A Study Of Multilingual Attitudes And Practices Among University Students Majoring In Chinese Ethnic Minority Languages And Literature

As prominent fields of work in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics,language attitudes and practices have been extensively scrutinized among bilingual or multilingual speakers in diverse settings.Despite the multitude of research in this landscape,multilingual attitudes and practices as well as multilingual proficiencies of ethnic minority university students,are still underexamined.To this end,the current study aimed to delve into the multilingual attitudes,practices and proficiencies of ethnic minority university students who specialized in Chinese Ethnic Minority Languages and Literature.A mixed-methods approach was adopted in this research.Quantitative data were gathered from 255 ethnic language major students from two universities in Yunnan province by adapted questionnaires.To obtain qualitative data,semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 of the participants who filled out the questionnaires.The SPSS 22.0 was used to conduct the statistical analysis of the data,including Descriptive Statistics,Pearson Correlation Analysis,Independent Samples T-test,One-way ANOVA and Multiple Linear Regression Analysis.The major findings demonstrated that:(1)Elicited on the four skills of listening,speaking,reading and writing,the multilingual proficiencies of the ethnic language major students could be elucidated as:Putonghua(M=4.67)>Han dialect(M=4.49)>ethnic minority language(M=3,92)>English(M=2.78).The participants’command of ethnic minority languages in listening and speaking was much better than that of reading and writing,among which forty participants(15.7%)were able to speak another language other than the four languages surveyed.(2)The participants’language practices largely depended on the interlocutors in various contexts.In internal register,ethnic minority language,or sometimes a mixture of ethnic minority language and Han dialect was their first language choice with family members,and Putonghua remained the first for self-reading and watching.There existed a generational gap in language use.The Han dialect and Putonghua were more frequently used for communications in external register,but ethnic minority language was used when talking to teachers in ethnic language courses and classmates from the same ethnic group or branch.(3)The language attitudes of the participants towards the four languages were generally positive.Ethnic minority language was considered as the most beautiful(M=4.71)and amiable(M=4.78)language while Putonghua was in the first place in terms of usefulness(M=4.82)and social influences(M=4.84).The multilingual attitudes were inclined to be positive,too,among which instrumental orientation played a major role.There were positive correlations between the attitudes towards each focal language and the multilingual attitudes.(4)Regarding the demographic variables,the Independent Samples T-test and One-way ANOVA exposed that gender,grade,medium of instruction in primary schools and middle schools,the ideal instruction languages in primary schools and mothers’educational level exerted influences on multilingual attitudes.(5)Each language proficiency was positively correlated with the corresponding language attitudes,though the language proficiency of Putonghua and the attitudes towards English were negatively correlated.The Multiple Linear Regression Analysis has further confirmed that Han dialect proficiency could be calculated as predictor of multilingual attitudes,though the relatively low R~2 suggesting a weak predictive power of the model.This study may shed light on enriching the prior research of multilingual attitudes and practices by examining ethnic language major students.These findings will provide implications for minority language education at tertiary level from the perspectives of different stakeholders.The thesis ends with limitations of the study and some tentative suggestions for future research.