A Study Of Translation Methods Of Naxi Culture-loaded Words In A Naxi-chinese-English Dictionary From A Memetic Perspective

In the era of globalization,communication between different countries and nations has become increasingly closer and cross-cultural communication has become deeper than before.Translation is an important way to achieve effective communication between different cultures.In the 1970 s,there presented the cultural turn in the sphere of translation studies.Richard Dawkins,a famous ethologist and evolutionary biologist in University of Oxford formed the theory to explain cultural evolution based on Darwin's theory of evolution,that is,the memetic theory.Culture-loaded words,taking language as a carrier,reflect the customs,values,and ways of thinking of a certain country or nation.The English translation of the Naxi culture-loaded words enables English readers to gain a deeper understanding of the Naxi culture,facilitates the dissemination of the Naxi culture and effectively promotes the in-depth communication between the Naxi culture and other cultures in the world.Through the study of the English translation of the Naxi culture-loaded words in A Naxi-Chinese-English Dictionary edited by Thomas M Pinson,this thesis explores how to present the image of the translation process of the Naxi culture-loaded words from the memetic perspective and what is the relationship between translation methods and translation norm memes.There are five chapters in this thesis.The introductory chapter presents the research background,Pinson and his A Naxi-Chinese-English Dictionary,purposes of this research,research questions and the framework of the thesis;the second chapter gives literature review about previous studies of memetics and memetics in translation,definition and classification of culture-loaded words and translation of culture-loaded words;in the third chapter,relevant terminology of memetics,four stages of meme replication proposed by Heylighen and Chesterman's translation memetics are introduced.And they are employed to construct a tentative memetic process model of translating culture-loaded words;the fourth chapter analyzes methods used to translate the Naxi culture-loaded words in A Naxi-Chinese-English Dictionary and the relationship between these translation methods and Chesterman's translation norm memes;the fifth chapter summarizes major findings of the research,limitations and suggestions for further studies.This study finds that the rationality of constructing the translation process model of culture-loaded words is based on memetic theory.And Chesterman's translation norm memes and translation value memes can be used in proofreading of translation.Such translation methods as literal translation,free translation,interpretative translation,addition,omission,transliteration,mixture and annotation which have been applied to translation of the Naxi culture-loaded words in A Naxi-Chinese-English Dictionary are in line with Chesterman's translation norm memes.Meanwhile,these translation methods enrich the specific content of Chesterman's production strategy memes in translation strategy memes.