A Study On The Emergence And Prospect Of China English From The Perspective Of Memetics

China English has all along been a controversial issue since it was put forward for the first time. Many scholars maintain that the proposal of China English is impractical for the lack of social basis as well as a theoretical foundation. On the other hand, the use of English by the Chinese people is mainly for international communication, whereas China English will reduce the intelligibility of English. What's more, the acknowledgement of China English will cause other countries to follow suit to claim the rationality of English used in their country. The consequence is that English will become more and more unintelligible, which will definitely hamper the smooth progress of intercultural communication. Therefore, China English is unnecessary either. In light of the questions above, the author will take memetics as the theoretical foundation to explore the reasons for the emergence of China English, its necessity and prospect.Memetics can be interpreted as a cultural evolution theory based on Darwin's theory of biological evolution. The term meme is initially put forward by Clinton Richard Dawkins, who regards meme as a new kind of replicator, or a unit of cultural transmission. Memes can be divided into successful memes and dead memes, strong memes and weak memes, a single meme and memeplex. Besides, Dawkins proposes three qualities of strong memes: longevity, fecundity and copying-fidelity. As for the factors influencing memetic success, Blackmore and Distin give their opinions. According to Blackmore, the nature of the human beings as the memetic selector and the qualities of the memes themselves constitute the reasons for the success or failure of memes. Distin contends that the environmental factors and the memetic content are the two factors influencing memetic success. Besides, the environmental factors consist of the physical environment, the memetic environment and the biological environment. All of these provide us with a new perspective to explore the emergence, existence, necessity and prospect of China English.After analyzing the relevant ideas of memetics, the author holds that China English is a strong memeplex now. First of all, the physical environment, the memetic environment and the nature of the Chinese people as the selector of English meme constitute the premises for the emergence of China English. Secondly, China English possesses such qualities of strong memes as coping-fidelity and longevity proposed by Charles Dawkins, and it will certainly satisfy the quality of fecundity as will be proved in this thesis. In addition, the function of China English to demonstrate and maintain cultural identity, as well as the function to promote cultural evolution shows clearly its necessity. In a word, the qualities of China English and its necessity jointly form the rationality of China English as a strong memeplex.