On Language Meme Phenomenon From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

As a basic unit of culture, meme is mainly replicated and spread through the non-genetic approach, especially the form of imitation. In the linguistic field, any words, sentences and even discourses as long as they are replicated and spread by imitating, they all have potential to become language memes, and gradually form certain language meme phenomenon.Reviewing the research achievements in current domestic linguistics, few scholars focused on language meme phenomenon, and most of them just tend to study language meme phenomenon based on memetic theory. However, memetic theory may only describe,classify or conclude various language meme phenomenon superficially, lacking of systematic theoretical support. As adaptation theory can well explain lots of pragmatic problems from social cultural and psychological perspectives, this thesis will interpret language meme phenomenon from the angle of adaptation theory.Based on adaptation theory, the author tends to discuss language meme phenomenon through qualitative analysis from four aspects, that is, contextual correlates of adaptability;structural objects of adaptability; dynamics of adaptability and salience of the adaptation process. Specially, there are two research objectives: First, why could these language meme phenomena spread? Second, how do these language meme phenomena replicate and spread widely? Finally, the author concludes that during the process of choice making, the communicators tend to exchange information with the language memes, which adapting to the correlate contextual factors as well as the language structure. The good adaptability of language meme phenomenon made it possible to stand out from so many expressions, and thus being expressed by communicators. Moreover, the replication and transmission process of language meme phenomenon is a dynamic process with continuous selection and adaptation, in this process, language meme phenomenon should adapt to communicators' mental world, social world and physical world. Meanwhile, the structure of language memes will change accordingly in order to facilitate people's communication, meet the needs of particular contexts, therefore promoting the frequency of language using, and making it possible to replicate and spread widely. Considering the powerful interpretation of adaptation theory, which providing a new perspective for the study of language meme phenomenon, this study is full of theoretical value as well as practical significance.