摘 要

语言是文化的载体和时代的反映。网络流行语是在网络上流行和使用的一种语言，是指以某些当下发生的热点事件为背景，由网民们运用自己的智慧改造或创造的，并在一定时期流行于网上的独特的字、词、句等表达。网络流行语的出现，是网络技术普及与发展的结果，是网络信息迅速传播的产物。从模仿、调侃“甄嬛体”、“元芳体”不难看出，网络流行语已经深入我们的日常生活。网络流行语对现代汉语、社会与文化的影响非常重大，那么如何翻译这种极其充满活力的语言就变得十分必要了。

本文从模因论的角度，以一些网络流行语为例，分析了两种策略——归化和异化策略在其翻译中的应用，以期为实现不同文化之间的信息传播和交流提供帮助，给日后的翻译作品做些参考，并给读者传递不同的文化。

这篇论文在内容上包括介绍部分，该部分阐述了论文的写作背景，论文结构和论文写作方法。主要内容又被分成了三个部分，包括网络流行语的特点；论文理论框架；和基于模因论的网络流行语的翻译分析，展示了两种翻译策略及其在网络流行语翻译中应用的意义。在结论部分，作者总结得出，译者应该重视对源语言核心模因和文化模因的高保真度复制，从而促进源语模因的成功传播和目的语模因的丰富。

关键词：模因论；模因；网络流行语；归化；异化

Abstract

Language is the carrier of culture and reflection of an era. Internet buzzwords, as its name implies, are a kind of language popular and widely-spreading on the Internet. Created by netizens with their wisdom and expressed by means of particular words, phrases or sentences, they are usually prevailing online for a specific period of time. The emergence of Internet buzzwords is the result of the popularization and development of network technique and the product of the dissemination of network information. It is never hard to draw the conclusion from the imitation of “zhen huan style” and “yuan fang style” that Internet buzzwords have deeply permeated our daily life. Internet buzzwords exert an enormous effect on modern Chinese language, society and culture. Therefore, how to translate this extremely vibrant form of language becomes something unavoidable.

From the perspective of memetics, with some examples of Internet buzzwords translation as evidence, this paper aims at analyzing the application of two strategies--domestication and foreignization in the translation, and indicating that it may help to achieve successful information spreading and communication among different cultures, to provide some references for other related translation works, and to communicate different cultures to audiences.

This paper starts with an introduction which explains the research background, paper structure and the research method. It also includes three body parts concerning the features of Internet buzzwords, necessary theoretical framework, and memetic analysis of Internet buzzwords translation from which the significance of the two strategies applied in Internet buzzwords translation is demonstrated. In summary, the paper concludes that translators should pay attention to faithful replication of the original kernel linguistic and cultural memes, thus facilitate a successful spreading of original memes and an abundance of target language memes.

Key words: memetics; meme; Internet buzzword; domestication; foreignization

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 General Introduction to Internet Buzzwords 3

2.1 Definition and Selection Criterion of Internet Buzzwords 3

2.2 Characteristics of Internet Buzzwords 3

2.2.1 Brevity and Timeliness 3

2.2.2 Unusualness and Innovativeness 4

2.2.3 Entertainment 4

2.2.4 Metaphorical Extensiveness 4

3 The Theoretical Framework 5

3.1 The Origin and Development of Memetics 5

3.2 Language Memes 6

3.2.1 Strong Memes and Weak Memes 7

3.2.2 Features of Strong Memes and Weak Memes 8

3.3 Internet Buzzwords as Memes 8

4 Memetic Analysis of Internet Buzzword Translation 10

4.1 Memes and Translation 10

4.2 Translation of Internet Buzzwords 10

4.2.1 Domestication 11

4.2.2 Foreignization 12

4.2.3 The Choice Based on Memetics 14

5 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgments 18

A Memetics-based Study on Translation of Internet Buzzwords

1 Introduction

Buzzwords, “words or expressions that have become fashionable in a particular field and are being used a lot by the media”^[1], are becoming increasingly popular, especially on the Internet. Every time one searches for some information online or log in some sort of social websites, he will find them spreading across the cyber world. Admittedly, some of the buzzwords on the Internet turn out out of date, but the left stand the test of time and are still in common use. As everyone knows, once a new buzzword appears on the Internet, it would sweep quickly. Internet buzzwords are evolving into the main force of spreading messages through Internet media. With high popularity and hits, many buzzwords are applied in the public’s daily life and the course of information dissemination, which reflects netizen’ s intelligent ideas and a special group’s desire, life and language in a special stage.

In fact, Internet buzzwords do not come into existence in these years, but began to appear when the Internet sprang up in China in last century. In the early 21^st century, Internet buzzwords revealed its importance for the first time. With its emergence in the 1990s and its popularization in these years, Internet has not only become important access to political participation for netizens and online conversation with them for public servants, but also turned out to be a crucial platform for a special group to express their desire, daily life and language in a special stage. A good example “bu zhe teng” may well demonstrate the role of Internet buzzwords. The jargon “bu zhe teng”, colloquial and widely applied to prevent someone from getting restless due to worry, illness or only from messing around, was cited by former Chinese President Hu Jintao, referring to acts that would destroy society’s normal life. Therefore, “don’t stir up (political or social) turmoil” reflects the public’s desire for peace, tranquility and harmony.

Now that Internet buzzwords have brought profound changes to people’s life and reflected social ideological trends, values, social mood and way of life, they surely have become a significant kind of cultural phenomena and carriers of cultural transmission. Therefore, English learners should accurately translate them so as to successfully transcend cultural gap, achieve cross-cultural communication and better disseminate Chinese culture to foreigners. While memetics plays a very important role in the translation research of Internet buzzwords, the combination research of them reflects important theoretical and practical significance for cultural transmission.

This paper firstly presents an introduction, which explains the background, significance of Internet buzzwords translation, paper structure and methodology. The body of the paper is divided into three parts, including the features of Internet buzzwords, necessary theoretical framework and memetic analysis of Internet buzzwords translation. In the end, the author draws a conclusion that translators should pay attention to faithful replication of the original kernel linguistic and cultural memes, thus facilitate a successful spread of original memes and an abundance of target language memes. Document analysis is applied in the process of writing, together with topic selection of thesis, collecting and sorting out of materials. Some problems are also found during the process, that is, a part of the materials are already out of date. Therefore, through searching information online, the author has acquired the latest stuff about the topic, which contributed a lot to completing the work.

2 General Introduction to Internet Buzzwords

With the development of Internet technology and the popularity of the Internet, Internet buzzword has become a widespread language form in the Internet communication. The appearance and evolution of Internet buzzword have attracted extensive attention, reflecting the ecological status of Internet environment, the way of thinking in the Internet era and netizens’ value orientation.

2.1 Definition and Selection Criterion of Internet Buzzwords

Buzzwords, “words or expressions that have become fashionable in a particular field and are being used a lot by the media”^[2], are becoming increasingly popular. Internet buzzword, as a form of natural language variation on Internet media, has become an unavoidable language form in the Internet communication. The Internet buzzwords this paper includes are mostly the latest ones, originating from social websites, such as post bar and microblog, some of them top ten Internet buzzwords listed at the end of a year. Compared with traditional language, Internet buzzwords has formed distinctive features in the process of spreading information through Internet media.

2.2 Characteristics of Internet Buzzwords

2.2.1 Brevity and Timeliness

The main function of Internet buzzwords is promoting communication. It may be hard for Internet buzzwords to exist if this function is neglected. In a time of information explosion, complexity and oldness would never be hold in esteem. It is brevity and timeliness that facilitate communication among different people. While being brief is a precondition for wide acceptance and use of Internet buzzwords, timeliness is a direct impetus for wide spread, which explains how it is possible for people from different areas and surroundings to understand and use the same Internet buzzword. It merely takes a very short time period for an Internet buzzword to be created and widely used. For example, “hold zhu” became a viral buzzword in just several days. The reason is that most buzzwords reflect hot ticket and hot topic, which represent the public’s concern with corresponding social events.

2.2.2 Unusualness and Innovativeness

On one hand, The audiences of Internet buzzwords usually are not social elite, but to a large extent a party of grassroots. The grass-root stratum in reality often strives to draw public’s attention through all kinds of unusual and innovative ways in virtual cyber world so as to obtain a sort of psychological identification. On the other hand, Internet buzzwords often break through people’s general understanding of language by symbolic and homophonic means of expression in order to get eye-catching.

2.2.3 Entertainment

No matter how serious a philosophical or political topic is, it becomes entertaining when endowed with an amusing Internet buzzword. The most typical example is the buzzword “lei zheng fu”. The public’s original attention to civil servants’ moral traits suddenly transferred to the three judgment criteria, “lei”, “zheng” and “fu” once the officer’s name “Lei Zhengfu” became an Internet buzzword “lei zheng fu” (meaning unusual appearance, powerful status and substantial family background), which implied a sense of banter. Entertainment becomes one of the most basic elements if one thing needs to be noticed by the public. Internet buzzwords are surely one of the most expressive ways to achieve that.

2.2.4 Metaphorical Extensiveness

After analysis, it is not difficult to discover that many originally simple-meaning expressions are endowed with more profound implications. For example, “da jiang you” originally representing an simple action of buying soybean sauce, has become a euphemism for “none of my business”, which contributes to the abundance of lexical meaning. The feature of metaphorical extensiveness gradually develops along with people’s new living state in their daily life.

3 The Theoretical Framework

3.1 The Origin and Development of Memetics

Memetics is the theory based on a similarity with Darwinian evolution, originating from the popularization of Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene published in 1976. Supporters describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information dissemination.

Dawkins explains how he needed a term which would be analogous to “gene” to represent the evolution of cultural phenomena, which (he argues) are subject to the same kinds of Darwinian laws of natural selection as genes proper. Therefore, in his book The Selfish Gene, the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins gave a description of the term meme, asserting it as a unit of human cultural transmission similar to the gene, and arguing that replication also happens in culture, in a different sense, though. His idea about memes is as follows: