English Learners’ Attitudes Towards The “Ownership” Of English And The Related Learning Practice

As for the traditional linguistic view, a language belongs to a country or a region. And it has been widely accepted that English only belongs to the countries of inner circles. In the process of English globalization, English collides with the local languages. And English has got several changes influenced by local languages and cultures. Therefore the traditional linguistic view towards the “ownership” of English has been challenged.As for the reasons of conducting this research in China, there are mainly three:(1) China as a developing country has a large number of English learners. By referring to the data of Kachru(2005), an Indian scholar, the number of English learners in China and Indian could be equal to the total number of American and British citizens;(2) since the emergence of China English, there are always conflicts between China English and English norms;(3) according to the data of CNKI, the related researches in China are comparatively in shortage.In this thesis, three questions have been explored in depth:(1) what are the learners’ attitudes towards the “ownership” of English?(2) What is their related practice?(3) Are their attitudes and practice consistent? What are the influential factors? In this thesis, the participants are students of English majors from a University in Hebei Province. 150 students attended the questionnaire part and 128 pieces are being finished completely. And 8 students were chosen to finish the interview part. The data collection methods are questionnaire and interview. SPSS 22.0 is the research instrument for quantitative data. And segmenting and comparison are the methods for qualitative data analysis. The variables are gender, grade, score and region.Here are some main findings:(1) it could be seen that over 70% of students have gained the sense of “ownership” of English;(2) and students’ attitudes towards the “ownership” of English could be influenced by social factors significantly;(3) and there are disagreements between language attitudes and actual learning practice among students(around 43%). The relevant studies in China are in shortage. The scale of the research is not large enough. All the above are the limitations. However it intends to offer a reference for further study.