A Study Of Realization Of Intertextuality In Chinese Public Service Advertisements From The Perspective Of Memetics

The term "interte"xtuality was coined by French semiotician Julia Kristeva in the late1960s in her Semiotics. It refers to interrelation between the text and its pretexts. Since itwas ifrst proposed, intertextuality has been mainly used in the ifelds of literary criticismand translation. With further development of the research, many a scholar also ifndsintertextuality abundantly existing in non-literary works, such as advertising. Positive andprofound meanings in the creation and understanding of advertisements can be achievedthrough the researches on intertextuality in advertising, which can help the publicunderstand and accept the information in advertisements. Previous researches onintertextuality in advertising mainly focused on its classiifcations and functions. Fewresearchers have touched upon the realization of intertextuality in advertising. However,understanding and realization of intertextuality in advertising is crucial to the creation andunderstanding of advertisements. Proposition of Memetics provides a new angle for therealization of intertextuality in advertising. Based on Memetics, the thesis is to study therealization of intertextuality in Chinese public service advertisements.52pieces of Chinese public service advertisements are chosen from the author’s dailycollection and some main networks such as www.baidu.com. The analyzed data are typicaland representative, including social civilization, social focus, health, political policies andso on. Through analysis of the data, it is discovered that intertextuality in Chinese publicservice advertisements is realized through rearranging, assimilating or reorganizing acertain part of other texts, and that part is a meme. However, not all memes can be used tohelp realize intertextuality in Chinese public service advertisements. The admen of publicservice advertisements mainly choose strong memes, for example, famous sentences fromclassic works, allusion of historical stories, titles of popular songs and so forth. Thosememes are familiar to the public both in contents and forms and they can convey positiveenergy and help to create a harmonious social atmosphere, so in this way, people can realize and change their unhealthy behaviors and resist the unfavorable social practices.It is the replication and transmission of language memes that realize intertextuality inChinese public service advertisements from angles of memetic genotype and memeticphenotype. From the angle of memetic genotype, there are three different ways to realizeintertextuality in Chinese public service advertisements. They are as follows: quotation ofsentences from classic works, application of allusion of historical stories or heroes’ namesin classics and imitation of memes with the same source but different forms. As for theangle of memetic phenotype, it is replication and transmission of memes with the samestructure but different contents, memes with the same or similar sound but differentmeanings and memes with the same written form but different associative meanings thatform intertextuality in Chinese public service advertisements. As for replication andtransmission of memes with the same structure but different contents, they are realized byimitating famous sentences from classic works, lyrics of songs and famous idioms. As forreplication and transmission of memes with the same or similar sound but differentmeanings, they are realized by imitating sounds of famous idioms, four-character idiomsand phrases. As for replication and transmission of memes with the same written form butdifferent associative meanings, they are realized by applying literal meanings of phrasesand four-character collocations.It is hoped that this research can help people further understand intertextuality, andcan provide enlightenment to the creation and appreciation of Chinese public serviceadvertisements.