Later, Chesterman (2000), a Finland scholar, who considered translation studies as a branch of memetics, named translation itself and the concept or idea of the related translation theory as the translation meme collectively, such as the theoretical concept, standard, strategy and values of translation theory. He discussed the evolution situation and relationship of five super memes in translation meme pool in detail as follows: source target meme, equivalence meme, untranslatability meme, free meme and literal meme. All writing is translating memes. In the process of examining the evolution of translation theory, Chesterman found that the vitality of translation meme was not identical. Some translation memes died out because they were not generally acceptable; some have been replaced after being popular but not lasting long; some survived and circulated due to the strong vitality. There are a large number of translation memes in translation meme pool. On one hand, every meme replicated and inherited the former meme; on the other hand, it changed in the process of copy and transmission, which resulted in a replication that may not be the same, but a kind of relationship of increasing or decreasing. However, from the perspective of memetics, the evolution of translation itself was the result of translation meme’s continuous copy and variation.
3.3 Relation between Parody and Memetics
Parody, as a strategy of translation, is a typical example of transmission of linguistic memes, while information is transferred by memes through parody and self replication. Besides, the aim of parody in advertising is to convey the message through continuous copy and to attract advertisers, marketers and new target consumers in the end. Therefore, linguistic memes play a driving role of pushing parody advertising widely spread. It is apparent that parody originally adopted as a strategy in AT can be traced back to the competition of linguistic memes. There are two kinds of memes, including strong memes and weak memes. Only these memes, comforting to the three standards proposed by Dawkins, which include fecundity, copying-fidelity, longevity, can finally become strong memes. The cruel market causes the competition of advertisements, ultimately bringing about the fierce campaign of advertising slogans. It is no doubt that competitiveness is the point to stand out from the mediocre advertising slogans and win the market. So, the advertisements become an ideal place for strong memes to survive. Parody memes could transmit the advertising information with high fidelity, and also has the effect of humor, amusement, literary grace, etc, which can catch target people’s eyes. Since the parody memes in ad slogans mostly imitate the language structure which is comparatively fixed, which make ad slogans has relative stability and has the ability to cause the resonance of the audience, and be immediately remembered by the audience. So combing parody with memetics is a good strategy to translate the cross-nation ad slogan, from which these survived memes can be seen as strong memes.
The transmission of linguistic memes is based on the psychological mechanism of human beings who desire to convey information, have access to information and exchange information. And it is this kind of mechanism that promotes the human’s constant imitation. While imitation is implemented and completed by the operation of linguistic memes. Parody is originated from certain kind of imitation, which is quite similar to process of the transmission of linguistic memes. But parody is just an abstract imitation, to choose which words or sentence to copy is a real kind of innovation. Innovation can totally reflect the inventor’s unique values. Therefore, the operation of linguistic memes is such a purposeful and continuous parody in order to meet people’s needs, with subjective initiative. From what is discussed above, it is easy to see that parody is derived from the imitation of memes, and the transmission of linguistic memes is essence of parody. So, it is significant to discuss the parody in translation combing with memetics which is the basic operation system of parody. 从模因论角度下谈广告语的仿译(5):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_2221.html