Abstract:

With the proliferation of the Internet, social networks and mass media, an increasing number of new cyber words are being created and applied in people’s daily life. Meme, a unit of cultural evolution, plays a significant part in the course of transmission of the new cyber words. This paper first reviews the theory of Memetics, especially the memes and the definition of new cyber words, and then analyzes the problems of using these words by examples. On the basis of deep study of the different acceptance of new cyber words in different age group, the author discusses the reasons. In the end some suggestions of using new cyber words are put forward.

Key words: Memetics, new cyber words, problems, acceptance, suggestions

摘要：

随着互联网，社交网络以及大众传媒的广泛普及，越来越多的网络新词被创造并运用于人们的日常生活。模因，作为一种文化传播单位在网络新词流行和发展中起着十分重要的作用。本文首先着眼于对模因理论以及网络新词的定义的研究，然后试图根据一些词汇使用的例子分析其中存在的问题，接着再从年轻人和中年人不同年龄层对网络新词接受度差异的分析总结出对使用网络新词的建议。

关键词：模因论，网络新词，问题，接受度，建议

1.    Introduction
In the modern society, an increasing number of people start to use new cyber words to describe their feelings and emotions. Such words are usually brief and easier to type. Sometimes, people use some analogy to replace the conventional expressions as they have similar pronunciation, sometimes they are of certain dialect. The words which are frequently used are in nature memes. The replications of memes appear on a considerable scale. For instance, in the past, people may use “美女”to describe a beautiful girl; while now, because of the culture of the Internet, “女神” is more frequently used to praise a belle. Memetics theory has gained great popularity in today’s academic circle due to its high connectivity to the rapid development of our contemporary society. Thanks to the up-to-date high technologies, especially information technology, an increasing number of cyber words are created and widely used on the Internet. Many famous professors and scholars are trying to discover the deep reason for the popularity of these cyber words from the perspective of Memetics. However, in the process of the transmission of new cyber words, various problems arise. Scholars are prone to study the role the memes play in cyber language instead of studying how to apply the Memetics theory properly as well as the differences of the young and the old generations’ acceptance of the new cyber words, which is of great significance.