A Sociolinguistic Study On Language Use And Attitudes Of Kazakhs

Language use and language attitudes have been the major focuses in many recent sociolinguistic studies, which help to explore the existence of many linguistic phenomena and will be of great importance to language policy-making in ethnic regions. The present study aims to investigate the overall trend of Kazakh people’s language use and language attitudes by taking Aral village in Qinggel County as the research place, and attempts to discover what factors influence people’s language attitude in Aral in Qinggel County.Based on language domain theory, the present study integrates questionnaire and interview to investigate 194 Kazakhs’ language use and attitudes in different domains with different interlocutors and the factors affecting language attitude in Aral village in Qinggel County.This study adopts Xu’s(2004) questionnaire with some modification, and includes 52 items altogether. The present study adopts both qualitative and quantitative methods. The main results are as follows:Firstly, Kazakhs’ bilingual proficiency is not equal both in Kazakh and Chinese, while none of them neither understands nor speaks Chinese or their mother tongue, which clearly indicates the results of current language policy and bilingual education. Secondly, Kazakh language is still a privileged language among Kazakhs, but there is some Kazakh mixed with Chinese and Chinese in Kazakh-dominated conversations. Moreover, Kazakhs’ language use in different domains is quite similar with the general trend. From family domain to the public place, Kazakh mixed with Chinese and Chinese is moving up in usage rate. Conversely, usage of the mother tongue is decling in the more public settings. Thirdly, most of Kazakhs embody open and optimistic attitudes toward Chinese, but mainly in instrumental aspect. A study of ethnic minority people’s real situation of language attitudes towards a particular language does not only provides insight into language problems but also promotes the development of bilingual education.All in all, the study on language use and language attitudes of Kazakhs in Aral village in Qinggel County as an empirical case aims to provide some referential resources for the development and implementation of language planning and bilingual education.