mainly focus on linguistic level with the different methods and principles adopted as well as the medical information concerned, but the cross-cultural features are seldom concerned. As for the topic in question, this thesis attempts to explore the TCM translation from the perspective of memetics, a new cultural transmission theory.Memetics is a newly-born theory based on Darwin's biological evolution theory, which devotes to the study of human culture and to the study whether there exists a gene-like unit in the cultural transmission. The most nuclear terminology of memetics is meme which acts as a unit of cultural information and plays a significant role in the development of human languages. Under some particular conditions, a meme may be disseminated from the source culture to the target one by means of translation. During the process of transmitting the TCM memes with Chinese characteristics to the English world, translation plays a very important role. A meme's replication and variation make us deal with the source text flexibly so as to make the TCM memes infiltrate into the English TCM meme pool and be accepted widely. The research puts forth that during the cross-cultural translation, we can choose memetic phenotype, memetic genotype and intertextuality as the means to deal with the TCM cultural information.Hong Lou Meng is called "an encyclopedia" in feudal China and concludes abundant medical knowledge which is unique in the history of literary in China and abroad. This thesis attempts to provide a new insight for the complicated relationship between TCM memes and its culture with the examples from Hong Lou Meng, translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang and David Hawkes and John Minford. The research shows that the translation of TCM memes as well as the transmission of TCM culture is a progressive process in which the original linguistic and cultural traits will be gradually uncovered in English world. It is hoped that the present thesis may give some suggestions on how to treat the culture memes in the course of TCM translation and to make some contributions to the further study of memetics theory.Apart from an introduction and a conclusion, this thesis consists of four chapters.Introduction points out the significance of this research and makes a general survey over TCM translation at home and abroad.Chapter One is a general review of TCM translation, including its necessity and translation history. And its main problems existing in current TCM terminology translation have been mentioned in this chapter.Chapter Two analyzes the specific linguistic features of TCM as well as the two main difficulties in TCM translation:cultural differences and linguistic differences between TCM and Western medicine. Considering of the main problems and difficulties existing in current TCM translation, the author attempts to apply memetics theory to instruct TCM translation.Chapter Three offers a theoretical framework to TCM translation, with the introduction of the basic theory of memetics. The replicating stages, transmitting means and measurements for a successful meme transmission have been discussed. In the proceeding part, it deals the relationship between language memes, culture and translation from memetics perspective. It suggests we use memetic phenotype, memetic genotype and intertextuality as the means to deal with the cultural information while translating TCM memes.Chapter Four is a case study attempting to apply memetics theory to the translation and transmission of TCM knowledge as well as TCM culture. It offers a detailed analysis in translation of some basic concepts, Chinese herbs, prescriptions and pulses with examples from Hong Lou Meng which concludes abundant medical knowledge.Then in the conclusion part of this thesis, the author draws a conclusion that the translation of TCM memes as well as the transmission of TCM cultural traits is going to be gradually uncovered in the English world. The author puts forth some suggestions for a TCM translator. Lastly, it is hoped that this research can provide new insight for the study of TCM translation and to enrich the memetics as well.