A Sociolinguistic Study Of Mongolians’Language Attitude

From the literature and related materials available, it can be found out that most of language attitude researches, including that of language attitude of ethnic minorities are undertaken mainly from the perspective of language use to study language attitude. Besides, there are seldom any researches of language attitude in terms of Mongolians’ choice of elementary schools for their school-aged children from the angle of sociolinguistics. Therefore, the thesis aims to be based on the theories of linguists Florian Coulmas and Ralph Fasold to make a deep research of language attitude of Mongolian parents whose children are of school age.From the sociolinguistic perspective, the thesis is a research with linguistic and regional characteristics of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The thesis investigates language attitude of Mongolians who are parents of school-aged children in the capital city Hohhot, and these Mongolian parents serve as the subjects of the thesis.The thesis is a qualitative empirical research. The thesis will study the following questions. Firstly, the question is that the reason why do the Mongolian parents choose the nationality elementary school for their children rather than the local elementary school. Secondly, of Mongolian and Chinese, which is the primary choice of language use for Mongolian parents whose children are taught in the Hohhot Mongolian Experimental School and Hohhot Mongolian School in language learning, in life, social activities, and recreational? Next, what kinds of attitude do the Mongolian parents, whose children are taught in the Hohhot Mongolian Experimental School and Hohhot Mongolian School, hold towards Mongolian, namely, their mother tongue and Chinese? Finally, what are the factors playing decisive role in Mongolian parents’ language attitude towards their mother tongue and-Chinese? How do these factors influence their language attitude?According to the research questions, the thesis draws out the following conclusions. First, Mongolian parents send their children to elementary schools for Mongolians with Mongolian as the primary teaching language and Chinese the second. Second, under certain contexts, most subjects choose their mother tongue to communicate with other Mongolians. Third, subjects hold positive attitudes towards Mongolian, Chinese and bilingualism. Apart from the research conclusions, some recommendations have been put forward to the local ethnic language education and language planning.The thesis is a meaningful study of theoretical and practical significance. On the one hand, it is a creative study of local linguistic phenomenon, which provides a new perspective for the theories of ethnic language choice and language attitude; on the other hand, it sheds insight into the local ethnic language education and language planning.