Language shift in the gelong community of Hainan

Chi On CHIN

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapters

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of language shift in the Gelong community. The rapid urbanization of Hainan Province in the past three decades has increased the influence and impact of the lingua franca, Putonghua, on local dialects and languages in Hainan Province. Many speakers of local dialects and other languages have undergone language shift with various degrees by using more Putonghua than their native tongues in their daily life. This study is based on a sociolinguistic survey with 159 Gelong students residing in Dongfang City ( 東方市 ) located in western Hainan. They were asked to indicate their choice of Gelong and Putonghua in different situations such as interacting with family members of different generations and with teachers and classmates outside schools. This paper discusses the extent of shift from Gelong to Putonghua and compare the result with those in previous surveys undertaken by the project team in other multilingual communities such as Guangxi and Sanya. Copyright © 2016 香港中文大學中國文化研究吳多泰中國語文研究中心.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationNew horizons in the study of Chinese: Dialectology, grammar, and philology: Studies in honor of Professor Anne Yue
Editors 丁邦新, 張洪年, 鄧思穎, 錢志安
Place of PublicationHong Kong
PublisherThe Chinese University Press
Pages535-550
ISBN (Print)9789627330233
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2016

Citation

Chin, A. C.-O. (2016). Language shift in the gelong community of Hainan. In P.-h. Ting, S. H.-n. Cheung, S.-W. Tang and A. Chin (Eds.), New horizons in the study of Chinese: Dialectology, grammar, and philology: Studies in honor of Professor Anne Yue (pp. 535-550). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.

Keywords

  • Gelong
  • Putonghua
  • Language shift
  • Urbanization
  • Multilingual communities

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