A Survey On The Diglossic Linguistic Phenomenon In Agricultural Products Markets In Changsha City

With the development of economy and promotion of Putonghua,this phenomenon of coexistence between official language and various dialects is common,which makes the urban diglossia complicated and widespread.Agricultural products market is an important place for local people to do some daily activities.The overall linguistic situation of the society can be known from people’s daily communication in those markets.Bilingualism theory of sociolinguistics is adopted as a guiding ideology in this research,and 225 people who come from different markets of agricultural products in Changsha city are the research subjects.The study aims at knowing the diglossic phenomenon in agricultural products markets in Changsha city from the following three aspects: 1)What kind of language is chosen to be a daily language between vendors and customers in markets of agricultural products? 2)What are the social variables that affect people’s choices of language varieties,people’s education background,level of market or communicative mode? 3)What are exactly the vendors’ and customers’ attitudes towards Putonghua and dialects?The results show that the diglossia in Changsha city is existed,and Putonghua and Changsha dialect are two major language varieties used by vendors and customers in markets of agricultural products in Changsha city;different level of markets have different percentages in using the two language varieties.From an overall perspective,the percentage of Putonghua use in high or middle level of agricultural products market is much higher than the percentage of Putonghua use in low level of agricultural products market.Correspondingly,the percentage of Changsha dialect use in low level of agricultural products market is much higher than its use in high or middle level of agricultural products market.At the same time,under different communicative modes,people speak different language varieties.Vendors and customers always use Putonghua to communicate with each other,but when they communicate with friends or people with the same profession,they will choose the familiar dialect.Besides,people who have different educational backgrounds also have a great influence on choice of language varieties.The Putonghua is used more frequently by people with higher education than people in market with lower education.In addition to level of market,communicative mode and level of education exert great influences on diglossia.Age also has few impacts on diglossia in agricultural products markets in Changsha city,which basically meets that people with older age use dialect more frequently than the younger.As for language attitude,most people think Putonghua is prestigious and dialect is amiable.But vendors and customers hold different attitudes towards Putonghua and dialect.Vendors believe both of Putonghua and Changsha dialect are useful.However,in customers’ viewpoint,Changsha dialect can receive higher social recognition,and Putonghua has a great social influence.Changsha dialect is precious for Xiang dialect,which carrys the Huxiang culture.At the same time,Putonghua plays a very important role in showing the city civilized image and promoting the national economy development.All of this requires us not only to popularize Putonghua but also to protect local characteristic culture.