An Investigation On The Language Use Of The Village In The City Of Xi'an

This doctoral dissertation studies the language situation of the urban village in Xi’an City under the background of accelerated urbanization, as well as various social factors that may impact on the current language situation, and predicts the future development of the language used in the urban village according to the language changes that are taking place to village residents.During the period of accelerated urbanization, the villages around the city have become urban villages due to the expansion of the urban area. As the result of urbanization, urban villages are in a dramatic changes. A large number of outsiders speaking different dialects are living together with the local residents in the same village. The unprecedented complexity of language usage makes the urban village become a good case to research language contact, use, attitude and chages. Based on this, one of urban villages in Xi’an City is selected to do the investigation and research.The dissertation is divided into 7 chapters. The first chapter introduces the study origin, situation, significance and methods. The associated theories, research objects and process are introduced in chapter two. Combining questionnaire and interniew methods, chapter three, four and five describe in detail the language use, abilities and attitudes of local residents and outsiders living in the urban village, and discuss the social factors influencing on their language use, abilities and attitudes. The sixth chapter tries to combine dialectological and sociolinguistic research methods to study the language changes and predict the future trends of language in the urban village under the background of increasingly strong influence of Putonghua. The final chapter summarizes the main views of the dissertation as well as the research significance and innovation, but also thinks about the unaccomplished research. The mian views of this dissertation are as the follows.1. There is a common language use pattern for both the local residents and outsiders living in the same urban village:at domestic, they speak dialects to their elders in the family as well as the fellow friends; in the public and talking to customers/clients, they speak Putonghua. Meanwhile, the significant social factors that affect their language use are similar. They are "education, age, the starting time of learning Putonghua, and Putonghua expectations", which are somewhat different in the influence degrees.2. Both the local residents and outsiders are speakers in diglossia of dialects and Putonghua. Although the dialiects are their mother tongue, their Putonghua level generally meet the needs of basic communication with others. In common, the education of local residents and outsiders are higher, and their Putonghua abilities are stronger; their starting times of learning Putong are earlier and their Putonghua expectations are higher, and their Putonghua abilities are stronger. In other words, "education, the staring time of learning Putonghua, and the Putong expectation" are the three significant influence factors on the local residents and outsiders’Putonghua abilities.3. The local residents and outsiders living in the same urban village have the same language attitudes:their most favorites are dialects, and they think the dialects are more friendly, while Putonghua is more useful and influential. Therefore, whether local residents or outsiders’ expectations of the Putonghua level to their children are much higher then the expectations to themselves. But expecting their children to be fluent in Putonghua, they also expect that their children can speak dialects in order not to "forget their roots".4. Urban village has a relatively stable population and area. The local residents and outsiders living in the same ruban village interact frequently, share the public amenities, have the common language use pattern and attitudes towards the two language varieties of dialects and Putonghua, and form the common language specification and speech act. Thus, the urban village is a typical speech community.5. Under the social background of urbanization and industrialization, Putonghua becomes increasingly important and the dialects of local residents and outsiders are influenced inevitably by Putonghua. Consequently, their old dialects has been being evoluted the new dialects with Putonghua characteristics that is called "common dialect", while the Putonghua they speak is of dialect characteristics, which is called "local Putonghua". Wether "common dialect" or "local Putonghua" is the interlanguages moving comstantly closer to standard Putonghua. It is predicted that the future development of "common dialect" and "local Putonghua" are closing indefinitely to standard Putonghua, but this process will take quite a long time.