On Language Attitude Towards Middle School Students In Guangzhou City

The major purpose of this thesis is to examine the attitudes of the middle school students towards Mandarin, English and the Cantonese in Guangzhou. The researches are about whether there are any differences between these three languages, what the differences are, what affects their attitudes and the usage of their daily language.The present research is conducted in the theoretical frameworks of the social psychology's attitudes theory, the sociolinguistics variation theory and the language policy theory. The data quantified and analyzed in the research have been collected through two methods: the matched-guise test and questionnaires. These two methods supply and validate each other, make the results more effectively.The results indicate that: people's attitudes towards Mandarin, English and the Cantonese are significantly different. Either in language status or in language emotion, Mandarin gets the lowest marks, Cantonese gets the highest and English is at the middle level. The following factors will affect their language attitudes: their family language environment, sex, the time they stayed in Guangzhou and the districts they live in. However, the factors such as family background, age and educational background have no influence on their language attitudes.The selection of language is affected by the necessity of communication; In the future, mandarin and Cantonese will take the leading part in daily life, the enthusiasm of English learning will increasing, and some minority language will still exist. Aiming to the current mandarin popularization, we advice that schools should exert their positional action, to convert the understanding mandarin popularization.