| Buzzword is the popular language frequently used and favored by people both in oral communication and in formal writing. The research on buzzwords is in connection with multi-disciplinary subjects. On the basis of all the achievements made in this field, this study will, however, from a different angle--memetics carry out the analysis on buzzwords.Based upon the Darwinian Theory, memetics is a new one for interpreting cultural evolution, and it reveals the law of language development, providing a novel perspective on language research, culture and interpersonal communication. Its core term "meme", which is proposed by Richard Dawkins (1976) in The Selfish Gene, denotes a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation and replication. Memes can be tunes, ideas, buzzwords, clothes fashions and inventions or anything else that are commonly imitated and then passed on to others. Memetically speaking, language can be deemed both as the medium for the propagation of memes and as the meme itself. Therefore, as a typical subset of language memes, buzzword meme evolves, and it is imitated by language users and propagated among them. Furthermore, it is by its nature not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a social and cultural phenomenon.Taking all the above-mentioned points into consideration, this study will firstly attempt to propose a theoretical framework, which mainly relies on the theory of memetics and is also supported by relevant knowledge in fields of culture, mass media and psychology. Under the proposed framework, the evolutionary mechanism of buzzword memes either in Chinese or in English will then be dealt with:that is, a process primarily comprising selection, replication and transmission with different degrees of variation wherein. Finally, the cultural information of those surviving buzzword memes and the memetic impacts of them will be explored.As a whole, this thesis unfolds in six chapters.Chapter 1 briefs the rationale and significance of this study, as well as main statements, research questions and methods of data collection. Chapter 2 reviews in turns previous studies concerning buzzwords and memetics. Chapter 3 offers the theoretic foundation of this study. In this chapter, core theories are demonstrated in details, and a theoretical framework is constructed, too.Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 are the highlights of this study. Chapter 4 is mainly devoted to the illustration of the evolutionary mechanism of buzzword memes. It turns out that memes which satisfy four major criteria--novelty, simplicity, utility and conformity--stand a better chance of being selected by their hosts, and those criteria are further tested as a kind of fitness into a multiple of factors such as psychological factors, cognitive factors, socio-cultural factors and emotive factors. In general, the replication of buzzword memes is achieved by means of repetition and analogy. The former is manifested in two ways:same information in the same form and same information in different forms, and the latter in three ways, namely: phonetic analogy, semantic analogy and structural analogy. As for buzzword memes, they are transmitted either vertically among different generations or horizontally among the same generation by resorting to old media and new media besides word of mouth. Chapter 5 is a further analysis of buzzword memes. This part examines mainstream culture, popular culture, together with alien culture beneath them and analyzes the memetic impacts both on linguistic norms and on the society. At the end of this study, Chapter 6 summarizes all the findings while pointing out the existing limitations. And some suggestions are made as well in order to shed light on future studies of buzzwords. |
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