The Search For The Spirit: The Language Of The Children Of Migrant Workers And Self-identity

In the context of global modernity, urban-rural binary economy system is being deconstructed in Chinese modernization process, city-country language and cultural style being collided and fused, and the physical space of migrant workers' children is transferred. From the perspective of language, this study discusses the reconstruction of migrant children" psychological pattern induced by the transfer of their living places in a micro-level, and it further leads to the crisis of their self-identification worse.Constructed from modernity characterized by instrumental rationality, logic and progress, the discourse system cuts, polishes and isolates the variable multi-language culture. Chinese modernization has constructed a language dominated by city culture, which presses, polishes and even devours the other languages, with country language in particular. The migrant workers'children transfer from country to city, floating between cities, and this brings about the breakage of self-identification in their growing process, leading to the problems of self-lost, value confusion and the lake of meaning. Therefore, this study discusses the migrant children's self-identity tendencies from the aspect of language, with an attempt to answer the following questions:how does language construct migrant children to an identity of flowing subject; what's the children's identity tendency in language community and their families; what sort of re-socialization process the children has experienced.The results indicate:first, for the growing migrant workers' children, their body movement from one place to another brings about the deconstruction, construction and even reconstruction in mind. The floating prevents the children forming a consistent and clear self, which deepens the crisis of their self-identification. The crisis is most obviously revealed in children's confusion with such self-identity questions as "Who am I?", "Where I am from?", and "Who I will be?". This kind of living situation to a large extent makes the migrant children the loners beyond the city life.Second, In general, the migrant workers' children tend to accept city life, and have a relatively strong identification with the city language and culture. However, city language and culture is seemed to be an invisible wall isolating the migrant children who are trying their best to melt into the citv life. This invisible isolation is mainly showed in the self-centered mainstream language and culture, rejecting, suppressing and devouring alien language and culture. Third, through discussing migrant workers' children in phonic, vocabulary, grammar and discourse, we find they need to experience the language socialization in the course of identifying cities. They experience not only speech socialization but language socialization, namely, socialization of the city's language culture. This is hard work for them. Because language is not only a tool, but also the reflection of the life pattern. It constructs the world for human, life and the subject. The course of transferring of language is not the tool used, but the life pattern.The final part of the dissertation discusses the proposition of "language is the home of human beings" from the perspective of language ontology. Meanwhile the researcher takes the migrant children in adulthood as an example to confirm that some grown migrants are unidentitied with cities.One of the root causes for their flowing status in city life is that they haven't been accepted by the system of city language and culture.They keep observing and thinking about this city as marginal men.which results in their continuous pursuit for their self-identity.