A Study On The Age Stratification Of The Variation Of Third Person Pronoun In Rulin Dialect Of Chengbu,Hunan Province

With the widely promotion of Putonghua and the rapid development of economy and culture,the contact between dialect and Putonghua has been remarkably increased.Meanwhile,because of the higher recognition of Putonghua,dialects have been shifted towards Putonghua in a variety of ways,and changes on the vocabulary are rather distinctive.For instance,many typical vocabulary of dialects have become more and more similar with those in Putonghua,losing its features gradually.Rulin dialect is the common language of Miao autonomous county of Chengbu,which belongs to Xiang dialect.The third person pronoun of Rulin dialect has its own characteristics.Its singular form is ji(?),which derives its origin from qi(?),zhi(?),or qu(?)in ancient Chinese.Besides,its plural form is ji li(??).However,with the increasing contact between Putonghua and Rulin dialect,variation and change have happened in the third person pronoun of Rulin dialect.Under the guidance of language contact theory and language variation theory,with the help of observation and interview,an investigation was carried out on 33 people who were born and raised in Rulin.Besides,GOLDVARB X and EXCEL(2007)were applied to explore the age stratification of the variation on third person pronoun of Rulin dialect.New variants(ta,ta li,and ta men)of third person pronoun have been widely used in the speech community,and this is a change in progress.Generally speaking,the use frequencies of ta and ji are quite close in total currently,while the use of ta li has already surpassed that of ji li.Besides,a S-shaped curve can be observed in the distribution of third person pronoun across generations,where the use of ta increased with the decrease of age,and the use of ji vice versa.Besides,there is distinctive age stratification on the third person pronoun variation,and the 30-year-old people are the watershed.People under 30 are more likely to use the new variants,while the use of old variants still overweight the new forms among people over 30.In addition,this variation is highly related to the intimacy between the speaker and the one that the third person pronoun refers to.For instance,people are more likely to use ji to refer to family member and friends who are close to them to show intimacy,while as for unfamiliar people or abstract concept,ta is more frequently applied to show neutrality and objectivity.Gender is also a factor that contributes to the variation of it,and the female use probability of ta is higher than that of male.The contact with Putonghua is the main factor that contribute to the variation of third person pronoun,and the youngsters are the main force of the linguistic change.In short,dialects always contain elements and vocabulary of the ancient Chinese,and it can also be considered as an embodiment of local culture.Exploring and recording the variation and change of local dialects can not only enhance people's understanding and recognition of their own language,but also contribute to the preservation of Chinese language variety and culture variety.