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Article published In:
Journal of Asian Pacific Communication
Vol. 28:2 (2018) ► pp.345–368

Language attitudes by university students in mainland China

Results of a survey in three cities

| Nankai University
| Sun Yat-sen University
| Yan’an Shiyan Middle School
| Sun Yat-sen University
| Nankai University

Through a questionnaire survey of non-local university students, this study examined direct language attitudes of English, Putonghua, and local dialects in the first-tier city Guangzhou, second-tier city Tianjin, and small city Yan’an. The significance of this study lies in two aspects: few of the previous studies examined language attitudes of non-local subjects; few of the previous studies compared attitudes toward three varieties across economically diverse cities. The study adopted Gardner & Lambert’s (1972) motivation theory to measure direct attitudes of the participants. Findings included that non-local students showed positive attitudes toward Cantonese both integratively and instrumentally but not toward the Tianjin and Yan’an dialects. Furthermore, students had positive integrative and instrumental attitudes toward Putonghua in all three cities. Finally, they showed high and positive integrative and instrumental attitudes toward English, with the means of Guangzhou and Tianjin higher than those of Yan’an. Future research should incorporate qualitative measures to provide a deeper understanding of language attitudes.

Keywords: language attitudes, high variety, low variety, integrative orientation, instrumental orientation
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Sociolinguistic settings in current mainland China
  • Literature review
    • Previous studies of language attitudes in China
  • Method
    • Background of the three cities in the survey
    • Participants
    • Materials and design
    • Procedures
  • Findings
    • An overall comparison across three cities
    • Comparison on individual factors across three cities
      • Factor 1.Integrative orientation toward the local dialect
      • Factor 2.Instrumental orientation toward the local dialect
      • Factor 3.Integrative orientation toward Putonghua
      • Factor 4.Instrumental orientation toward Putonghua
      • Factor 5.Integrative orientation toward English
      • Factor 6.Instrumental orientation toward English
  • Discussion
    • Local dialects
    • Putonghua
    • English
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00017.liu
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