A Study On The Current State Of Spoken Lexicons In The Old Beijing Dialect

This thesis presents a quantitative study and its findings of the current state of spokenlexicons in the old Beijing dialect, regarding contemporary young Beijing locals'comprehension of 30 dialectal lexical items that were commonly used about 60 years agoin Beijing. The study focuses on the following questions:(1) To what extent contemporary young Beijing locals can understand the lexicons thatwere popular in Beijing about 60 years ago?(2) More importantly, to what extent young Beijing locals are actually still using theselexicons in their daily communication?(3) What are the possible causes that lie beneath the discovered phenomenon concerningthe disappeared and disappearing lexicons?With these questions in mind, I have proposed two hypotheses based on the results of apre-test interview. In order to test the validity of the hypotheses, data analyses areconducted by means of both Frequency analysis and Chi-square test on the datacollected from the questionnaires completed by 60 participants. According to the results ofdata analyses, the two hypotheses are verified as true and tenable. Moreover, possiblereasons that lead to the current state of these lexicons are analyzed in detail.Main research findings include the following:(1) Certain lexical items in the old Beijing dialect are proved to be completely out of use bycontemporary young Beijing locals, and large numbers of the remaining ones are also onthe brink of imminent extinction.(2) In terms of lexical choice, contemporary young Beijing locals are tending to abandontypical Beijing dialectal features in daily communication, while the lexicons in Putonghua— the standard Chinese –is more likely to be adopted.(3) Social variables affect people's linguistic behavior to different degrees. Concerning thisresearch, comparatively older male participants are inclined to use lexicons of the oldBeijing dialect more than females do.(4) Several factors interact to exert influence on the current state of the lexicons, in whichpopularization of Putonghua plays a rather important role.The present study may shed light on future researches of the related subjects. Andinevitably, the research has certain limitations, and the findings elicited from it need to befurther verified and supplemented by more substantial studies of these crucial issues.