A Memetic Study Of Network Language Variation

As the unceasing improvement and renewal of the computer and internet technique, we have entered into the internet age. We can feel that the internet is invading to every aspects of our daily life in every moment. At the same time, as a special language mode which emerged under this context, the network language arrests the scholars'attention in various fields. It is different from our daily communication. We can say that this special language is the variation of the social language. The former researches on the network language mainly focus on its causes, characteristics, and there are also some arguments about its advantages and disadvantages and so on.From the Memetic perspective, this thesis will study on the network language variation. Meme is the unit of transmitting cultural information and it plays a very important role in the process of language development. Meme benefits the language development, and it gets replication and transmission by language. Due to the effects of language meme, the language variation becomes a universal phenomenon. So from the Memetic perspective to analyze the network language variation will be more helpful for us to study language and to find its developmental and evolutional law. In a word, Memetics provides a new way for the research on the network language variation and it has great value on both the theoretical aspect and practical application. This thesis attempts to demonstrate that the language meme is helpful for the development of the network language, and its replication and transmission provide a quick and effective way for enriching the language.With the research task and the hope of the thesis mentioned above, this whole thesis altogether consists five chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction of the whole thesis. There are three parts in this chapter: the research background, the objective and significance of the research and the general organization of this thesis. Chapter 2 is the literature review. It lays out a review of the network language which includes its definition, characteristics and the related studies at home and abroad. The latter half of the chapter is the introduction to the researches on Memetics in China and abroad. Chapter 3 is the theoretical foundation of the present study. In this chapter, the author mainly discusses the definition of meme, three features of successful memes, types of meme and its life circle. Chapter 4 is the main part of this thesis. Firstly, the author illustrates the development of language variation at home and abroad. Secondly, the author demonstrates why the network language is a kind of language variation. From the Memetic perspective, the last section gives the analysis of the network language variation from the following aspects: the phonological, lexical, semantic and grammatical variation and it gives a further illustration that the network language variation is under the effect of language meme. Chapter 5 is the conclusion. It mainly includes the major findings, significance and the limitations of this study, and at last the author also gives some suggestions for the future researches.