A Memetic Perspective On The Translation Of Cultural Vacancies In Bonsall’s English Version Of Hong Lou Meng

Memetics is a theory that studies cultural replication and transmission. Richard Dawkins, a famous zoologist in Oxford University, first proposes the word "meme". Meme is considered as the things that could spread through the way of imitation and replication in a non-biology way. Memetics provides a new perspective to view the relationship between translation and cultural transmission. Andrew Chesterman is the first person who introduces memetics into translation study. Translation is of great significance for cultural transmission, but cultural vacancy exists as a barrier in the process of translation for the successful cross-cultural communication. Many scholars are concerned with how to properly solve this problem in order to transmit original information equivalently. The author attempts to make a study of the translation of cultural vacancy in Bonsall’s version of Hong Lou Meng. This thesis mainly includes the study of language-linked vacancies, communicative vacancies, and cultural vacancies caused by discourse structures.Under the guidance of basic memetic principles and Chesterman’s translation memetics and for the purpose of meme transmission, this thesis preliminarily focuses on cultural vacancy in translation and the manner that memes are replicated to break cultural barriers in the foreign cultures aiming at discovering the style of Bonsall’s translation and the reasons for his utilization of related translation strategies.Nowadays, scholars both from home and abroad have paid much attention to the study of the translation of Hong Lou Meng’s translation and to the transmission of traditional Chinese culture in Hong Lou Meng’s translation. However, little attention has been devoted to the study of Bonsall’s version, which predominantly preserves and presents the linguistic features and thought patterns of traditional Chinese culture. This study discusses the strategies for dealing with cultural vacancy by Bonsall, who basically solves this problem by transmitting the literal meaning. A lot of annotations in this translation are conductive to the popularization of Chinese traditional culture. This thesis analyzes the translation of Hong Lou Meng from a new angle for further popularization of Bonsall’s version of Hong Lou Meng and puts forward some suggestions for the effective handling of cultural vacancy in translation.