The Survey Of Language Attitudes Of International Students In China Towards Chinese And Their Chinese Use Situation

In recent years, with the fast development of Chinese economy and increase of China’sinternational influence, more and more foreign people are becoming interested in learningChinese. Zeal in Chinese learning appears all over the world. As a tool of communication andcultural carrier, language is closely related with people’s social structure and value system.People’s evaluation on the social value of the language is actually a kind of language attitude.It is the reflection of people’s social psychology. It essentially reflects people’s knowledgeand evaluation on the social status of one language or the variety of the language; it alsoshows people’s stereotypes towards the speakers of the language or language varieties.International students’ attitudes towards the culture of the country or its speaker can straightlyinfluence their efficiency and quality of their language learning; thus affect their language use.Based on previous researches on language attitudes in sociolinguistic area, the studyadopts the approach of questionnaire survey to explore or elicit the international students’attitudes towards Chinese and Chinese use situation. The subjects in this study are restrictedto students from Hunan provinces for convenience. After negotiating with the Chineseteachers, the author has been allowed to distribute the questionnaires between their classes.Under the teachers’ instructions, the international students have cooperated willingly andactively. All the data obtained have been analyzed through SPSS (16.0) and Excel (2003)software.The findings show that international students hold positive attitudes towards Chinese.They have high passion in Chinese learning and recognize the significance of Chinese, sothey wish to speak fluent Chinese and will continue Chinese learning in the near future.Curious about Chinese culture, most of international students express their appreciation forChinese television, songs, literature and art. Besides, they show favorable attitudes towardsChinese people, thinking Chinese are warm-hearted and sincere and expecting to know moreabout Chinese people. However, international students’ attitudes towards Chinese vary fromperson to person. The statistic analysis has proved the following social factors exert greatinfluence on their attitudes towards Chinese: age, the time spent on Chinese learning,education background, Chinese proficiency level and nationality. While the gender factor, which is supposed to have certain influence on language attitudes, doesn’t work in thisresearch. The research also demonstrates that the frequency of international students’ Chineseuse is relatively high. In terms of place, they tend to speak more Chinese in the shops or in therestaurants. In addition, they often communicate with their teachers or strangers in Chinese.Compared with the topic of entertainment and work, international students practice moreChinese on the topics about study and life. International students’ language attitudes andlanguage use affect with each other. The more positive attitude towards a language, the moreoften people choose to use the language. And the more they use the language, the better theirlanguage proficiency will be. And their language proficiency level, in reverse, changes theirlanguage attitudes subconsciously.Owing to its exaltation in the whole world, Chinese becomes more and more attractiveand popular. Researches on international students’ Chinese attitudes and Chinese use situationplay a significant role in Chinese teaching and promotion.