Linguistic Memes As Powerful Paradigm

Since Richard Dawkins first spoke of memes in The Selfish Gene, much time has passed and several scientists have ventured into the realm of memetics. A controversy for one, a welcome new light in the dark world of science for the other, memetics has slowly emerged from Dawkins' book and now has truly become an interdisciplinary field and has found proponents and opponents in biology, psychology, sociology and linguistics. Nevertheless, many concerns have been placed in the fields of cultural evolution rather than in the fields of linguistics. And some scholars hold the view that linguistic memes are no new things but merely poor metaphors and linguistic memes are just the old semiotic idea of signs. Hence, it is worthwhile to have the investigation of whether linguistic memes belong to an old semiotic idea of signs, or powerful paradigm. Besides, academically speaking, linguistic memes have some certain cognitive principles during their internal various stages such as origination, propagation and spreading. It can prove the systematic power of linguistic memes per se. Based on the pervasive analysis on some cognitive principles during the internal various stages such as origination, propagation and spreading of widely-spread and self-propagated linguistic memes, the present thesis endeavors to have a preliminary comparison between linguistic memes and signs. Since many precursors have done various researches on signs, the comparison between signs and linguistic memes can be very convictive and representative to show the systematic power of linguistic memes. On one hand, the induction on some cognitive principles of widely-spread and self-propagating linguistic memes can be utilized for better appreciation of propagation and spreading of those successful linguistic memes and prove the systematic power of linguistic memes per se. On the other hand, it reveals that linguistic memes should be considered as powerful paradigm through comparison with signs.The structure of the paper provides a theoretical outline at first before going into the specific focus of the research. After the overlook of an introduction to the realm of memes and memetics, the existing research on them will be revealed in the second chapter. Meanwhile, the primary four types of memes including the research focus of this paper, viz. linguistics memes will be inducted.The third chapter concentrates on the cognitive perspectives and takes a closer look at the leading cognitive principles of self-propagating linguistic memes. Such kind of induction can be utilized for better appreciation of propagation and spreading of those successful linguistic memes and prove the systematic power of linguistic memes per se. Following these chapters, a description of comparison between linguistic memes and signs will be discussed.The final chapter gives a general overview on the problems that are encountered in the previous chapters and gives some suggestion for further research in the field of memetics related to the study of linguistics.