Analysis Of Code-mixing In Netspeak:from The Perspective Of The Meme Theory

Language is the natural product of social development and human civilization. It is constantly in a condition of changing and updating. In recent years, with the more frequent connection on economy, culture and politics among different countries, the language contacts from different speech communities are getting much closer inevitably. This has become particularly prominent since the Internet gets widely spread in our daily life. The network has established a virtual community for netizens to exchange information through a more convenient way and has significantly influenced our language and daily communication. Accordingly, the term "netspeak" was put forward to indicate the language we use in the web pages, emails, online chatting or BBS. Due to the diversity and casualty of netspeak, the language phenomenon of "code-mixing" can be commonly found on the computer mediated communication. Enlightened by memetic theory, the present study intends to analyze the code-mixing in netspeak, trying to make a supplement to the previous study.Based on Darwinism, memetics is a newly-emerging theory interpreting cultural evolution. According to memetics, a meme is the basic unit for ideas, culture, language or behaviors to transmit. The phenomenon of code-mixing is regarded as the result of meme replication and transmission in the present study. The current research adopts a memetic approach to the code-mixing in netspeak, attempting to deal with the following issues:(1) How to define "code" in netspeak? What is the classification and features of code-mixing in netspeak?(2) Why can code-mixing be considered the result of meme transmission? How does this kind of language memes transmit? And how can some of the code-mixing be selected in the memetic competition and survive for a long time?To solve the questions proposed above, authentic data were collected from different kinds of websites. On the basis of the data analysis, it is concluded that:(1) The code-mixing in netspeak is defined as a mixing or blending of foreign languages, numbers, letters, symbols, emoticons or even different dialects in Chinese.(2) The code-mixing in netspeak can be regarded as the result of meme transmission since it fulfills the three basic qualities of being a meme, i.e. variation, selection and retention.(3) On the basis of Heylighen’s life cycle of memes, the generation process of code-mixing in netspeak undergoes four stages:the assimilation of different codes, the retention of these codes, expression of code-mixing and transmission of code-mixing through the Internet.(4) The code-mixing is classified into four categories according to the author’s definition and the features of code-mixing in netspeak are discussed in detail.(5) It explains why code-mixing in netspeak is accepted by netizens and getting more and more popular. It also solves the problem that how some code-mixing could win the competition among all the memes and become successful or strong memes on the Internet.These findings of this research can hopefully help to better understand and make full use of code-mixing in netspeak, including its causes, classification, features and generation process and provide another pragmatic evidence to confirm meme theory.