Abstract：The term ‘native spoken language’ denotes an oral linguistic form that illiterate individuals acquire via oral communication. It exhibits the inherent characteristics of a native language, including the originality of linguistic features, naturalness of expressions and a confined scope of usage. An investigation of native spoken language is pivotal for revealing the intrinsic aspects of natural spoken language and the impact of Chinese language education on oral languages, offering a profound understanding of the cultural foundation and linguistic utilization within a specific locale. Owing to the national promotion of standard Chinese education and the demographic transition towards an older population, native spoken language is now the most endangered variety, representing a critical important language resource and cultural heritage in dire need of preservation efforts. The investigation of naive spoken language should adhere to the tenets of prompt intervention, thoroughness, societal engagement, and standardization to ascertain the criticality, immediacy, and detailed methodologies for investigative undertakings. This article presents a model survey of the native spoken language in the Qin’an district of Gansu province, generalizing its distinctive features across lexical, syntactic, discursive, and stylistic dimensions. Lexically, it is characterized by a specialized and circumscribed lexicon, with vernacular and widespread terms. Syntactically, it is characterized by brevity of sentence construction and simplicity of structure. At the discourse level, it exhibits a high degree of redundancy, limited logical coherence, and a strong reliance on context. At the stylistic level, everyday vernacular constitutes its primary component. The methodology and findings have implications for the preservation of endangered varieties of Chinese in China.
