In linguistics, language classifi cation is the main subject of comparative linguistics as well as that of sociolinguistics or the sociology of language. Comparative linguistics deals with language classifi cation within the internal context of language evolution, while sociolinguistics examines it from the external context of language development. From the perspective of sociolinguistics,this paper examines three worldviews, large language ideology, small language ideology, and equal language ideology,within the framework of language ideology and order, evaluates the respective impact of large and small language ideologies on language classifi cation and nation-state building in Europe, and explores the relationship between equal language ideology and language recognition during the current cycle of globalization. It stresses that language classification is a linguistic issue as well as a social and humanitarian issue. A proper treatment of language classifi cation and recognition in LPLP is essential to a harmonious national development.
The Chinese ethnic language is a complicated system with a large number of languages and distinctive differences among dialects. The statistical results of the Chinese languages are quite different in Chinese and international academic circles.This paper, based on the case study, intends to make a comprehensive description of the different criteria on language classification, identification and dialect division used by Chinese scholars and international organizations, so as to make an objective analysis and evaluation on these standards. The paper fi nds that there are some similarities in terms of language classifi cation criteria, that is, the international organizations adopt “language group identity” and “lexical similarity” to distinguish different languages while Chinese scholars use “ethnicity” and “cognate words”. However, in terms of practical application, the standard of language intelligibility and language recognition is not operable, which makes the Chinese language number released by Ethnologue subject to criticism.
The paper discusses the issues of Chinese dialect partition from seven aspects. Section One presents some common terminologies regarding Chinese dialect partition and its debate. Section Two then identifies the complexity and challenges of Chinese in dialect partition. Section Three summarizes the work of Chinese dialect partition between 1912 and 1949 during the period of the Republican China, whereas Section Four presents the partition work in 1950s and Section Five the partition work in the 1987 version of Chinese Language Atlas. In Section Six, a comparison of six means of dialect partition in Hunan province is made. It indicates that the six methods have encompassed all the methods being used today and that the results are quite similar though the sources of data collection are different. It is thus concluded that the different methods all bear a large degree of validity. In the last section, the author further presents the views regarding the use of mathematical statistics, of uniform standard of partition, and of Swadesh 207 method of classification for Chinese dialect partition.