| Language attitude has been widely discussed in the study of sociolinguistics.As a predictive indicator of language use and development,language attitude is generally defined as the individuals' emotional,cognitive and behavioral response to different languages and their users.It is dynamic,constructive and insidious.The year 2011 was a milestone in the history of China's urbanization.For the first time in history,the proportion of urban population in the total exceeded 50% of the total population in China,which marked that China entered a new era of her development.The present study is derived from the changing language contact in the rapid development of urbanization in China.It is of great significance to the study of Chinese college students' language attitudes towards Mandarin,Chinese dialects and foreign languages in order to better understand the actual functions,positions and vitality of different languages/dialects in language contact and constructing multicultural ecology and a harmonious multilingual society in modern China.One thousands,two hundreds and fourteen(1214)college students participated in the study,who are from five 985-Project universities in China,namely Jilin University,China University of Geosciences(Wuhan),Xiamen University,Nanchang University and South China University of Technology.The study investigates their language attitudes towards Mandarin Chinese,Chinese dialects and foreign languages by using questionnaires and interviews,explores the main factors affecting their language attitude and tries to find out the mechanism of language attitude,aiming to provide a theoretical analyzing framework which covers a rather panoramic view of the issue from linguistic,cognitive and social perspectives for future studies.Compared with their counterparts in provincial colleges and universities,the students from these five universities located in different regions of China tend to be better subjects in the study of language attitudes with more diverse social and language backgrounds.In the study,the National Lingua Franca of China is Mandarin Chinese,and the foreign language specifically refers to the English language.When considering the homogeneous nature of the students' foreign languages in their linguistic repertoire,other foreign languages such as Japanese,Russian,German and Korean are not included in the present study in spite of their great value in language attitude studies.The dissertation has seven chapters.Chapter 1 briefly introduces the backgrounds,significance and research method of the present study,makes a brief review of the research on language attitudes at home and abroad,and reveals the research gap in this field.Chapter 2,Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 mainly discuss major findings in questionnaire surveys and analyze the social and linguistic impacts on language attitudes.Chapter 2 analyzes Chinese college students' language attitudes towards Chinese dialects.It is found that Chinese college students hold a positive attitude towards their dialects in emotional dimension,but somehow different dialect speakers account the different attitudes more or less.Students who speak Guangdong dialect have the most positive attitude towards their mother dialect;their attitudes are more positive than those who speak Gan dialect,Hunan dialect and Northern dialect.Chapter 3 analyzes Chinese college students' language attitude to Mandarin Chinese.The results reveal that students hold extremely positive attitudes towards Mandarin Chinese in emotional,cognitive and behavioral dimensions,showing a great sense of language identity with a high regard for the status,social influence and functions of the national language.Mandarin has been used indispensablely among these college students.Chinese college students' evaluation of mandarin in the emotional dimension has become higher than that of dialect.Chapter 4 analyzes Chinese college students' attitudes towards the English language.It is found that with a high regard for English status,social influence and practicality,Chinese college students are willing to learn and use English driven by instrumental motivation.Chapter 5 identifies the social,cognitive and linguistic factors that influence the overall attitudes to different languages/dialects with in-depth analysis of interview transcripts.Social factors include language policy,urbanization,family background,closeness of language community,teacher and peer influence,etc.Cognitive factors include identity,learning motivation and language awareness.Linguistic factors include linguistic knowledge(linguistic repertoire),linguistic competence and language use.Then based on the research findings of questionnaire surveys and interviews,the chapter goes on to explore the mechanism of linguistic attitudes and propose a Socialized Cognitive Model of language attitudes,which stresses on the interaction of social,cognitive and linguistic factors and subjective initiative of language users,namely,the impact of cognitive development on language attitudes,in both social-culture context and conversational context,providing systematical framework to explain the dynamic,constructive and insidious nature of language attitudes.The dynamic construction of language attitude goes through individuals' language acquisition process.Chapter 6 reports a case study of ethnic minority students' language attitudes,supplementing and validating the research findings of the present study.Chapter 7 summarizes the research findings,concludes with the theoretical and practical significance of this study,as well as its academic contributions and limitations,and puts forward some suggestions for the future research.Drawing merits from several sociolinguistic theories such as Accommodation Theory,the present study aims to explore the mechanism of language attitudes and deepen the understanding of the nature of language attitudes by analyzing the social,cognitive and linguistic factors that influence language attitudes of Chinese college students.In contrast to former studies on language attitudes towards a single language/dialect,the academic contribution of the present study lies in the endeavor to bring the concept of “individual linguistic repertoire” into the study of language attitudes.By incorporating individuals' knowledge,competence and use of languages and their varieties,namely,regional dialects,Mandarin Chinese and a foreign language(particularly the English language)into the framework of language attitude study in both conversational context and social-culture context,the present study sets up a Socialized Cognitive Model based on the findings of the study,exploring the mechanism of language attitudes from social,cognitive and linguistic dimensions.The study is of theoretical significance.Firstly,it proposes a Socialized Cognitive Model to explain the mechanism of language attitudes.Secondly,it draws merits from Interactive Sociolinguistics and provides a new perspective for language attitude study.Thirdly,it plays a predictive role in language development in China.With the acceleration of urbanization in China,the use of Mandarin Chinese in all walks of life will be further expanded,which may actively promote the integration of regional dialects and Mandarin,producing local mandarin varieties and gradually replacing the original regional dialects to play an important role in the society.As a lingua franca,English has been universally recognized for its remarkable social value and has remained as the major international language in China for decades.The use and development of regional dialects,Mandarin Chinese and English differ significantly between urban and rural areas.Meanwhile,the study is of practical significance in understanding the major language relationships,language inheritance and language education policy making in China.Firstly,this study reveals the actual functions and status of dialects,Mandarin Chinese and foreign languages(particularly the English language),and clarifies the coexistence and competition among the above major languages/dialects in China.Secondly,the findings of this study indicate the social and economic values of different languages(and their varieties)and their developmental trends in the new era,and verifies the necessity of dialect inheritance.Thirdly,Chinese college students' foreign language learning is still driven by instrumental motivation.Therefore,foreign language education should adhere to the view that language are great resources and guide students to understand English as a “lingua franca” which is of great value in promoting Chinese culture and international communication on a global scale. |
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