A Study On The Function Of Language From The Perspective Of Memetics

The term'meme'first appeared in 1976, in Richard Dawkins's bestselling book The Selfish Gene. This is a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. Dawkins gave many examples of memes, such as tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. So memes are replicators. A replicator is anything of which copies are made. And humans with brains are the vehicles or hosts. Vehicles or hosts carry the replicators around inside them and protect them. Therefore, everything that is passed from person to person in this way is a meme. The memes do not care whether they are good or harmful to humans; they are selfish like genes and will simply spread if they can. Dawkins (1976) sums up what makes for a good quality replicator in three words—fidelity, fecundity, and longevity. This means that a replicator has to be copied accurately, many copied must be made, and the copies must last a long time. Memes without those three elements will definitely disappear.The newly-emerged memetic theory has been applied in many research fields, however, the study and application of the memetic theory in the field of linguistics are far away from maturity. Therefore, this thesis mainly studies the function of language from the point view of memetics. With the research result, the author rethinks the relationship between culture and language from the point view of memes. This thesis discusses the function of language and the relationship between culture and language from a rather new angle, i.e. a memetic angle, which is different from the traditional ways of research. Through the memetic research on function of language, the author hopes it can provide guidance to beautify language and culture in modern times.