A Linguistic Research On The Migrants From Hubei To Guangdong

Since the Chinese Economic Reform in 1978, millions of people have moved to Guangdong from other provinces, working and leading a relatively stable life there. Those from Hubei constitute a very important part of the so-called neo-migrants. Generally, Hubei dialects, which were once their most used codes, can not be sufficient for communication as circumstances changed. Some Hubei migrants use more and more Mandarin and some start learning Cantonese. Some problems are concerned in our survey, such as the languages they choose, their language proficiencies and factors which may influence their language use and proficiencies.A research on basis of Labovian Paradigm was carried out. Thanks to the network in the community of Hubei migrants, over 200 people were chosen and data on social characteristics, linguistic proficiencies, language acquisition and code switching were collected by anonymous questionnaire. Hypotheses based on precedent studies, life experiences and statistical observations were proposed and then tested by percentage calculations, univariate tests, regression analyses, correspondence analyses etc. Then we discussed the results, considering some theories and experiments relative to our survey.In the conclusion of the paper, suggestions were raised according to the variations on Mandarin and Cantonese proficiencies and on migrants' tendencies in code choosing, in hope that linguistically they could adapt themselves better to their new life conditions. The limitations and deficiencies of the research were mentioned and improvements in our future studies were also expected.