On The Transmission And Translations Of Sun Zi Bing Fa From The Perspective Of Memetics

The Art of War,written by Sun Wu,is the greatest military book in China,which influenced many people in Chinese history.During the last century,it began to exert considerable influence within the western world in the perspective of military and culture.Since the birth of the first English version,there has been more than ten versions of The Art of War in English.Even though it gets much attention,most studies focus on the analysis or comparison of the different translation versions at the linguistic level.There are rare studies dealing with the reason why these versions vary from time to time.Therefore,this paper is to explore why translators adopted different translation strategies in different period with the help of memetics,which is originated from the evolution theory.There are five parts in this paper.The first part presents research background,significance and methodology.The second part includes the introduction of The Art of War as well as its author;previous studies of English versions of The Art of War and previous studies on memetics.The third part is about the definition of memes,specialized terms in memetics,types of memes and the standards of successful memes;this part also introduces the relationship among memes,translation strategies and memes' transmission,which needs the help of the tentative theory proposed by Chesterman.The fourth part redefines the process of translation as well as transmission from the perspective of memetic theory in order to explore why translators in different period adopted different translation strategies.It finds that domestication is the first choice when a new cultural meme appears.The last part is the conclusion.It summarizes the reason why the two versions have gained wide acceptance: the proper use from domestication to foreignization with a tentative trial.Based on the analysis of the two wide spread English versions,this paper hopes to offer a direction to the next translator of The Art of War to make those cultural memes in this book transmit wider and deeper.Meanwhile this paper also hopes to push forward the spread of other Chinese classics.From the perspective of memetics,this thesis finds that it is impossible for traditional Chinese classics to get transmitted successfully in the western countries with only one translated version.The essence of translation is the transmission of cultural memes in the source text.The key for memes to transmit successfully is the constant tentative trial to decide which translation strategy should be adopted.The choice of translation strategies varies from period to period.When memes enter a new cultural environment,the translation strategy adopted is usually domestication,which will facilitate the transmission of core memes.Under the strategy of domestication,the target language presented in the translation is reader-friendly.As time goes by,when the target readers have a basic understanding of the information carried by those cultural memes,translators can try to use the translation strategy of foreignization.However,this change is never fixed.Once foreignization has been employed and the cultural memes become hard for readers to understand,then the next translator will need to resort to domestication again.Generally speaking,in the English translation of traditional Chinese classics,the translation strategy moves from domestication to foreignization.