The Way We Meme: Toward a Descriptive Typology for Cognitive Sociolinguistic Analysis of Internet Memes

In this thesis, I outline a functional typology for categorizing internet memes using the cognitive linguistic theory of Conceptual Integration (CIT) and related concepts from Construction Grammar and Relevance theory. Although cognitive linguists have analyzed the communicative power of memes, their endeavours have yet to result in a typology that can organize all types of memes for extensible future analysis. Some meme categorization schemes have been proposed, but memes evolve too rapidly for these to be helpful long-term. I argue that CIT provides the necessary tools to construct a robust typology that can support descriptive meme analysis, emphasizing the importance of emergent dynamic meaning creation and phatic socio-pragmatic function to meme communication. I organize memes based on two functional concerns: 1) whether form and function explicitly correspond and 2) whether the meme’s meaning structure applies top-down from conventionalized instructions or bottom-up from a non-conventionalized pattern recognition process.