A Memetic-adaptation Approach To The Study Of American Slang

American slang is frequently used in American English. It is used by people tomeet certain communicative needs and achieve certain communicative effects. It hasdistinct language features and rich cultural connotation thus it draws much attentionof language users and linguists. So far lots of scholars have studied the original source,features and functions of American slang from linguistic, pragmatic, semantic andsocial linguistic perspectives and achieved big success. Based on the previousresearch, this thesis applies new theories--Memetics and Adaptation to analyzeAmerican slang. Memetics which is used to elaborate cultural evolution law developsfrom the theory in biology field. In this theory, meme is similar to gene, because genebreeds by inheritance and meme spreads by replication. On the other hand, it isinevitable to make a choice in language using, and the selection is for the sake ofcontext adaptation of language meme because the language users can reachcommunication purpose only when his words adapt to the communicative context.This thesis applies a Memetic-adaptation approach to study the transmission andpopularity of American slang and the findings are reached by author as follows:1) As a special form of language, American slang can be transmitted widely, thatis because memes play an indispensable role in this process. As mentioned abovememe transmits by replication, while as meme itself American slang also spreads inthis mode. According to He Ziran’s research, the author classifies American slangmemes into two types—genotype and phenotype and it turns out that the way of allAmerican slang memes getting replicated and transmitted can be identified.2) How some American slang terms can stand out from thousands of slangmemes and become popularity even is included into general vocabulary at last? Theauthor demonstrates it by constructing memetic-adaptation mode which probesAmerican slang from three worlds—mental world, social world and physical world.Firstly, the mental world mainly involves cognitive and emotive elements, and thebrevity of American slang is coincident with people’s short memory principle. Besides lots of American slang terms with intense sentimental color are convenient for users’emotional outlet. Thus these memes are popular choices. Secondly, the author findsthat American slang memes always adapt to social convention, national character,solidarity, social status and religious faith in social world. Thus they can spreadquickly and widely. Especially, Americans prefer facetious and novel slang because oftheir humorous and creative characters. At last the author also finds that plenty ofAmerican slang memes adapt to the rule of space and time in our physical world.Thus the author sums up that the success slang memes are limited to these threeworlds and those are the reasons why many American slang terms are popular. Thishappens to coincide with American slang’s features like simplicity, novelty, humorand vividness, therefore the features of American slang are resulted from itsadaptation of environment.In brief, Memetic-adaptation theory provides a new and effective studyingmethod for analyzing the transmission and development of American slang. Theauthor connects language phenomenon with culture to probe the transmission andreplication way of slang memes as well as their contextual adaptation in thetransmission process. Generally speaking efforts are exerted to elaborate the internaltransmission mechanism of American slang and to reveal the secret of transmissionand inheritance of American slang.