A Memetic Study On The English Translation Of Idioms In Red Sorghum

Idioms are carriers of language and culture. They represent the essence of language on the level of history, culture and social conventions. The meaning of idioms is equivalent to the meaning of Chinese Shuyu. Chinese idioms in a broad sense consist of set phrases, proverbs, adages, two-part allegorical sayings and so on. A good comprehension of idioms has great influence on handling cultural collisions during cross-cultural communication.This thesis tries to conduct an exhaustive study on the translation of idioms in Red Sorghum from the perspective of memetics. From the perspective of memetics, language can be transmitted among various hosts. Besides, it also acts as a carrier of memes. Translation is a dynamic process in which the translator spreads language memes from the source language to the target language. The source text is the synthesis of author’s thoughts and cultural backgrounds. The translator should grasp the backbone of the source text before translating a text. Then the language meme of the source text should be recombined and transmitted by the translator. The transmission process of the language meme includes the process of the dynamic imitation and the process of variation. Various methods and techniques are applied by the host during the language transmission process in order to deal with the transmission problem under the background of the cross-cultural communication.The meaning of idioms is the combination of the literal meaning and the connotative meaning. The inappropriate transmission of idiom memes may give rise to the misunderstanding of language and culture. Besides, the cultural vacancy also prevents the target reader from comprehending the text due to the cultural difference between English and Chinese. The language transmission process consists of the imitation process, the variation process and the selection process. This thesis aims to conduct a thorough research on the translation of Chinese idioms from the perspective of memetics. Some translation techniques of idioms in Red Sorghum are also summarized from the perspective of memetics and illustrated by a large number of samples and proofs.