SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES IN CHINA: HISTORY AND PERSPECTIVES

Maria Ya. Kaplunova
Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Federation

Annotation

Language situation in China, due to its multiethnic and multicultural population is of certain interest to sociolinguists. Nevertheless, the problems including the functioning of the Chinese language, which plays the role of a unifying language in the country; minority languages and other key issues of language and society in China have become objects of a balanced language policy relatively recently, due to the fact that the Chinese Sociolinguistics is a young science, which emerged in China during the implementation of the policy of reforms and opening up in the PRC proclaimed in 1978.
Over the past forty years, Sociolinguistics in China has gone through the stages of emergence, formation and development, which are described in this article. In addition, the active involvement of sociolinguists in the modern language policy of the country allows researchers to determine the period from the beginning of the XXI century. as a stage of sustainable development of Sociolinguistics. Besides, the widespread implementation of sociolinguistic research methods within the principles of language policy and language construction of the country also allows us to judge the prospects for the further development of Sociolinguistics in China.
Keywords: China, Sociolinguistics, language situation, language life, language resources

For citation: Kaplunova M.Ya. Sociolinguistic studies in China: history and perspectives. Sociolinguistics, 2020, no. 3(3) [online], pp. 30–40.

DOI: 10.37892/2713-2951-2020-3-3-30-40