摘 要

文化软实力是衡量一个国家或地区发展水平和国际影响力的重要指标。城市的文化基因是城市名片，是城市精神和历史文化的载体，也是城市之间相互区分的重要特征性印迹。作为官方对外交流部门，外交部自2016年推出一系列介绍中国省市区历史、文化、经济等信息的短片。短片对各省市区文化基因的选择和翻译很值得研究，可以为未来中国各省市区的外宣翻译工作提供借鉴和指导。本文以外交部省市区全球推介短片为例，通过分析具有代表性的语料来总结出文化基因词汇的翻译策略。全文共五章。第一章介绍背景信息和研究意义；第二章综述了文化基因概念的形成与发展；第三章对短片里文化基因词汇分类，然后选取最具代表性的词汇进行案例分析；第四章从文化基因词汇的翻译策略延伸到文化专有项的翻译策略；第五章总结。

关键词：文化基因；全球推介短片；英译策略

Abstract

Cultural soft power is an important measurement of a country or a region's development level and its international status. As the carrier of urban spirit and history, a city’s cultural gene is like a business card that distinguishes one city from another. As the official channel for international communication, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched a series of promotion videos introducing historical, geographical and economic information of Chinese provinces since 2016. The selection and translation of the cultural genes in the videos are worth studying for future external publicity work of Chinese cities. Thus, this paper aims to explore the translation strategies of cultural gene words in the MFA-produced Chinese provinces promotion short videos.

The paper consists of five chapters. Chapter one introduces the background information and research significance. Chapter two reviews the development and application of “cultural genes” and gives the working definition of “cultural genes” in this study. Chapter three classifies the cultural genes in the promotion videos and select typical items to conduct case studies. Chapter four is the reflection on how to translate culture-specific items concluded from the translation of cultural genes. The final chapter makes a conclusion.

Key Words: Cultural Gene; Promotion Video; Translation Strategy

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 3

2.1 Studies on Cultural Genes Abroad 3

2.2 Studies on Cultural Genes at Home 4

2.3 Working Definition of Cultural Genes in This Study 5

3 A Discussion of Translation Strategies in Translating Cultural Genes 7

3.1 The Selection of Cultural Genes in the Promotion Videos 7

3.2 Translation Strategies in Translating Cultural Genes 9

3.2.1 Foreignization 9

3.2.2 Domestication 19

4 Reflections on the Translation of Culture-Specific Items 24

5 Conclusion 25

References 26

Acknowledgements 27

A Study on Translation Strategies of MFA-presented Chinese Provinces Promotion Short Videos from the Perspective of Cultural Genes

1 Introduction

A city’s cultural genes refers to the unique cultural phenomenon, natural heritage, ideology, events and figures, folktales and other cultural elements in the process of social development. They are the interpreters of cities’ historical landscape and also the features that distinguish one from another. For example, quadrangle dwellings and the Great Wall are the cultural genes of Beijing, while the Greek mythology represents the culture of ancient Greek. The great history and culture is not only a city’s business card but also the motivator of its economy as a soft power. The implementation of the 13th Five-Year Plan and the Belt and Road Initiative offer golden opportunities for Chinese provinces to open up. They are actively using their cultural resources to build good urban images to attract foreign direct investment.

Thus, translation is vital to the effect of spreading urban culture. A well-organized translation can break the linguistic and cultural barriers among various countries, helping the audience appreciate the charm of profound city culture. As the official channel for international communication, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (hereinafter abbreviated as MFA) makes use of its superiority to provide a great platform and translation guidance for Chinese provinces. Since 2016, MFA has held a series of province-presenting conferences to build the communication gap between Chinese provinces and foreign diplomats and scholars. In each province-presenting conference, a promotion video is played to publicize the historical, geographical, economic and technological information of the province. So far 21 province-presenting conferences have been held and 11 promotion videos are available on the Internet including Hubei, Shanxi, Henan, Sichuan, Hunan, Ningxia and Shandong. Each video is equipped with English narration and Chinese subtitles, and the length of these videos is around eight minutes. In general, the contents and translation of these videos are well received on the Internet.

The study of translation strategies of the cultural genes in the promotion short videos can provide guidance and criteria for future translation work of urban publicity materials, which is conducive to their systematic dissemination of city cultures and the building of international city images.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Studies on Cultural Genes Abroad

Gene is considered the molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. Gene stores all the information about the birth, development, decline and death of organisms and completes the reproduction of life through replication, transcription and expression. It is the most important factor in life. One characteristic is that genes can faithfully copy themselves and transmit genetic information to the next generation which shows similar characteristics with their parental generation; the other is that they can “mutate”. Under certain conditions, a new form of life is created through gene mutation, presenting some new characteristics.

Cultural gene or meme is an analogy with the biological gene, created for describing the law of cultural communication. In The Oxford Dictionary, meme is defined as “an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means”(Vol,7 p, 453).

This concept was firstly put forward by western scholars. In the 1950s, American anthropologists Alfred L.Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn assumed that in different cultures there was a basic cultural unit similar to that in a biological gene. In the 1960s, some concepts like “trait-complex” and “acetone” were put forward to describe these basic cultural units which could exchange and communicate among cultures. In 1976, Dawkins, a British biologist and behavioral ecologist, published his monograph The Selfish Gene. In this book, he coined the word “meme”, which is “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation” （Dawkins,1976:98）.He described meme as a form of cultural propagation, which is a way for people to transmit social memories and cultural ideas to each other. Unlike the way DNA and life will spread from location to location, a meme will also travel from mind to mind. The word meme originated from the Greek word “mimeme”. Dawkins hoped it sounded as catchy as “gene”, so he shortened the word into “meme” ultimately. He argued that it not only related to the word “memory” but also echoed the French word “meme” which means clone.

The spread of the concept boosted the study of meme. In 1998, Hans- Cees Speel, a Dutch scholar, mentioned in his paper Memes are also Interactors that if compared to gene, meme is not only a replicator like DNA but also an interactor like RNA. Francis Heylighen (1998) defined a meme as an information pattern that existed in an individual’s memory. It is capable of being copied to another individual’s memory by means of imitation. This includes anything that can be learned or remembered: ideas, knowledge, habits, beliefs, skills, images, etc. Dawkins’s student, Susan Blackmore, published her book The Meme Machine to further explain about meme. She thought that many aspects of human nature can be better illustrated from the perspective of memetics, namely, religion, altruism, the origin of big brain, sex, the origins of language. In her view, meme is also a replicator, similar to biological gene in a way. She even believed that it is meme that drives the development of language and human brain. Blackmore’s study of memetics greatly promoted the development of memetics theory.

With deeper study into meme, there were increasing scholars applying it into different disciplines. For example, American zoologist Wilson brought the concept of meme into the sociobiology field. He put forward gene-culture coevolution theory by applying memetics. As far as he was concerned, compared to biological evolution, the evolution of culture depends on the transmission of acquired characters rather than changes in gene frequency from generation to generation, and therefore it does faster than what gene does (Wilson, E.O.,1998). Besides, Chesterman creatively connected the study of translation with memes in his book Memes of Translation in 1997. Based on the notion meme, it explored the coherence in translation theory. He made a system called translation memetics by combining some unrelated translation theories together. His theory is valuable because it extended and deepened the previous studies on translation norms. Additionally memetics theory is also employed into advertising. Geoff Ayling (1998), an Australia advertising scientist, studied the advertising language by using the memetics theory. He thought advertisers should apply the memetic technology to release information. His masterpiece Rapid Response Advertising promoted the development of advertising translation.

2.2 Studies on Cultural Genes at Home