A Report On E-C Translation Of The Discursive Power Of Memes In Digital Culture (Excerpts) Under The Guidance Of Translation Memetics

The translation practice material is taken from the fourth and eighth chapters of The Discursive Power of Memes in Digital Culture by Bradley E.Wiggins.This book argues that internet memes,as discursive units of digital culture,indicate a practice of ideology,which inheres some form or degree of critique on social,cultural,and other issues.As an academic text in social science,this book combines penetrating theoretical elucidation with detailed case analysis of several globally popular internet memes,which can be categorized into the informative text.The source text is objective in content,with precise wording and a focus on conveying information and opinions,using complex sentence structures,nominalizations,and abstract terms.Based on these characteristics,the author chooses the translation memetics as a guide in the translation practice,studying how to use translation strategy memes to better replicate and propagate the source text memes and generate a target text that is easily accepted.Andrew Chesterman first proposed the translation memetics theory and viewed translation as a process of replication and transmission of language memes.The report mainly draws on two theoretical achievements of translation memetics: the replication and propagation process of translation memes,and translation strategy memes.The replication and propagation process of translation memes demands the translator to replicate the source text memes as much as possible,generate the most suitable target text memes,and continuously infect more hosts to achieve reproduction and propagation.Translation strategy memes categorize concrete translation strategies from semantic,syntactic,and pragmatic levels,helping the translator clear translation barriers and regulate translation activities.The report analyzes the source text from the aspects of memes of vocabulary,sentence structures,and discourse under the guidance of translation memetics,and employs appropriate translation strategies to overcome translation obstacles and achieve the desired translation effect.To this end,the report employs strategies such as synonymy,distribution change,and antonymy for vocabulary memes;transposition,sentence structure change,and unit shift for memes of sentence structures;and cultural filtering and visibility change for discourse memes.By using these strategies,the source text memes are successfully replicated and propagated in the target language.It is found that translation memetics plays a guiding role in the E-C translation of academic texts and provides a Chinese version that meets the target audience’s needs.