A Comparative Study Of The Contact Between Dialects And Standard Language In English And Chinese

Language has been in contact certainly for thousands of years, and probably since the beginning of human kind, or at least very close to the beginning, as soon as humans spoke more than one language. Ever in situations where, at a relatively recent time, people moved into territories that previously lacked a human presence, not all the languages were spoken in isolation. Reports of language contacts are found in historical records of and about all human cultures. Extensive and intricate language contacts, with far-reaching social, political, and linguistic effects, are a constant feature of the human condition, not a phenomenon that is limited to large, recent, militarily prominent, and technologically advanced societies."Language contact is everywhere: there is no evidence that any languages have developed in total isolation from other languages."With the extension of contemporary contact studies, the study of dialects contact of one language, particularly the contact between dialects and standard language, is becoming increasing popular and theoretically and practically significant. Although existing studies of this type have made immense achievements, they are still limited in their object and scope of study and other aspects. With the understanding of the significance and necessity of further research in the contact situation between dialects and standard language and on the basis of previous studies, therefore, the present thesis attempts to employ a contact model proposed by Frans van Coetsem (and other relevant concepts and theories) and apply a combination of empirical and rational, inductive and deductive methods and procedures, and make a comparative study of the contact between dialects and standard language in both English and Chinese respectively, exploring the various hidden social,historical and cultural factors accounting for the differences and similarities of the contact situation in the two languages, so as to achieve a more profound understanding of process and tendency of the contact between dialects and standard language in general.The whole thesis consists of five parts. Firstly, it provides a brief introduction to the definition and current researches of language contact and contact between dialects and standard language, especially focusing on the contact model between dialects and standard language proposed by Frans van Coetsem, and a brief account of the objective and structure of the thesis. Secondly, it outlines the development of dialect and standard language in England respectively, and describes the contact situation between dialects and standard language, including some opposite language phenomena arising during the process of contact. Thirdly, it interprets the relationship between dialects and Putonghua in China, and puts forwards the contact between dialects and Putonghua from the perspective of phonology as well as lexicon. Fourthly, through the comparison and analysis of the contact between dialects and standard language both in England and in China, this thesis comes to find that there exist differences and similarities in the contact situation of dialects and standard language in the two languages. The similarities lie in two aspects: the reasons for which the contact is emerging are quite similar; the process of the contact is quite similar. The differences lie in two aspects also: the progress is different; the emphasis of the research is different. Therefore, according to the results, a covariation model is constructed on the basis of Coetsem'model so as to predicate the tendency of the contact. Finally, the thesis accounts for why contact develops in the way that has been stated. In particular, it concludes that the dialects and the standard language are on the way of convergence in the long run though divergence is emerging from time to time.