Cultural Contact And Language Change

Language and culture are the common heritage of mankind and the protected content of intangible cultural heritage.The study of ethnic language can be taken as the objective need of constructing the common spiritual home of mankind.It is one of the significant research contents of linguistic anthropology to study language and its development and change from the perspective of culture.Language and culture have indivisible connections.Language is not only the carrier of culture,but also the content of culture.Therefore,cultural changes also affect the changes of language.Many internal and external mechanisms give rise to language change,and one of its important elements should be cultural contact.The contact between different cultures may bring about different degree of influence to the language culture of each side.The Russian federation is known as one of the world's multi-ethnic states.Its development of history has laid the foundation of multi-ethnic settlement and multi-cultural coexistence.The regional characteristics of multi-ethnic and multi-cultural symbiosis in Russia have attracted attention from academic circles.As one of the important countries along the "Belt and RoadInitiative",Russia and China have a long,friendly and good-neighborly comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination and a deep and extensive tradition of people-to-people and cultural exchanges.Tuva,a cross-border ethnic group,distributes in the Republic of Tuva of Russia,Mongolia and China.The Republic of Tuva is located in Russia‘s SouthSiberia.Tuvan language is an important communication tool for the Tuvans and a symbolic system oftheir cognitive world and information exchange.Moreover,Tuvan language plays a crucial part and role as a carrier of Tuvanethnic culture,as well as Tuvan people's identity,emothion and thoughts.According to UNESCO's survey on the vitality and diversity of the world's languages,Tuvan is among the vulnerable languages.This reality also shows the importance and objective need for the protection and inheritance of Tuvan language and culture and the study of Tuvan language.Moreover,the study of Tuvan language plays a positive role in understanding the cultural characteristics of Tuvan people in Russia and promoting cultural exchanges between China and Russia.This dissertation focuseson the theme of culture contact and language change,according to the field work in the Republic of Tuva,Russia and rich literature,combined with anthropological theories and methods,and discusses how do Tuvan and Russian cultural contact influence the Tuvan language change.Specifically,based on a brief discussion of the history and current situation of Tuvan people and Tuvan language,this studyfirstly will further explore the Tuvan language changes and theirrepresentative ways in the fields of education,media and daily life.The second chapter focuses on the Tuvan language change and its forms in the field of education from five aspects: language and education,preschool education,junior high school education,higher education and textbooks.Overall,Tuvan and Russian bilingualism is becoming common among the students,and they possess well bilingual competence.Content types of Tuvan textbooks have diversified,and there are more Russian loanwords in the texts.Some of the contents also reflect the historical process the common struggle and development of all ethnic groups in Russia.Therefore,the educational field reflects the communication,integration and coexistence between Tuvan and Russian cultures.The third chapter explains the Tuvan language changes and their representative ways in the media field from four parts: language and media,paper media,TV media and network media.The Tuvan paper and television media use more Russian loanwords.Network Tuvan words show that people replace ?,?and? three Tuvan letters with ?,? and ?.Network Tuvan acronyms also show the same characteristics as network Russian acronyms.The Tuvanlanguage of online media reflects the impact of Tuvan-Russian cultural contact on the Tuvan language,as well as the communication and integration between the two cultures.The fourth chapter is composed of four aspects: language and daily life,name and relative appellation changes,language occasions and choices,language attitudes and choices.Tuvan names and relatives appellation not only retain the traditions and customs of Tuvan language and culture,but also reflect the characteristics of Russian language and culture.Some Tuvanpeople take Russian names or names with Russian name characteristics and Russian culture.In daily life,some of the relative appellation of Tuvan people also borrowed Russian relative appellation.Tuvan and Russian language have their own functions for Tuvan people.The language attitudes and choices of Tuvan people not only show how much attentiondo the Tuvans pay to Tuvan and Russian language,but also indicate the importance of these two languages for them.In a word,daily life reflects the Tuvan language inheritance and changes and the coexistence of multi-cultures under the background of the contact and integration of Tuvan and Russian culture.Based on the above contents and analysis,this dissertation focuses on the influence of Tuvan and Russian cultural contact on the formation and evolution of Tuvan language and its forms of expression.On the premise of the contact between Tuvan and Russian culture,the Tuvan languageand cultural change has a variety of forms,among which acculturation is prominent.The Tuvan language change shows some features that Tuvan culture accepted and adapted to the Russian culture.Moreover,Tuvan people adopt Russian culture and integrate it with their own culture,which further promotes the communication and integration between Tuvan –Russian ethnic culture.Ethnic language study is not only a theoretical reference for the protection of the world's linguistic and cultural diversity,but also in line with national development and international cultural exchange policies and ideas.Moreover,ethnic language study is of great significance to the construction of the common spiritual home and the protection of intangible cultural heritage of mankind.The case study of Tuvan language also has certain reference value for the protection and development of Chinese minority language and culture.