A Memetic-adaptation Approach To Chinese Cosmetic Advertising Language

The advertising is a kind of language art, which is of simple, vivid and novel. When thecosmetic is born, it has connected with advertising. With exquisite pictures, haunting musicand flowery words, the cosmetic advertisement has held the attention of million people.Research Report2006shows that the cosmetic advertising is to be the top of all kinds ofadvertising. China is the second largest cosmetic market of Asia and the eighth cosmeticmarket of the world. No wonder, the cosmetic advertising has significant status in social life.Many linguists have done research on Chinese cosmetic advertising from different aspects.Based on them, the thesis will analyze the language of cosmetic advertisements fromperspective of memetic-adaptation aiming to explore the properties of successful Chinesecosmetic advertising language.Based on Darwin’ theory, memetics is a new theory of interpreting cultural evolution.Meme, just as gene, is also follow to selection regularity——“the survival of the fittest”.Not all the memes can survive in the process of transmission. In terms of memetics, languageis meme, so we could say that Chinese cosmetic advertising is a kind of meme. So how couldChinese cosmetic advertising memes talent showing themselves and then be preferred amongmillions of memes? In fact, successful cosmetic advertisements own these selection criteria,that is, novelty, simplicity, authority, formality, conformity, and publicity, which are proposedby Heylighen in1998. It is found that Chinese cosmetic advertising language memes whichpossess the above-mentioned properties will spread widely among the public.The thesis integrates memetics with adaptation theory to justify above-mentionedselection criteria of cosmetic advertising. Under the language environment of Chinesecosmetic advertising—mental world, social world and physical world, the research provethat (1) The adaptation to mental world means to comply with memory regularity andaudiences’ way of perceiving and understanding. Simplicity, novelty, as well as formality arethe results of adaptation to mental world.(2) The adaptation to social world is investigatedfrom two aspects: social settings and culture. It is showed that Chinese cosmetic advertisinglanguage which conforms to social settings possesses the features of formality and authority.The adaptation of culture refers to conformity.(3) The adaptation to physical world, involving time and space, will enhance the publicity of Chinese cosmetic advertisinglanguage. In a word, Chinese cosmetic advertising language is affected by mental world,social world as well as physical world. The properties for Chinese cosmetic advertisinglanguage are just the consequences of adaptation to the three worlds.Theoretically, the thesis extends the scope of memetics, and enriches the research ofcosmetic advertising language. Practically, it will provide references for creating Chinesecosmetic advertising language and then help cosmetic advertisers to make powerful memeadvertising language.