A Study On The Loanwords From Uyghur In Xinjiang Chinese Dialect

Under the guidance of the theories in language contact, the study has collected and summarized the loanwords from Uyghur in Xinjiang Chinese dialect, and it also studies the borrowing situation of these loanwords. Firstly, it analyzes the inner-language-system features of these loanwords during adaptation. Secondly, it investigates people's awareness and use of these loanwords.The present study employs multiple methods, including corpus-based analysis, a combination of description and explanation, questionnaire and interview. Two corpora have been set up to provide the solid foundation for the analysis of the loanwords from Uyghur in Xinjiang Chinese dialect. The first corpus contains 98 loanwords and their corresponding information. The loanwords are from 3 dictionaries,3 books, and 6 articles. The second corpus has 49 paragraphs containing the loanwords from the internet. The questionnaire used in the present study is self-designed according to the principles and techniques of questionnaire design and it is used to investigate Urumqi residents' self-perception of the awareness and use of the loanwords. After the survey, the data collected are input into the computer and processed by the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 16.0). The interview data are analyzed qualitatively to get evidence to complement the survey results.Through analyzing corpus 1, it is found that the features in the internal language system of these loanwords during the adaptation are as followed:(1) Phonetic aspect: All of the segments have been totally turned into Chinese way. The segments in the loanwords and the original words have a corresponding relationship. A vowel has been given to the double consonants or ending consonants to adapt to the Chinese phonetic system except the nasal ones. The syllables have lost accents and have been given tones. (2) Lexical aspect:The meanings of the loanwords have been changed. The words selected from Chinese can express the classes or categories of the loanwords. (3) Grammatical aspect:The different forms of the nouns and verbs haven't been borrowed into Chinese. The loanwords can generate new words. Most of the appellations of the loanwords end with the character"了".The characteristics of some loanwords have been changed. The word order of the loanwords has adapted into Chinese way.After analyzing the questionnaire data and interview results, it is found that the participants' awareness rate of the loanwords is high but they think their use of the loanwords is not frequent. In addition, corpus 2 from websites shows that some of the loanwords are used, but the use of the loanwords is not under a proper norm. A suitable standard is necessary. Social variables also affect the awareness and use of the loanwords. The variables of ethnicity and age affect the awareness and use of loanwords; educational level and occupation affect the awareness and use of loanwords in some degree; gender does not affect the awareness and use of loanwords at all.The study of the loanwords from Uyghur in Xinjiang Chinese dialect will be helpful for governments to draw up language policy, and it also provides some evidence for standardizing the use of loanwords.