Language Life in Longnan County of Jiangxi Province from the perspective of Ecolinguistics1

As bilingualism is becoming the main feature of China’s language life, it is extremely urgent to further explore people’s language attitudes and their language life. Within the framework of ecolinguistics, this paper conducts a research on the language use among the Longnan’s Hakka residents in order to access the vitality and provide reference for language policy and language revitalization research. This paper collects 104 questionnaires and then carries out case studies by interviewing three typical family members. The results show that most of the Longnan’s Hakka residents are bilingual. Compared with adults, the Hakka dialect ability of adolescents has presented a slight downward trend. Secondly, Longnan residents have the awareness of cultural recognition and language protection towards Hakka dialect. Thirdly, age, educational background and other factors have affected the language attitudes of Longnan residents. Accordingly, discussion and suggestions are presented.