A Study Of Intertextuality In English Real Estate Advertisements From The Perspective Of Memetics

This study explores mechanism of intertextuality in English real estate advertisements from the perspective of memetics. The term intertextuality was put forward by Julia Kristeva in her Semeiotikèin 1969. It refers to relation between a text and its pretext. Since 1969, scholars have done a lot of research on intertextuality in literary criticism. It has become a typical term in literary criticism. As the study on intertextuality is deeper, a lot of scholars argue that non-literary texts, such as advertisement texts, have intertextuality as well as literary works. Thus, this thesis makes an analysis of 200 English real estate advertisements, which are from the Internet, books and some famous English papers, such as the New York Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, from the viewpoint of memetics, to investigate generating mechanism of intertextuality.Memetics is an approach that shows culture evolution which is based on Darwinism. The core term is"meme"and it is treated as a unit of cultural transmission or a unit of imitation. It is a thing that plays a role in the procedure of transmission of language, idea, belief and behavior, as the gene does in the process of biological evolution. From the viewpoint of memetics, the study makes both qualitative and quantitative analyses of data. First, a quantitative analysis is made to find out whether or not all the English real estate advertisements employ intertextuality. Second, a case study of three types of intertextuality, citation, allusion, and parody with some examples is made to give a qualitative analysis of them, to quest for the relation between meme and intertextuality.With an analysis of these advertisements concerned, the study has three findings. First, not all the English real estate advertisements employ intertextuality. This finding is supported by data analysis in Chapter 4. Second, meme is the basis of intertextuality, which is demonstrated by data and a case study of citation, allusion, and parody. Finally, formation of intertextuality is because of spreading of meme, which is supported by analysis of culture in English real estate advertisements from the perspective of memetics. After the analysis, the study concludes that intertextuality and meme share a common ground—culture. English real estate advertisement is imitation of its related text (pretext). Generally speaking, pretext carries some cultural factors. There must be cultural transmission between pretext and advertisements. Moreover, from the angle of memetics, meme is a unit of cultural transmission and cultural transmission is realized by spreading of meme. Thus, in essence, formation of inertextuality between pretexts and advertisements is spreading of meme. In other words, formation of intertextuality is due to spreading of meme and it is generating mechanism of intertextuality. The above three findings are also innovation of this study.This research has some value in terms of theory and practice. Theoretically, it enriches scope of intertextuality study to some extent, and provides new thought for it. In practice, the study demonstrates a new technique of advertising writing—intertextuality, to advertisers. At the same time, the study enables readers to appreciate advertisements from a new angle.