The Spread Of Netspeak--From The Perspective Of Memetics

Within the past decade, the popularity of Internet communication around the world has greatly changed people’s lifestyle, among which the change of language is so obvious that it has generated a new language genre——netspeak. Netspeak is rooted in the traditional language, but has its own characters. It is well developed so much so that many expressions such as“灌水”,“斑竹”, and“MM”,have penetrated into the fabrics of people’s daily life. In view of this phenomenon, the present research aims to explore the transmission mechanism of Chinese version of netspeak from the perspective of Memetics. The present research argues that the spread of netspeak is not only relying on its own strength as linguistic memes, but also the result of the conscious control of the human race as meme hosts.To make the argument, the author collects the data at three levels (lexical, sentential, and discursive). The data is collected from two types of sources: 1) online resource drawn mainly from six Internet situations——BBS, chatroom, MUD (Multiple-user dimension), Instant Message (e.g., QQ and MSN software), web literature, and other forums at public web sites; 2) off-line publications such as monographs and dictionaries. Since the majority of Internet users are younger than thirty year old, the present thesis researches the Chinese netspeak used by young netizens. The present research is conducted in a qualitative analysis method.With respect to the theoretical foundation of the present research, memetics, a newly emerging theory which originally deals with cultural evolution and spread, will contribute to explaining how netspeak possesses great ability of self-replication and self-transmission and how the subjectivity of young netizens exerts its conscious influence on the spread of netspeak. Besides, from the perspective of sociolinguistics, the framework of treating linguistic variation as a social practice of identity construction is also helpful for interpreting the subjectivity and consciousness of young netizens in their linguistic practice.Memetics is advanced by Dawkins (1976) who puts forward the new term“meme”in his famous book The Selfish Gene. Memetics is the theoretical and empirical science that studies the replication, spread and evolution of memes. Meme is the core concept of memetic theory. A meme refers to a unit of cultural transmission which is passed on by imitation. Meanwhile, meme hosts, as conscious agents doing things for a purpose, can play a role in the meme-based evolution. The memetic theory has been widely applied to various fields ever since it is created. However, its application in the linguistic field is shortly underway and little research has been conducted, which leaves much to be exploited. The present thesis serves as a tentative research in exploring how meme theory finds its way into the transmission mechanism of netspeak spread.With respect to the organization of the present thesis, it consists of seven chapters. Chapter One is a brief introduction of the present research, following which is a chapter where literature review is presented. Chapter Three is the description of the theoretical framework as well as relevant concepts. Chapter Four is the design of the present research. Chapter Five and Six, which are the central parts of the present thesis, are devoted to the examination of the spreading mechanism of netspeak memes in two aspects, that is, how netspeak gets transmitted in the cyberspace on its own and how netspeak is transmitted under the influence of conscious netizens.Chapter Five investigates the self-replicating and self-transmitting ability of netspeak by right of its own character and the blessings from the Internet. The author first invests four separate sections in examining (1) the relationship between netspeak and meme; (2) the characteristics of netspeak; (3) the transmitting ways of netspeak memes; (4) how netspeak, benefiting from the Internet, works to meet three requirements of high copying-fidelity, high fecundity and high longevity, which are proposed by Dawkins (1976). Based on this, the author highlights one important section to explore how netspeak can manage to pass through the four stages of meme selection——assimilation, retention, expression and transmission, by accommodating itself with properties that are required in each stage. In each stage of the meme selection, memetic criteria that a meme must satisfy to spread successfully are discussed with unequal stress through the qualitative analysis of the collected data. The main selection criteria that are stressed are as follows:(1) Distinctiveness and novelty as well as simplicity in the assimilation stage. Netspeak such as“菜鸟”(newbie),“打铁”(submit posts) are distinctive and novel enough to be able to catch meme hosts’attention and cause amusement in the computer-mediated communication; simple and concise expressions such as acronyms, abbreviations are in accord with the principle of economy and helpful for time and effort-saving.(2) Conformity in the retention stage. Meme hosts from different Internet situations inevitably form some close-knit social networks to reinforce the existing language innovations and adaptations in an intersubjective way, which promotes the retention and acceptable degree of netspeak.(3) Expressivity in expression stage. Netspeak is expressive enough. The introduction of emoticons, dialects, homophones, extended punctuations, numbers, and various other paralinguistic symbols is the reflection of netspeak’s courageous attempts to make up for the lack of nonverbal communication in approaching the expectations from speech.(4) Publicity in transmission stage. Benefiting from the advantage of the Internet as a new medium as well as its characteristics such as high interactivity and information sharing, hypertexts where netspeak memes are text format are distributed in the digital world by countless links pointing to it, which ensures the publicity of netspeak.Based on the detailed illustration and systematic examination in this chapter, it is demonstrated that Internet has endowed netspeak memes with great ability of self-replication and self-transmission.In Chapter Six, the author elaborates on the impact of young netizens’consciousness on the spreading of netspeak by arguing that human intention or favoritism takes a considerable part in meme evolution and young netizens’motivation of identity construction acts as a driving force for netspeak use. The major findings of the chapter are fourfold with the last two points given special emphasis. Firstly, it is demonstrated from the perspective of social psychology that in the Internet setting, young netizens’subjectivity is evident in their purpose to construct online identities through the creative use of the available linguistic resources on the Internet, namely, netspeak. Secondly, with respect to the socio-psychological mechanism of identity construction, the purpose of identity construction of young netizens is attributable to their psychological needs for both group solidarity and individualism. Thirdly, with respect to the identity construction mechanism, Internet participants’identities are built by adapting a variety of linguistic strategies for multiple purposes, which shows the remarkable creativity and imagination of humanity. This section will be emphasized in great detail. Lastly, with respect to personalized identity types, four categories are highlighted in the process of language playfulness in the Internet setting. They are (1) a distinctive identity; (2) a modern identity; (3) a humorous and funny identity; (4) a young and cute identity. These four types of identities are reachable through adopting certain linguistic strategies.Chapter Seven reaches a conclusion that memes can be replicated and propagated not only depending on the advantages in and of itself, but also in the control of intending self who hosts memes to fulfill his/her specific goal. In other words, the spread of netspeak memes is not only attributable to such meme-oriented factors as self-replicating and self-transmitting ability, but also, perhaps more importantly, to such host-oriented factors as human force, especially netizens’intentions of constructing various personal identities. The present research shows a new angle to explain the law of netspeak replication and spreading as well as the language evolution and development. It aims to increase the knowledge and understanding in this promising field of memetics by sketching a general picture of the lifecycle of netspeak upon which further research can be built. What’s more, the present research implies that the creative inspiration and intentionality embodied in the deviant use of netpspeak can be also regarded as memes, which could be imitated and spread by other hosts in the same way as netspeak is created.