An Adaptation Approach To Buzzword Memes

With more and more people tending to use buzzwords, buzzwords have further penetrated into their lives. No matter whether people realize the trend or not, buzzwords have been influencing the ways of their speaking. Buzzwords transmit through mimicking each other, which determines the memetic nature of buzzwords. For the purpose of smoothly accomplishing their lifecycle and successfully achieving the communicative goals, buzzword memes must adapt to various contextual factors in the course of self-replication. Owing to the fact that the vast majority of studies of buzzwords put emphasis on the nature, characteristics, popularity, causes of formation, etc., this research is designed to investigate buzzword memes phenomena from a brand new angle of pragmatics by employing the frame combination of memetics raised by Dawkins and adaptation theory put forward by Verschueren.This study, setting memetics and adaptation theory as the theoretical foundation, attempts to conduct a systematical analysis of annual buzzword memes published by authorities, such as National Language Resource Monitoring and Researching Center, Expressive wording, Xinhuanet and so on, during the year 2010 to 2014. There are 24 examples selected in this study. Adopting interpretative qualitative methods, and supplemented by quantitative methods, this research investigates how buzzword memes carry out the self-duplicating and self-transmitting task and thus become strong buzzword memes, and what kind of buzzword memes have the potential to become strong memes. The dynamic adaptation of contexts, structures and salience of consciousness are also exemplified.The results indicate that:(1) the self-duplication and self-transmission of buzzword memes need go through four stages, that is, assimilation, retention, expression and transmission. In hope of smooth proceeding, buzzword memes have to be equipped with four characteristics---- novelty, utility, expressivity and fecundity. The four criteria, corresponding to the four stages respectively, play an indispensable part in the course of strong buzzword memes generation.(2) In the meantime, it is necessary for buzzword memes to adapt to the mental world which comprises cognitive and emotional factors, the social world that involves culture and social reality, and the physical world which contains subjects, temporal and spatial factors. With the aim of attaining communicative goals, buzzword memes adjust themselves to multiple contextual correlates. Speakers reveal different degrees of consciousness when using different buzzword memes. For example, some emotional factors, such as herd mentality, entertainment and pursuit of fashion, will have an impact on the buzzword memes choice speakers make.Memetics and adaptation theory bear some resemblance to one another, which offers the possibility of exemplifying buzzword memes. The strong explanatory power of integrating the two theories offers up a broader vision for buzzword meme phenomena and broadens the scope of such a study. The study of buzzword memes can help people make better use of buzzwords, thus meet the communicative needs.