Chinese-dominant bilingualism
Testing the bilingual competence of ethnic Nuosu
This research provides quantitative evidence of the decline in Nuosu competence among the young Nuosu generation
in Liangshan, Sichuan, China, through a direct comprehensive linguistic measurement of their Nuosu-Chinese bilingual competence.
Although the young generation can still speak Nuosu, a Tibeto-Burman language, as fluently as the elder Nuosu generations without
apparent difficulty, this research identifies the subtle change of competence before it becomes widely noticeable. A sample of 34
ethnic Nuosu of three generations was tested in Xichang, Liangshan, through measuring their core or implicit language knowledge
(i.e. morphology, syntax, lexicon, semantics, and pragmatics) in Nuosu and Chinese. The participants were from seven
Shynra-speaking counties and two Yynuo-speaking counties, mainly within Liangshan. The test format was listening and speaking, to
include illiterate speakers. It was found that all elder and middle-aged subjects still possessed monolingual baseline competence,
which was stable and maintained at a high level. However, only half of the young Nuosu subjects achieved monolingual baseline
competence in Nuosu. The other half, though still considered as native speakers of Nuosu, had lower and more varied competence;
however, almost all of them achieved monolingual baseline competence in Chinese. The Nuosu speech community in Liangshan is
shifting from Nuosu-dominant bilingualism to Chinese-dominant bilingualism. Moreover, the present study proposes a typology of
native speakers and a typology of bilinguals based on different levels of competence obtained from the current sample.
Article outline
-
1.Introduction
- 2.The Nuosu language and bilingualism in Liangshan
- 2.1About the Nuosu language
- 2.2Generational differences in language use
- 3.Method: A direct comprehensive linguistic test
- 3.1A measurement for understudied lesser-known languages
- 3.2Test content
- 3.3Selecting test features
- 3.4Solution to the dialectal differences
- 3.5Participants
- 3.6Literacy issue and change of the test format
- 3.7Question types and sample questions
- 3.7.1Attitudinal clitics with multiple-choice question
- 3.7.2Simplex-causative verb with T/F question
- 3.7.3Focus-presupposition construction with sentence-making question
- 3.8The test content of the Nuosu and Chinese test
- 3.9Test procedure
- 4.Results and discussion
- 4.1Declining and unstable Nuosu competence among the young ethnic Nuosu
- 4.2High competence in Chinese among the young ethnic Nuosu
- 4.3Vocabulary test
- 4.4Summary
- 5.The dynamic change of the competence
- 5.1Three cut scores of competence
- 5.1.1Estimating the measurement errors
- 5.1.2Monolingual baseline competence
- 5.1.3Cut scores of limited and fluent competence
- 5.2A typology of native speakers
- 5.3From Nuosu-dominant bilingualism to Chinese-dominant bilingualism
- 5.4Summary
- 6.Conclusion
- 6.1Summary of findings
- 6.2Limitations of the present study and recommendations for future research
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References
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