A Study Of Cultural Vacancy In Translation Of Animal Idioms From The Perspective Of Translation Memetics

Memetics, which considers that things can be transmitted by means of imitation and replication, is a new theory about the transmission of cultural information in pragmatics. Meanwhile, it provides a new perspective for studying the relationship between translation and cultural transmission. Since Chesterman(1997) proposed “translation memetics”, scholars both at home and abroad have made a lot of contributions to this theory. Among them, especially the meme genotype and meme phenotype put forward by Professor He Ziran(2005) promotes the spread of translation memes in cross-cultural communication. It is academically well-known that translation plays an important role in cultural transmission, but cultural vacancy is often an obstacle in translating. Under this circumstance, this thesis attempts to be concerned with the problem in order to explore an effective way in which the original information can be spread in translation from the perspective of translation memetics.Selecting the examples from English-Chinese translation of animal idioms in the version of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out translated by Goldblatt as analyzing data, this thesis probes into how Goldblatt’s translation breaks through cultural vacancy effectively and how the cultural vacancy is replicated and transmitted effectually in foreign cultures by means of translation memetics. As is well known to us all, the success of Goldblatt’s version is globally known both in the translation and literary worlds. Therefore, this thesis aims to study the translator’s strategies and styles in dealing with the issues of cultural vacancy in translating Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. In addition, the author hopes that this thesis can further expose the causes why Goldblatt’s version of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out is more accepted, and also expects that this study may give some enlightenment for effectively coping with the cultural vacancy in cross-cultural communication, especially the Chinese-English intercultural interactions under the bridge of translation.Through the study, some findings can be concluded as follows: Firstly, in Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, there exist a large number of animal idioms which have strong Chinese cultural factors under the influence of the related elements of economy, politics and culture. This increases the difficulty in Goldblatt’s translation. Secondly, as a cultural transmission, Goldblatt applies translation strategies of literal translation, free translation, addition translation and omission translation to cope with the cultural vacancy that he encounters when he translates the animal idioms in Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, for finding out the balance between maintaining the cultural factors of the source culture to the greatest extent and making the target audience understand the source culture to the greatest extent. Thirdly, this thesis argues that Goldblatt’s views of translation accord with Chesterman’s translation ethics. As to the translating of animal idioms in the source text, Goldblatt tends to choose a kind of translation of clarity, truth, trust and understanding. This has much to do with his views of translation.