| In current society, advertising has entered every aspect of human life, and has been influencing us greatly. In recent years, many linguists have already been studying the advertising language. With the development of linguistics, the study of advertising language moves from pure linguistic analysis to the contextual study. On the basis of previous studies, this thesis tries to employ memetics--a new rising theory, related with adaptation theory, to explore the methods of creating strong memes in advertising language.According to the three features of strong memes summarized by Dawkins, the author collects a large number of strong memes in advertising language to make analysis. This thesis constructs a framework relating adaptation theory proposed by Verschueren with meme-related theory to analyze the process of strong meme creation. Based on Heylighen's meme selection criteria and previous related researches, four criteria are suggested for strong meme selection in advertising language, i.e. simplicity, novelty, authority and conformity. The more criteria a meme satisfies, the stronger and more popular the meme becomes. It is argued that the process of strong meme selection is the process of contextual adaptability, and that strong meme selection criteria are the result of contextual adaptability—adapting to mental world, social world and physical world of the public. The mental world consists of cognitive and emotive elements. The social world includes the national culture and social institutions. Adaptation to the physical world is analyzed from two perspectives of time and space.What is more, based on analysis of selection criteria and adaptation, the author attempts to explore several methods of creating strong memes, namely, reiteration, parody, abuse of words, use of digit and color, in fashion and task-based method. These methods can help advertisers create strong memes satisfying the strong meme selection criteria in advertising language.
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