English Translation Of TCM Terminology From The Perspective Of Memetics

International cultural exchange has been growing rapidly under the leading of the economical globalization. With the tendency of people's looking forward to returning to the nature and the change of the medicine system in recent years, TCM is becoming increasingly popular around the world. TCM has been benefiting the health undertaking of all humanity. As a significant Chinese culture heritage, being properly cross-cultural transmitted and accepted by the international community is necessary. However in reality TCM is presented in different ways, often highlighting different aspects. This is unfavorable for the cross-cultural transmission of TCM and Chinese culture. Taking into the consideration of the confusion state of the TCM terminology translation and the main problems existing in it, the author tries to apply Memetics theory into the TCM terminology translation.Memetics is a new theory for interpreting cultural evolution based on Darwinian evolutionary theory; Memetics theory provides unique insights into the complex relationships between memes and culture. From the memetics point of view, translation is one of effective and important way of memes' replication and transmission under particular circumstances, i.e. memes are safely transmitted from one culture to another. The transmitting of the English TCM terminology memes with Chinese characteristics will motivate the transmission of TCM culture and further promote Chinese excellent culture. During the cross-cultural medical communication, the TCM memes and the Western medical memes, i.e. the Chinese culture and the Western culture will affect and interact with each other during the translation process, the TCM memes will infiltrate to the English memes.Translation plays a very important role in cross-cultural communication. Memetics theory gives a profound inspiration and instruction for the translators to rethink translation strategy during the translation of TCM terminologies. TCM has been proved contributed too much to the world that the new English memes about TCM terminology with Chinese characteristics will be easier to be adapted by the world during the dissemination. Westerners' wishing to study TCM will not succeed by viewing it through a filter of a more familiar knowledge system. They have to enter the Chinese world.The author pointed out that only when the translators see TCM as it was traditionally conceived and translate it faithfully can the way open for a deeper understanding in the West. The translators must preserve and reflect linguistic and national features of Chinese culture and to make the people in Western countries understand the differences between the tradition of Chinese culture and Western culture. Finally the author stresses that the only way to avoid the extinction of a culture is to strengthen the national economic and military power of the country. In order to keep and transmit our own good cultural memes at the same time of absorbing other countries' cultural memes we must reinforce our political and cultural position in the world. Preserving and transmitting our cultural memes will also help to improve the status of the politics and culture.The whole thesis includes 4 chapters, together with an introduction and a conclusion.The first chapter deals with the general Introduction about TCM Terminology, and the brief history of TCM terminology translation has been mentioned in this chapter.The second chapter analyzes the translation situation of TCM terminology and the main problems exist in TCM terminology translation. Such as: wrong translation, biomedical translation and inconsistent translation.The third chapter talks about the Memetics theory and the application of Memetics theory on translation. The origin of Memetics theory, the birth of the term "meme" and the Memetics hypothesis on cultural evolution have been introduced at first. Then the essential factors of successful memes are mentioned, i.e. 1) copying-fidelity; 2) fecundity; 3) longevity; and representational content transmitting. Last the function of language memes on cultural evolution and the mutual function of meme transmission and translation have been discussed.The instruction of memetics theory to TCM terminology translation has been pointed out in the last chapter, i.e. Prescription of the TCM connotation, Nationalization of TCM's Chinese Feature, Simplification of TCM Terminology and the Intertextualization between English Terminology and Its Original Chinese One. Further more the function of TCM culture in TCM terminology translation and the unified translation for meme transmission have been talked. Finally the necessity of the cooperation among the translators has been discussed.