Through a large-scale survey of the language life environment of primary and secondary school students in Sanya, this paper finds that the language usage of local adolescents in the city shows significant age changes. Behind this change, there are also age changes in language attitudes and language identity. As local teenagers grow up, their sense of identity with Hainan dialect is increasing, but their use and identity with Putonghua is declining. To some extent, the dialect returning of the adolescents nowadays is a phenomenon of age grading, which is caused by various factors such as changes in the language environment, language socialization, and increased local awareness. The study also finds that there is a significant correlation between language choice and the sense of language belonging. It is suggested that when promoting Putonghua in the future, more consideration can be given to enhancing the emotional identity of Putonghua, so as to better promote it.

Yang Yuan. A Survey of the Language Use and Language Attitudes among Adolescents in Sanya. International Journal of Frontiers in Sociology (2022), Vol. 4, Issue 6: 22-26. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFS.2022.040606.

[1] Xu Daming, Tao Hongyin, Xie Tianwei. Contemporary Social Linguistics. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 1997. 

[2] Xu Daming. Language Variation and Change. Shanghai: Shanghai Education Press, 2006. 

[3] Yin Hongshan, Kang Ning. A Review of Research on Language Socialization. Language Teaching and Research, 2009, (6):7. 

[4] You Rujie. The Social Function and Harmonious Development of Dialects and Putonghua. Rhetoric Study, 2006, (6). 

[5] Zhou Tian A review of pragmatic studies from the perspective of language socialization. Journal of Gannan Normal University, 2013