The Dynamic Study Of Peculiar Consonants In Xi'an Dialect

Sociolinguistics, an important branch of linguistics, appeared in 1960s. It proposed the idea of consideration of linguistic factors into social context. This is the important breakthrough in linguistic history. Variation of language which shows the changes of language in dynamic perspective is viewed as the focus of sociolinguistics.Xi'an dialect, one of the variants of Chinese, belongs to the mandarin of northern China and has changed a lot in the last decades. The previous researches about Xi'an dialect are quite limited and most of them are simply the descriptive researches. With the tremendous changes of society, culture and economy, it is impossible for Xi'an dialect to stay the same. This thesis explores the actual use and phonetic change of peculiar sounds in Xi'an dialect. Additionally, social factors such as age, gender, occupation and education are considered to analyze the concrete distribution of phonetic change and the relationship between sound change and these factors.The experiment lists 89 Chinese words which can present the typical sounds of the peculiar consonants. By analyzing the data collected from reading these words by informants, it's not hard to find that present Xi'an dialect is in a transitional stage in which no one strictly complies with all of the phonetic characters of peculiar sounds and none of them pronounces all of the standard sounds. Among four social factors which influence the change of language, age and occupation exert more influences on sound changes than other factors. This proves what Labov proposed in his principles—In linguistic change from above women adopt prestige forms at a higher rate than men, and in linguistic change from below, women use higher frequencies of innovative forms than men do.In general, this thesis takes Labov's sociolinguistic research methodology to explore and analyze the actual use and change of peculiar sounds in Xi'an dialect. The results of experiment indicate what Labov pointed out, that is, the phonetic changes of speakers are related to the relevant social background. At the same time, a questionnaire is designed to research the attitude of people to Xi'an dialect.