| Language attitude has long been the major focus of sociolinguistics, which helps to explore the generation, existence and variation of linguistic phenomena and has been of great significance to formulate language policy together with language protection in ethnic regions. Studies on minority languages have attracted attention from scholars both at home and abroad in recent years, which is more frequently seen among minorities in Yunnan. However, a limited number of studies were conducted on language attitudes of some ethnic students, such as Naxi. The present study aims at investigating language attitude towards Naxi, Chinese and English of the Naxi ethnic high school students in Lijiang.Based on this background, this study aims to find the language attitude towards Naxi, Chinese and English of Naxi high school students in Lijiang, and to examine the factors that affect Naxi high school students’ attitude towards Naxi, Chinese and English. Besides, attitudinal difference between the Naxi students who can speak Naxi language and those who can not will be discussed. Finally, this study is going to investigate the correlation between their language attitude and language competence.A total of 255 Naxi ethnic students from Gucheng District No.1 High School, Yulong District No.1 High School and Yulong Nationalities High School participated in a language attitude questionnaire and interviews. The software SPSS(20.0) was applied to carry out a statistical analysis.The results obtained from the study showed: respondents held an positive attitude towards Naxi, Chinese and English in general. Most respondents who approved of bilingualism which was helpful for their communicative competence and might bring them social benefits. While they held a neutral attitude towards English, a large number of participants involved in this study thought that Naxi language, Chinese language and English were all useful, especially to Chinese. Besides, Chinese tended to own much support in the evaluation of social influence. Then, gender and grade had significance difference in language attitude. Furthermore, there existed significant difference between the sample who had the ability to speak Naxi language and their language attitude towards bilingualism, compared with those who could not speak Naxi language. Finally, language competence had a positive correlation to affective and cognitive aspects of language attitude.The findings of this study may provide a direction to language planning in Lijiang. |
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