A Sociolinguistic Study Of Loanwords In Modern Chinese

Words constitute a language component which directly and immediately reflects a changing society. A loanword, an outcome of language contact, exhibits social and cultural exchanges of different countries. How to accept and use loanwords depends on region, gender, age or occupation. I examine various language attitudes and the use of heterotypic synonym loanwords in different regions of China through corpus analysis and two different surveys including matched guise technique and questionnaire.Although research on loanwords in Chinese language has been active since 1950s, the defining categorization of foreign words in Chinese language is still controversial. A word is a linguistic symbol and consists of signifiant and signifie. The standard I employ in defining a foreign word is associated with the use of both content and form of a linguistic symbol. I also establish different ranges of loanwords such as noticeably distinctive loanword or indistinctive(assimilated) loanword. Phonetic loanword and hybrid loanword with phonetic element are examples of noticeably distinctive loanwords whereas calque (loan translation) and Sinoxenic word are instances of indistinctive(assimilated) loanwords.In order to analyze regional and generational differences in the usage of a loanword, I established a loanword corpus of Chinese language and Chinese communities respectively, based on sixteen different sources. The statistical analysis of the corpus shows that regional language environments and socio-cultural context affect the acceptance and usage of foreign word, especially differences in heterotypic synonyms. A phonetic loanword mostly occupies the whole category of loanword corpus; however, a phonetic loanword is rarely found among frequently used words when compared to other types of loanwords. It proves that phonetic loanwords, most commonly used, demonstrate the easy acceptance of concept and usage of foreign word but does not last long and is likely substituted with other words. Through a survey of matched guise technique from 960 residents in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Sichuan (excluding Chengdu), I examine the language attitude of those 960 people. It shows that s respondents think highly of phonetic loanwords used by male recorder and semantic loanwords recorded by female. Also, male surveyors prefer phonetic loanwords, while on the contrast, female respondents do more semantic loanwords. This survey also shows clear age-grading. For instance, those in their 20s tend to be vague in their attitude towards foreign words such as their preference between phonetic and semantic loanwords. Those in their 30s, they are much clearer. In terms of occupation, people with government jobs think highly of semantic loanwords, while those who work at private company do phonetic loanwords. All these results are associated with openness and trends of language users.There are many heterotypic synonyms in Chinese foreign words, perhaps due to translation method, or regional differences in translation. I examine perception and usage of heterotypic synonym through an online survey. Age-grading clearly affects change in the usage of letter words or characters and differences between mainland and Hong Kong. Frequently used type of foreign words also often appears in the media, which explains the significant influence of media on the usage of loanwords. Letter words are frequently used in Hong Kong, while people in mainland Chinese use characters. Among the three regions of Beijing, Shanghai, and Sichuan, people in Sichuan mostly frequently used characters, followed by those in Beijing and Shanghai. In addition, females tend to use letter words and in age, those in their 20s also use more letter word compared to others.