A Study Of Howard Goldblatt’s Translation Of Red Sorghum From The Memetic Perspective

In2012, Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature because of his greatcontribution to human culture and the great overseas popularity of his works whichowes a lot to the excellent translation. As Mo Yan’s first works that has beentranslated into English, Red Sorghum later becomes one of the best-sellers in terms ofcommerce. Its translator, Howard Goldblatt, has a distinguished reputation for histranslations of modern and contemporary Chinese literary works. Generally based onfidelity, he adopts a more flexible method in the translation of Red Sorghum, makingsome variations so as to render the translated version more adaptable to the westerncultural context.Although the huge overseas success of Red Sorghum has arisen great interest andattention of both readers and scholars, the previous studies of Red Sorghum translatedby Howard Goldblatt are quite limited and are confined to research fields such asgender, linguistics, and literary critics. In view of the current situation, the thesiscarries out a research on Howard Goldblatt’s translation of Red Sorghum under theguidance of memetic theory.First, the thesis summarizes the relevant studies of memetics. Next, the thesisintroduces the fundamental concepts of memetics and Chesterman’s views after hisapplication of memetics into translation. Then it elaborates on the successfultransmission of the memes containing abundant Chinese cultural information in RedSorghum and evaluates how those source memes are made compatible with memes inwestern culture via translation. Moreover, the influences of translation norms, namelyexpectancy norms and professional norms, on the transmission of cultural memes areexplored.Based on the previous studies of memetics, the thesis aims at discovering thefollowing two problems: First, what are the main translation strategies adopted byHoward Goldblatt to foster the memetic transmission of address forms and Chineseidioms in Red Sorghum due to cultural differences? Second, according toChesterman’s memetic view of translation, how do expectancy norms andprofessional norms affect Howard Goldblatt’s choices of those translation strategies?After a detailed analysis, the conclusion of the thesis are drawn that firstly, memetics has inaugurated a different perspective to the research on translation ofChinese works and it can serve as a guiding rule for the analysis of the transmission ofcultural memes in Red Sorghum. Secondly, cultural differences and translation normshave an influence on translator’s choices of translation strategies. Therefore it isrequired that the translator should take the cultural differences into consideration withthe adoption of appropriate translation strategies, making the source memes adaptable,compatible and acceptable to new hosts. Finally, the maintenance of the originalmemes’ integrity and their accurate replication have become the mainstream for memetransmission and cultural progress.It is hoped that this thesis would broaden the horizon of translation studies byborrowing new blood from memetics which is applicable to analyze the retentions andvariations of the source memes owing to cultural differences during the translationprocess and then enhance the compatibility of other distinguished literary works thatare rich in Chinese cultural memes, so as to maximize the transmission of Chineseculture to western readers and to increase the international status of Chinese culture.