A Study Of Translation Of Chinese Public Signs From The Perspective Of Memetic Adaptation

Public signs. as name cards of cities in modern society, play a very important role in promoting people’s interaction and transmitting cultural information. Obviously, it is of great significance to conduct a study of translation of Chinese public signs into English from the perspective of memelic adaptation.First, this thesis briefly states the background, the questions, methods. significance, and structure of this study. Next, the thesis introduces memctics and adaptation theory before it reviews relevant literature and investigates public signs. Then from the perspective of memetic-adaptation, the author studies the translation of public signs from the addressees’mental and social worlds. The major findings are drawn as follows:(1) As the addressees’mental world consists of their desires. cognitive and emotive factors, Chinese public signs may be rendered through conversion, abbreviation, literal and liberal translation approaches.(2) Since adaptation to the readers" social world focuses on culture. public signs had better be translated by means of domestication, explanation and substitution. In addition, based on adaptation theory, this research proposes some methods for creating strong public sign memes to improve translation of Chinese public signs.This thesis is intended to provide a new insight into research on translation of Chinese public signs, and to shed light on a better quality of their English translation.