Studies Of Youngsters' Language Attitudes In Qingdao

A sociolinguistic survey and a social psychological experiment were carried out tostudy the youngsters' language attitudes in Qingdao,using both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis. In the matched-guise experiment,151 students coming from a high school and a college were asked to evaluate Qingdaohua,Putonghua,and accented Putonghua uttered by speakers (1 male,1 female) of all the three language varieties.The data suggested that on the dimension of group solidarity,Qingdaohua carried significantly higher solidarity rating than Putonghua;however,Putonghua carried greater status value.The fingdings indicated that Qingdaohua is the language of covert prestige in Qingdao.Results also showed subjects' attitude to be multi-valued: the data suggested the effect of gender,education experience,and childhood experience on differences of subjects' language attirudes.Based on the theory of sociolinguistics and social psychology,social origins of differences were discussed.