Domestication And Foreignization In The Translation Of The Report On The Work Of The Government In2011from A Memetic Perspective

As an important means to reveal China’s policies and strategies, the Report onthe Work of the Government has been translated into a number of different languages.And its English version is of high research value. The Report on the Work of theGovernment involves political and economic words or expressions with specificChinese characteristics, which makes it more significant in promoting China’sinternational image and advancing exchanges and cooperation with other nations.The discussion on domestication and foreignization is not a novel topic,however, with the rapid development in academic studies as well as the culturalblending, we can still explore relatively new entry for further study and analysis.Memetics is a theory th at aims to explain cultural laws in accordance with Darwin’sevolutionary view. After introducing to Ch ina, me metics has become more and morepopular and has been applied in a variety of fields.The language itself can be deemed as a system consisting of me mes. Hence, theReport on the Wo rk of the Government is equally a kind of meme. This thesisdiscusses the translation of the Report on th e Wo rk of the Government and focuses onthe domestication and foreignization strategies fr om the perspective of memetics. Through the study and analysis in this thesis, we can come to the followingconclusion: in the translation of RWG, domestication translation seeks in the Englishlanguage the expressions similar to the core memes in the Chinese to increase thereadability of the translated text and the acceptance of the target culture, whileforeignization translation faithfully replicates memes in Chinese, retains the originalflavor and exoticism of the source language and fulfills the target culture. At thebeginning of memes transmission, domestication translation is indispensable, whileforeignization translation is likely to be more frequent and prevalent as the closeintegration of languages and cultures worldwide.