A Study Of Catchwords From The Perspective Of Memetics

Catchword is a kind of language prevailing in a certain period of time and meanwhile reflecting properties of society, culture, customs and human feelings of that time. Language develops along with the changing society. Catchwords are at the forefront of language changing and developing, reflecting changes and developments of society. They have become an indispensable part of language. Recently, more and more scholars have paid attention to the phenomenon of catchwords, and a number of articles and books related to catchwords have been published. Most scholars have done researches on catchwords from the perspectives of semantics, sociology and cognitive science, etc. However, researches on catchwords from the perspective of memetics are relatively few and not systematic enough.Memetics, originated from Darwin's biological evolution theory, is a theory for interpreting cultural evolution. Meme is the core concept of memetics, which is first proposed by zoologist Richard Dawkins from Oxford University in his book The Selfish Gene in 1976. Meme is a replicator similar to gene. Gene propagates by heredity while meme transmits by imitation. Meme, as a unit of cultural information, plays an important role in the development of human languages. The replication and transmission of memes provide a quick and effective way to enrich human languages. Chen Linxia and He Ziran present memetics of language explicitly in 2006 and view language itself as a kind of meme. Memetics of language reveals the law of language development and supplies new thoughts for language research, communication and culture. The transmission and development of catchwords are closely bound up to meme, and this thesis will study catchwords from the perspective of memetics.National Language Resource Monitoring and Research Center of China releases the top ten Chinese catchwords of different categories each year, and the Global Language Monitor also releases the top ten English catchwords of the year annually. The releases of these catchwords provide authoritative data for the study. Taking catchwords released by the two authoritative organizations from 2006 to 2009 as the main data, the thesis attempts to make a relatively systematic analysis of catchwords from microscopic and macroscopic perspectives. From the microscopic point of view, the thesis analyzes catchword memes from four levels: word meme, phrase meme, sentence meme and discourse meme. From the macroscopic point of view, the thesis analyzes the dynamic process of catchword memes, discusses social, psychological and linguistic factors attributing to the formation of catchwords and makes an attempt to forecast the development tendency of catchwords.This study suggests that catchword meme is a kind of language meme and exists commonly in words, phrases, sentences and discourses. Catchwords are produced by replication and transmission. The life cycle and development of catchwords is a dynamic process of language, representing the rules of cultural evolution. Successful catchword memes have the features of fashion, briefness and sociality besides longevity, fecundity and copying fidelity. The formation of catchwords is closely related to social background, psychological foundations of people and characteristics of language itself.This study aims to help people grasp the dynamic process of replication and transmission of catchwords theoretically and pragmatically. To some extent, this study also hopes to enrich the research on memetics and catchwords.