A Study On Language Use And Attitudes Of Tuva People In Xinjiang

The present study takes language use and attitudes as its research realm which is a traditional research direction in the sociolinguistic field. Previous studies about this issue have achieved a lot, however, in China, empirical studies on minority language use and attitudes still need to be enriched; especially for Tuva language.The present study aims at studying Tuva people’s language use and attitudes in Xinjiang as well as the effects of social variables on them. Taking Kanas village, a typical shared community inhabited by Tuva people and other ethnic groups, as the sampling place, 93 local Tuva people are chosen as the subjects. Based on the “variation theory” and “domain theory”, both questionnaire and informal interview are adopted to conduct the present study, all the questionnaire data is input and processed through the Statistical Package for Science(SPSS 19.0).Findings reveal: 1. Tuva people’s bilingual proficiency is not equal in Tuva and Chinese language, with the Tuva language proficiency being higher than that of Chinese language. However, over 70% of participants master Chinese language with varying degrees of ability, indicating the achievements of Tuva people’s accommodation to the current language policy and bilingual education; 2. As for language usage, Tuva language still takes the dominant position, but the use of Tuva-Chinese mixture takes lower using rate. Subjects’ language use in different domains is quite homogeneous with the overall trend. Besides this, language use of Tuva people has different complexity of social differentiations. “the frequency of speaking Chinese among family members” and “MHK family members” mostly affect their language use; 3. As for language attitudes, Tuva people are strongly affectionate toward their mother tongue, while they are more reasonable and pay more attention to the instrumental functions attached to Chinese language. Besides, “the frequency of speaking Chinese” is the most influential social variable affecting their attitudes towards Tuva language.To sum up, the present study will enrich the sociolinguistc study on minority languages in China, while, it possibly providing useful references for language policy making by the government, tackling the practical problems in bilingual education of Tuva people.