Language and Culture: in View of Linguistic Memetics

摘要

Memetics is originally a theory for interpreting cultural evolution. Memes, coined to disclose a strong analogy with genes, are ideas that spread through human cultures and across the generation. As cultural replicators, memes are propagated and transmitted through imitation; language, as part of culture, produces under the influence of memes. This paper discusses the relationship between language and culture and that between language and memes. In addition, the classification of linguistic memes and the survival law residing in the memes are also expounded. The next research will focus on the impact of linguistic memes on translation and language teaching.