A Study On The Language Use Of Bai Ethnic Group In Zhoucheng Village Of Dali

Language use and language attitudes have long been the major focuses ofsociolinguists, which help to explore the existence of many linguistic phenomena andhave been of great importance to language policy-making in ethnic regions. In recentyears, studies on minority languages, such as Yi language, Miao language, Bailanguage, Kazaks language and so on, have attracted ever-increasing attention fromscholars both at home and abroad. As to Bai language, numerous research have beenconcerned with the language itself when a certain community is under discussion, suchas the characteristics of phonetics, grammars, words and phrases, and its relations withChinese language. However, very few studies have been conducted on language useand language attitudes among Bai ethnic group.In recent years, along with the development of urbanization, modernization andincreasingly flourishing tourism, some Bai villagers’ traditional way of living haschanged. Inevitably, the language use and language attitudes have to some extent beenunder the influence of this change. Under the framework of “Language Use”,“DomainTheory” and “Language Attitudes”, the present study chose Zhoucheng village as theresearch site and adopted Zhang’s (2011) questionnaire with some modification to seethe overall trend of language use of Bai ethnic group in terms of gender, age,occupation, using domains, bilingual capabilities and ways and purposes of masteringthem. Meanwhile, the languages attitudes held by villagers toward Bai language andHan Chinese, and the differences of language use among different age groups were alsoinvestigated. The total number of valid questionnaire was495, which were coded andanalyzed using SPSS16.0. For further analysis, individual interviews were conductedwith integrative quantitative and qualitative approaches.Through in-depth analysis and discussion, findings suggested that:(1) The eldershad higher language loyalty to mother tongue than the youngsters, and the more levelof education one received, the more easily he or she was influenced by dominantculture, manifesting a mixture of Bai language, Han dialect and Putonghua;(2) Bai language was always the preferred language irrespective of various interlocutors andcommunicative circumstances and most villagers showed strong emotional attachmentto their mother tongue;(3) For better adjustment to the mainstream society, more andmore elder villagers began to learn Han Chinese and Han Chinese was highly valuedunder the influence of culture fusion and increasing tourism, the emphasis of whichresulted from socio-economic, practical and instrumental value;(4) Although Bailanguage was used orally by almost all generations in Zhoucheng village, some wordshave became endangered and less frequently used among younger generations.As an empirical case for the research on language use and language attitudes, thepresent study might add new evidence to the advancement of “domaintheory”，“language attitudes” and even ethnolinguistics. It also provides some usefulinformation to language policy makers and language preservers in terms of languageplanning and language protecting in ethnic regions.