A Study On Lexical Blocking Of Network Catchwords From The Perspective Of Memetics

Lexical blocking is a phenomenon in which the existence of a lexical form hinders the appearance of another vocabulary.As a new branch of linguistics,lexical pragmatics appeared in the late 20 th century,and lexical blocking was one of its important research topics,which drew a lot of attention to scholars at home and abroad.In the hot stage of lexical pragmatics research,the research on lexical blocking is mainly focused on the field of English vocabulary.The study of lexical blocking by foreign scholars is mainly based on lexical pragmatics,and on this basis,some blocking theories are proposed to explain this phenomenon.However,domestic research on lexical blocking has started late,and scholars have paid less attention to it.On the basis of relevant researches,this thesis attempts to analyze and study lexical blocking phenomenon under memetic theory.Memetics is a theory based on Darwin’s theory of evolution that explains the laws of cultural evolution.The core concept is meme,which first appeared in The Selfish Genes of Richard Dawson.The introduction of memetics has brought new perspectives to research in many fields.Any language has the attribute of meme at the beginning,and language is transmitted through imitation and subject to the stipulation.Meme is the fundamental attribute of language and memes which can be transmitted from one person’s brain to another’s brain by constantly repeating and copying as they are transmitted.Memes can only be used as memes if they are constantly copied and imitated.Due to its powerful explanation,memetics is increasingly used in the study of linguistic phenomena.This thesis is also a new attempt to explore the phenomenon of language by using memetics.On the basis of previous researches,this thesis will select 50 network catchwords from the past five years(2013-2017)in YAOWEN-JIAOZI as a corpus to explain lexical blocking of network catchwords from the perspective of memetics,trying to reveal which language units can become blocking,which language units will become blocked and why some language units will become blocking items,and some will become blocked items.This thesis divides the network catchwords in the past five years into three levels,including lexical level,phrasal level and sentential level.From these three levels,the phenomenon and the reasons for the blocking ofnetwork catchwords are found under memetics.It is found that some language units that are used frequently become strong memes and blocking items.While some are not used frequently,the language units become weak memes and become blocked items.The root cause of this phenomenon is the result of meme selection.Memetics provides a new way of thinking for the study of lexical blocking,and expands the development and dissemination of lexical blocking in language level.Taking network catchwords as an example,it helps to understand lexical blocking more deeply.It also has important significance and value for further understanding the rules of language development.At the same time,this study helps the public to use network catchwords better to express inner feelings.The blocking of some vocabulary by network catchwords is also not accidental,which is determined by the memes of network catchwords.The network catchwords of strong meme will block the use and transmission of words with weak meme.