A Research On Language Variation Of Modal Particles Of Ningxiang Local Putonghua Under The Context Of Language Contact

Greatly affected by language contact, language variation appears frequently. Due to theinfluence of people’s native dialects, there appear various kinds of local Putonghua withsome distance from standard Putonghua and some features of dialects in the process oflearning and using Putonghua for speakers from all sorts of areas in our country, which leadsto some changes of vocabulary, pronunciation and syntax in standard Putonghua. Along withpopularization and promotion of Putonghua, under the contact between Ningxiang dialectand Putonghua, Ningxiang local Putonghua, as a new language variety, is a linguisticphenomenon that some characteristics of Ningxiang dialect appear in the Putonghua speaking.This research will analyze the modal particles variation in Ningxiang local Putonghua toanalyze modal particles changes from the perspective of language contact and languagevariation of sociolinguistics with the research methods in sociolinguistics mainly adopted. Atthe very beginning, with recording and observation, a large amount of data of Ningxianglocal Putonghua will be collected from about90people of different gender, educational level,occupation and occasion who are natives in Ningxiang County. And then these linguistic dataare conducted by the distributional and multivariate analysis. Finally, the data obtainedquantitatively would be analyzed with the mathematical statistics methods by using severalsoftwares such as GOLDVARB X, and EXCEL (2007).This study shows that Ningxiang local Putonghua is such a language variety that ismainly affected by linguistic inferences and extralinguistic inferences. It appears becausepeople will add some characteristics of Ningxiang dialect to Putonghua consciously andunconsciously in the process of speaking Putonghua. In the five typical modal particlesvariation in Ningxiang local Putonghua, statement modal particles variation is used the mostfrequently; the second one is query modal particles variation. Exclamatory modal particlesvariation, imperative modal particles variation and pause modal particles variation are usedmuch less frequently than query modal particles variation respectively. The appearance ofmodal particles variation represents a certain distributional regular. In addition, males useNingxiang local Putonghua more frequently than females; people between30and45usesthis language variety the most frequently; company staffs are the main users of Ningxiang local Putonghua; on the occasion of marketplaces, the number of speakers of this languagevariety are the most. As far as the language attitudes of local people are concerned, most oflocal people could accept this language variety. Males seem to be more positive to accept thelanguage variety than females; company staffs have the higher tendency to accept Ningxianglocal Putonghua, while most teachers show disfavor on this language variety. The majority oflocal folks that accept this transitional variety consider the Ningxiang local Putonghua withmodal particles from Ningxiang dialect as a characteristic of culture because it is humorousand intimate for them.With constant economic development and cultural communication, the phenomenon oflanguage contact and fusion occurs extensively. The appearance of a new language varietywill bring some challenges to the common language, therefore, mandarin level needs to befurther improved and promoted.