| Advertising translation is a kind of practical translation. Apart from the universal attributes of translation studies, it also has some particular characteristics in language and style. A successful translation can maintain the spreading extent and longevity of advertisements and thus, realize the functions of advertising. Therefore, advertising translation, as a branch of translation study, has its own regulations and demands a systematic study.Memetics is a neo-Darwinian approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer based on the concept of the meme which is first proposed by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976). According to him, meme is "units of cultural transmission" which "propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation". It is characterized by copying-fidelity, fecundity and longevity. The contagious nature of memes has such a natural affinity with advertising that it drives many marketers to conduct their advertising creation from the perspective of memes. Similarly, advertising translation is also a kind of creation. For that reason, the thesis makes a tentative attempt to introduce memetics into advertising translation, with which some popular translations are analyzed. Hopefully, the analysis result will prove to be guidance for the future advertising translation.Based on the four stages of meme replication and the selection criteria for each stage, the thesis builds up a theoretical framework in which each advertisement translation is viewed as a meme. The selection criteria are applied in analyzing such memes on various levels and their surviving ability as well as their self-duplication and spreading ability. Through the analyses, the research questions are finally solved. The present research indicates that translations bound with contagious strong memes are easily spread. That is because the combination facilitates their correspondence to the selection criteria and the achievement of the translating effect. Furthermore, the thesis proposes selection criteria for target memes, namely, translations, and main strategies adopted by translators while making choices in different situations. It then points out that memetics sets higher standards for advertising translation and poses a greater challenge for translators. Accordingly, the thesis establishes the meme pool and the specific process model of advertising translation in hopes of enhancing the insight of individuals into the production of target memes. Through the analysis, the thesis has the following major findings: AT should be viewed as strong meme creation in target culture; the four stages of meme transmission and the four selection criteria have influencing power for AT; AT involves multi-stage and multi-layer choice making for creating the appeal to the consumer as well as for preserving persuasive function in the TM. At the end, the conclusion is drawn that advertising translation is not a pure imitation of the original information but a three-dimensional process with creativity and interaction between each element.Admittedly, limitations are inevitable in the thesis. For example, the determining factors are too complicated for us to give an exhaustive panorama; the analysis is more or less subjective since the thesis is a qualitative study. Hopefully, these limitations can be broken through and explorations on AT will get close to perfection in future studies. |
