A Study On The Translation Of Chinese Culture-Specific Items From The Perspective Of Memetics

The5000-year history and the magnificent culture of China are most vividly reflected in countless Chinese culture-specific items (hereafter CSIs), which are frequently quoted or used by speakers, authors or narrators in their speeches, books and stories. The understanding of Chinese CSIs undoubtedly plays an important part in the understanding of Chinese culture, not only for Chinese people, but also for those foreigner friends who are interested in China. But it is widely acknowledged that the translation of Chinese CSIs into English or other languages is very difficult due to different linguistic structures or value systems of two cultures. Many Chinese CSIs like“草木皆兵、箭在弦上、司马昭之心,路人皆知,etc." contain much connotative meaning and cultural background which cannot be easily explained. Given this circumstance, the author attempts to study Chinese CSIs and the translation of Chinese CSIs in this thesis, in order to make items with Chinese characteristics known to people in the west, which is essential for the spreading and understanding of Chinese culture.Although researches on Chinese CSIs and their translation are not in small number, most of them are restricted to the discussion of whether the translation of CSIs should be more acceptable by target language readers, or more faithful to the original text. And the theories applied are restricted to a number of translation theories like: dynamic equivalence, Skopos theory, etc. This thesis, however, intends to look at the issue from a brand-new angle—Memetics. Memetic theory is built on Darwin’s classic thought of Evolutionism. Evolutionism is about the survival and evolution of creatures on earth, while memetics is all about the evolution and transmission of human culture. The core idea of memetics is meme, the basic transmission unit of culture. Since it was born, Memetics has attracted lots of attention from scholars in different research fields, like sociology, linguistics, cultural transmission and translation. Those scholars have found out the great power of memetics in explaining facts and problems that are hard to understand. Thus, this thesis tries to combine the theory with the translation of CSIs, hoping it will shed some light on the research of translation of Chinese CSIs.Under the perspective of memetics, any Chinese CSI and its translated version can be viewed as memes, and the whole process of Chinese-English translation of CSIs is a process of meme transmission between the two languages. All translators have to do is to make sure the transmission will be a successful one. In this thesis, the author have collected the transcripts of five years’speeches of former premier Zhu Rongji made during China’s NPC and CPPCC and categorized all the Chinese CSIs contained in them. By applying the features of strong memes and the process of meme replication, she has put forward translation principles and strategies of Chinese CSIs. It is hoped that the theory of memetics can make the translation of Chinese CSIs an easier task.