A Contrastive Analysis Of English And Chinese Neologism From The Perspective Of Memetics

Neologism is the result of not only language's self-development but also interactions of language and culture. Therefore, it is significant to contrast and compare Chinese and English neologism's similarities and differences in revealing the nature of language and exploring the law of language development.It is a new understanding for neologism production and the process of word spread in the prospective of Memetics. Meme is the unit of a piece of information and culture transmission, living in people's brain independently, and expressing itself by different carriers, among which language is the most important one. The birth of a neologism is a successful survival of a new leximeme.Basing on qualitative research supplemented by quantitative methods, the dissertation majorly combines deductive method and inductive method as well as description and interpretation in investigating and generalizing the retrieved facts. The type of leximeme, the way of generation, and the methods of transmission of Chinese and English neologism are contrastively talked about, and similarities and differences are figured out. The similarities are: First, recombination is the major generating way; Second, memeplex is the major morphememe's type; Third, genotype is the basic transmission form; And fourth, developing family words is the common tendency. The differences are: First, code-mixing word is the unique form in Chinese neologism; Second, single meme is more vitality in English neologisms; And third, shortening words are more transparency in Chinese neologism.The causes of similarities and differences can be grouped into two aspects—inner force and outer force—from the prospective of Memetics. Inner force refers to the motivation of meme's self-development which not only works as the inner force of neologism's generation but also guarantees succession and purity of a language, because of the properties of meme—hereditary, innovation, and exclusive. Therefore, for one hand, only a new leximeme is novel, simple, expressive, utility, and relevant, can it arouse attentions of a host-to-be and further transmit itself. Recombination and memeplex meet most of the characteristics, so it is no doubt that they are successful in meme's competition both in Chinese and English. And on the other hand, a new leximeme should be harmonious with the other memes in the same meme pool, compliance with the rules of the carrier; otherwise, it would not be tolerated and accepted, which guarantees the purity of language at the same time. It is acceptable to say that the different external form of language meme takes the major responsibility of Chinese and English neologism's differences. As for the process of individual word's socialization, it is the process of leximeme's self-propagation, infecting and assimilating new hosts, retaining in hosts'brain, and continuous transmitting, which is necessary for a successful meme's development too. The outer force refers to the changes of meme's living environment. Meme lives in the brain, while the cognitive level of the brain is developed with the developments of science and technology and cultures, therefore, the changes offer the outer motivation to neologism's generation, because language is the expression of people's new thought about the world.Briefly, the self-propagation of meme is the inner force of neologism's generation and transmission, and the developments of technology and science are the outer force. The two sides are dynamic and affect each other, therefore, neologism's generation and transmission are the result interacted by the two. Economy and utility are the basic laws and they accompany all the stages of a neologism's development, because of the survival of the fittest, only the fittest surviving.The discussion of the similarities and differences of Chinese and English neologisms from the perspective of Memetics has practical significance too. Firstly, it is instructive to the specification language and language environment; Secondly, it has positive influence on people's attitude to neologisms; And thirdly, it is tutorial to language teaching and learning methods.