| Xishuangbanna is a m ultilingual area of many ethnic groups. 12 ethnic groups like Dai people, Hani people, Yi people, Lahu people, Jinuo people and Yao people and so on live in this area. The population of all the et hnic groups account for 70.9% of the whole population of Xishuangbanna. Each ethnic gr oup owns its native language. They also learn Chinese and even a third language at the sam e time. With the development of the society, eco nomy and culture, language contact is becom ing more and more frequent, as a result, each ethnic group’s native language use, native language competence and native language attitude are changing.Under the background of language contact, the study aims to figure out:(1) the current situation of ethnic students’ native language use in family, on different social occasions and to d ifferent social groups;(2) the current situation of ethnic students’ native language competence;(3) the curren t situation of ethnic students’ attitude towards native language;(4) the correla tions among native language use, native language competence and native language attitude.In the study, 200 ethnic students from a certain junior school of Xishuangbanna are chosen as research subjec ts. Questionnaire is adopted as the main instrument to collect data and information. 200 copies of questionnaire papers were handed out and 187 valid were taken back.After data analysis, it is found:(1) the current situation of each ethn ic group’s native language use is different because of the language contact. They use different languages when communicating with family members, to different social groups and on different social occasions to m eet their communicative needs. On som e informal occasions and when talking to th e people from the same ethnic group, they m ainly use native language, but on some formal occasions and when communicating with the people from other ethnic groups, they m ainly use Putonghua.(2) Because of the language contact, native language competence of ethnic students is becoming weaker and weaker. Most of them can speak and understand what others say, and som e of them can read but few of them can write. These ethnic groups’ current situation of native language competence is different from each other, because of som e social factors, such as the proportion of the population, the degree of the gathering or scattering of ethnic groups and the degree of language contact and so on.(3) Most of the ethnic students’ attitude towards native language is positive, however, each ethnic group has different attitude towards their native language b ecause of the degree of language contact.(4) Native language use, native language com petence and native language attitude are correlate d to each other, and their native language use, native language competence and native language attitude present a positive correlation, but some of the ethnic g roups present a diffe rent correlation because of the language contact. |
