Bilingualism and Language Vitality amongst Middle School Students in Zhuoni County

Abstract

  Zhuoni Tibetan is spoken in Zhuoni County, which is located in Gannan Prefecture, Gansu Province, China. Prins (2003) reported that the Chinese language is exerting an ever-increasing pressure on Zhuoni Tibetan. This study assessed the language vitality of Zhuoni Tibetan in the east and west of Zhuoni County and recruited high school students as the research samples. In-depth interview was conducted and the results were as follows. In the west of Zhuoni County, Zhuoni Tibetan was used harmoniously and original reservedly, so there was a strong degree of language vitality between Chinese and Zhuoni Tibetan. On the other hand, the common language for every domain was Chinese in the east of the county. Therefore, Zhuoni Tibetan was in the crisis and less vitality as less people use and Chinese became more common use.