A Study On China's Endangered Languages: An Ecolinguistic View

With the accelerating pace of global integration, the world's languages tend to converge and the existence of a large number of smaller languages is threatened. Some languages, as an important part and conspicuous feature of multiculture, are undergoing an accelerating process of endangerment and extinction. At the present time, the increasingly serious problem of language endangerment has broken the balance of linguistic ecology and posed a great threat to linguistic diversity, which leads to a worldwide'ecological crisis'in the linguistic field. Since the 1980s, issues relating to language endangerment and threat to language diversity have come to the foreground of linguistic discussion and meanwhile aroused great concern among the ecolinguists.As an interdisciplinary science, ecolinguistics, which studies the interrelationship between language and its environment, considers language an inseparable part of the eco-system. It takes the interdependence between linguistic and cultural diversity and biological diversity as its theoretical ground and analyzes a language on the basis of the interrelationship between its external conditions and internal constituents. Also, ecolinguistics holds that the linguistic system is an open eco-system and shares a similar structure with the latter. This original thought, quite different from the traditional views on language and linguistics, has provided a new approach to linguistic research. Therefore, ever since its establishment in the early1970s, ecolinguistics has expanded into a wide range of theoretical and applied fields concerning the interrelationship between language and its environment.China is one of the few countries that boast of multitudinous languages, among which many are either in a weaker position or an endangered condition. Inspired by the ecolinguistic thought and theory, the present study attempts to investigate China's endangered languages from an ecolinguistic perspective, and analyze the process and causes of language endangerment with the aim to discover the evolutionary rule of man's languages, the rule of functional change in particular. The study draws on the concepts in modern ecology like eco-system, ecological equilibrium, niche etc. and discusses the living environment of China's endangered languages from both the macro- and micro-layers in the linguistic ecology. Meanwhile, it proposes some measures to protect and improve the ecological environment of languages, with the purpose of preserving language diversity through various ways and playing a positive role in the construction of a harmonious environment of language use.The dissertation is structured around eight parts. The introductory part deals with the research background, theoretical framework, the significance and purpose of the present study. The first chapter serves as a literature review for the research and investigation of language endangerment at home and abroad. The second chapter expounds on the theoretical basis of the study, that is, the origin, development and viewpoints of ecolinguistics. The third chapter introduces China's linguistic situation, the history and present condition of its endangered languages and their special values. The fourth chapter discusses the causes of China's endangered languages from both the macro- and micro-layers in the ecological environment. The former refers to the natural, social and cultural environment, while the latter relates with the elements about the language itself and its users. The fifth chapter expounds the restrictive function the ecological environment performs in language change by analyzing the process and causes of Manchu language's endangerment. The sixth chapter tries to put forward measures and strategies targeted on protecting and improving the ecological environment of languages with a view to preserving the diversification of language and culture. Finally, the concluding remarks summarize the theory and methodology of the present study, generalize the development of the research topic, reflect on the limitations and defects in the dissertation, and also provide ideas for further research and action.