A Study On English Loanwords In Chinese From The Perspective Of Sociolinguistics

Words constitute a language component which reflects the social changes immediately and directly.Loanword,as an outcome of language contact,exhibits social and cultural exchanges of different countries.People’s attitudes and use of a language maybe affected by different social factors such as age,gender and occupations.As an integral part of modern Chinese,English loanwords have become the focus of many scholars.Theories and methods of sociolinguistics are applied to the investigation of English loanwords from two aspects:people’s use of English loanwords and people’s attitude towards English loanwords.The present study investigates the current situation of people’s use of English Loanwords in Chinese and their attitudes towards them.The influence of different social factors on people’s use and attitude is investigated.Concerning social factors,the essay aims to acquire a qualitative analysis of the outcome deriving from quantitative statistics.The research shows that:First,from people’s use of English loanwords:a great selection preference towards English loanwords can be observed in people’s daily life,this shows the strong identification of individuals towards English Loanwords from cognition,emotion and intention.Besides,the loanword selection rate is influenced by social factors such as gender,age,occupation and education degree:male show more affection towards English loanwords than female;mental workers are more likely to use English loanwords than manual workers;loanword selection rate is decreased with the increase of age and increased with the advancement of education degree,this reflects the use of language varieties are influenced by social culture and psychological factors of individuals.What’s more,the loanword selection rate is highly occupied in different registers,and the rate is gradually decreased from Internet,family to public places,this indicates that people tend to use local words in places with highly exposed to the public.Second,from people’s attitudes towards English loanwords:whether from the view of cognition,emotion or intention,people generally show a positive attitudes towards English loanwords,especially from the view of cognition.However,from the view of emotion,a dependence to local words can be observed,this shows the emotional attachment towards local words among the subjects.People’s attitudes towards loanwords are also affected by different social factors:male show more positive attitude towards English loanwords than female;mental workers are more likely to make positive evaluations towards English loanwords than manual workers;less positive attitudes are tend to make towards English loanwords with the increase of age,and more positive evaluations can be observed with the advancement of education degree.The study,in a sense,investigates the influence of different social factors on people’s use of English Loanwords and people’s attitudes towards them.At the same time,the study may verify the theory of sociolinguistics and provide some reference for the further study of English loanwords.