A Memetic-adaptation Approach To The Analysis Of Netspeak In Chatrooms

The present thesis is an analysis of netspeak in chatrooms from the perspective of memetic-adaptation. Memetics is a new theory for interpreting cultural evolution and social phenomena from the biological perspective and it is a theoretical and empirical science that studies the replication, spread and evolution of memes. Meme is the core term of memetics. A meme, invented to suggest an analogy with genes, is a unit of cultural imitation. Meme is a unit of intellectual or cultural information that can be transmitted in a non-genetic way. As one kind of meme, language meme is a transmission unit of language information that is replicated and transmitted by non-genetic means and consequently language develops and evolves in this way. Any language entity or using style can be a unit of language meme.With the development and popularity of the Internet, more and more people chat on the Internet. In terms of the features of communication on the Internet, computer-mediated communication can be mainly classified into two types, that is, asynchronous and synchronous. The present study of netspeak is synchronous communication, which, more like a face-to-face conversation, mainly refers to the real-time discussion organized in chatrooms at particular Internet sites. Netspeak, as a language variety, is active in various Internet situations, especially in the Internet chatrooms. So far, English has been the most frequently-used language on the Internet. This thesis mainly analyzes English netspeak in chatrooms.The netspeak used in chatrooms are various. In accordance with the variety of netspeak, chatters must master the features of netspeak and particular netspeak, so that they can successfully communicate with others and adapt to the others'communication mode. The particular netspeak which is successfully transmitted and used in chatrooms is a kind of successful language meme. Therefore, the present thesis tries to probe into netspeak in chatrooms from the perspective of memetic-adaptation. Besides making an overview on the related research, the thesis combines the Memetic Theory and the Adaptation Theory into a Memetic-adaptation mode as the theoretical framework, under which we will analyze how the netspeak memes are transmitted, what the criteria of netspeak meme selection are and how the chatters use netspeak memes to adapt to their conversation. Under the memetic-adaptation framework, English netspeak in chatrooms is discussed from the three worlds, that is, the mental world, the social world and the physical world. This thesis concludes that successful netspeak memes are restricted by these three worlds, and that the transmission of netspeak memes is the result of adaptation to the three worlds.It is hoped that the study will help people to have a better understanding of netspeak, so that they can communicate more smoothly and skillfully in chatrooms. However, with the development of the Internet information technology, netspeak will also be incessantly developed and changed. The present study tries to analyze netspeak from the Memetic Theory and the Adaptation Theory and it is impossible to cover any problems of netspeak. Thus, more studies are needed in future.