| Cultural relics, as a vector of cultural heritage, cover various elements of ethnic cultureand history. At present, culture relics in most integrated museums of China are basicallydisplayed with English versions to facilitate foreign visitors. The translation of cultural relictexts is a bridge for foreign visitors to better appreciate and understand Chinese culture, whichcontributes to the progress of intercultural communication. Taking the translations of thecultural relics in the museums of Ningbo as a case, this thesis makes a tentative study of thecharacteristics of cultural relic memes, the replication and transmission of culture memes andexplores practical translation methods from the perspective of memetics.From the standpoint of memetics, translation can be defined as the replication andtransmission process of culture memes through language. To put it more specifically, thetranslator first gets infected when decoding the original works, then he encodes theinformation obtained in target language to get the original memes replicated and transmitted.Translation of cultural relic texts is the process of decoding and encoding of cultural relicmemes by the translator. The successful delivery of cultural relic memes from the host (thetranslator) to the new host (visitors) symbolizes the completion of the transmission.Under the guidance of memetics, the thesis has discussed cultural relic translation as ameans of successful cultural relic meme transmission based on its representation incopying-fidelity, fecundity and longevity. Meanwhile, it analyzes the features of cultural relicmemes in the stages of assimilation, intention, expression and transmission. Cultural relicmemes are classified into genotype and phenotype according to the different replicationmodes they follow. Besides, based on the analysis of the characteristics of cultural relic memes, a further exploration for translation methods is made. By adopting the intersubjectivecriteria of conformity, expressivity and formality of memes as the translation norms, theauthor summarizes five translation methods, including literal translation, transliteration withannotations, amplification, deletion and reorganization, which all contribute to the bettertranslation of cultural relic texts. |
