A Cultural Study Of Loan Words In Hui Music In Xinjiang

Recently, with the rapid development of our economy and the intensity of the world globalization, language contact has become a commonly seen phenomenon in our society. Because of the diversity of the races, language contact phenomenon can be seen almost everywhere in Xinjiang. Considered as the fundamental outcome of language contact phenomenon, loan words were frequented in human daily communication. Hui People, as one of the mainstream of the ethnic groups of Xinjiang, is formed through the gradual fusion of the different races from abroad with the local people who believed in Islam and scattered all over China. It is a general knowledge that Hui people adopt the Han language, however, the bright Hui people did not adopt the Han language completely; instead, they kept some ingredients left by their ancestors embedded in their language. Together with these vocabularies from their ancestors embedded in the system of Han language and some Islamized varieties of the Han language, there emerged one kind of language which is used within the Hui community for communication. Among the researches regarding Hui minority, most researcher devoted their passion to the history, religion and culture and less attention were paid on the language of Hui people. When we refer to the researches done concerning Hui language, the loan words were known as the most distinguishing characteristics of Hui language which caught the attention of some educators. Within the investigation of the loan words in Hui language, most linguists concentrate on the complicated process of the formation of Hui language. Some researchers studied the loan words in Hui language from the cultural angle, for instance, the investigation of the kinship language of Hui language, the taboos, and so on. Such studies are designed to illustrate the relationship between Hui language and Hui culture. Yang zhanwu and Wu shengxin both made some extraordinary accomplishment in this field. However, researches regarding Hui language were almost limited only in Ningxia province where the Hui minority takes bigger proportion while the investigation on Hui language in Xinjiang are seldom mentioned. Music is like a colorful thread go through the whole fabric of our live. It reminds us how things once were; indicate of the society. Our lives would be much less complete without it and it is the perfect art no matter what it is used for. The Hui music is no exception. To answer the three research questions⑴What are the origins of the loan words in the Hui music in Xinjiang?⑵what are the basic characteristics of the loan words in the Hui music in Xinjiang?⑶How do the cultural factors influenced these loan words; This thesis is based on the contact-induced language change theory and adopted culture reference method in the cultural linguistics to categorize and analyzes the loan words phenomenon in Hui music in Xinjiang.The author collected 300 Hui music from two published books (The Echo from the Bogeda Mountain and The selections of the folk music of Hui in Xinjiang) and five records published by Su'er Dong among which 120 songs are valid. In the observation and analysis of the loan words phenomenon in the data collected, the origins are Arabic and Persians, local Han dialect, Uyghur language and English. Afterwards, the author expounded the basic characteristics of the loan words, the diversity, localization, the frequency of the Islamic names and the consistency. With the aid of the culture reference method from cultural linguistics, the author showed the interrelationship between the characteristics of loan words and the four cultural factors, the history of the Hui and its language, the distributional pattern of the Hui in Xinjiang, the religious belief of Hui and the national identity of Hui.The present study of the loan words in Hui music in Xinjiang is a completely new attempt in the research of the loan words in Hui language. The observation of the characteristics of loan words under the influence of the cultural factors provided a clear and deeper understanding of Hui language. The investigation of the characteristics of the loan words in Hui under the cultural back ground can provide a reference for the future studies on the pertinacious vitality of the loan word in Hui language.