The Hybrid Metaphor: From Biology to Culture

This article introduces and briefly discusses a few conceptual considerations common to biological and cultural hybridity and examines the biological concept of "hybrid vigor" as it can be applied to the cultural realm of hybridity, illustrating this with a hybrid form of communication in cyberspace. The notion of a hybridity cycle is introduced, along with stages in the cycle whereby a hybrid form becomes a purebred and then parent of another hybrid.