Memetic Research Of Guo Degang’s Crosstalks

Crosstalk considers language as its life, makes up "package" and amuses audience through language. This art form experiences ups and downs, and then it is revitalized for the occurrence of Guo Degang. He succeeds in combining forms and skills of traditional crosstalk with modern life. Many of his classical lines are imitated and applied into daily conversations. There are few foreign scholars involved in crosstalk researches because of different language systems. Guo Degang’s crosstalks become a hot topic on the net recently, but very few researches study his crosstalks from the perspective of linguistics.Memetics is a new theory, which interprets cultural evolution, on the basis of Darwin’s evolution theory. The core term of memetics is meme which is a basic unit for cultural transmission and the memes are constantly copied like genes and transmitted by imitation. Language is the main carrier of cultural transmission. Both meme and language interplay with each other. Meme benefits the development of language, and meanwhile it relies on language to get replicated and transmitted. With infectivity, memes have such a natural affinity with language of crosstalks. Adaptation Theory holds that language use is a process of constant choice-making and adaptation. In this process, cognitive factors of mental world play an important role.In this thesis, language memes in Guo Degang’s crosstalks will be analyzed from the perspective of memetics. Language memes in Guo Degang’s crosstalks here mainly refer to strong memes, which include two kinds, Guo Degang’s original lines created by him and proverbs, idioms and network catchwords which are handed down from ancient time until today. Based on memetics and enlightened by Adaptation Theory, this thesis attempts to summarize the cognitive factors, namely, audiences’ memory and their ways of understanding and appreciating which influence memes’ replication. Ways to create strong memes in crosstalk will be summed up through the analysis on adaptability of strong language memes to cognitive factors in Guo Degang’s crosstalks.This paper probes into language meme phenomena in Guo Degang’s crosstalks, helps future scholars exploit a new research angle of crosstalk and provides a theoretical support for outstanding crosstalk creation in China in the future.