Socio-political aspects of language behaviour in Taiwan

Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Philosophische Fakultät II
Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Socio-political aspects of language behaviour in Taiwan

von: Cornelia Neumann

Contents

1. Introduction ... 3

1.1. A short Survey of Taiwanese History ... 3
1.2. Terminology ... 5
1.3. Population and Language Distribution ... 6

2. A new official Language ... 8

2.1. Criticism I. ... 9

3. A new Identity ... 11

3.1. New Language Attitudes ... 12

4. Status quo ... 12

4.1. Group Solidarity ... 13
4.2. Jurisdiction ... 14
4.3. Advertising ... 14
4.5. Criticism II. ... 15

5. Conclusion ... 16

6. Appendix: ... 17

6.1. Cherlene, May 11th, 1999 ... 17
6.2. Cherlene, May 21st, 1999 ... 19
6.3. Cherlene, May 30th, 1999 ... 20
6.4. Cherlene. June 7th, 1999 ... 21
6.5. Cherlene, June 16th, 1999 ... 22

7. References ... 23

7.1. Primary Sources ... 23
7.2. Secondary Sources ... 23

1. Introduction

The Seminar ‘Sociolinguistics and Anthropological Linguistics: A Merger’ included an e-mail exchange with Taiwanese students. My partner, whose adopted English name is ‘Cherlene’, told me a lot about the linguistic diversity of her country. Besides, I had the opportunity to read the letters which were exchanged between my classmates and their assigned ‘keypals’.
People in present Taiwan have to deal with a multilingual society. Although Mandarin Chinese is the official language, there are in fact several more languages one is confronted with in everyday life. Cherlene pointed out that choice of code differs not only between social classes, ethnic communities and generations, but also between other domains of life such as school, university, jurisdiction, the media and advertising.
Each of our e-mail partners was multi- or at least bilingual in Mandarin plus one or two other Chinese languages. Besides, all of them knew English or/and another European language. The reality of Taiwanese society requires the ability to switch codes flexibly according to the occasion.
This complex situation is the result of political changes, power-shifts, two main, contradictory waves of language promotion, and a strict language policy by the government until the late 1980s. Consequently, it is indispensable to look at historical and social developments in order to understand and evaluate the present situation.
This paper is based on Cherlene‘s first-hand information and the general impression received from the other e-mails. The linguistic information is embedded in a historic-political context, because I was especially interested in how such a situation could develop and how language use reflects power-relations.

A short Survey of Taiwanese History

Taiwan is a small country, situated 150 km off the coast of Mainland China, around 380 km long and 140 km wide.
The aborigines of Taiwan are Austronesians who are assumed to have reached the island via the Philippines some thousand years ago.
The first Chinese immigrants entered the island in the 9th century. Until the beginning of the 16th century, Taiwan was under Chinese rule and belonged to the Province of Fukien, from which the settlers originated.
In the 17th century, Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish invaders occupied the island successively until they were defeated by soldiers from the Chinese mainland.
The major wave of Chinese settlers followed in the beginning of the 18th century. There were two major groups: around two thirds of the newcomers were Southern Min People from the province of Fukien which is located almost ‘vice versae’ on the mainland; around one third were Hakka-People from a southern province. Both brought their traditions, customs and dialects with them. They were the ancestors of today’s Taiwanese (see Senftleben, 23-28f). Since then, Taiwan or ‘Formosa’ was considered as being Chinese, although it belonged only since 1886 officially to China.
In 1895, Taiwan became Japanese after the Sino-Japanese war. The Japanese colonised the island and implemented Japanese as the official language. This status lasted for 50 years, until the end of World War II in 1945, when the Allies returned the island back to the Republic of China.
China in those days experienced a civil war due to which the Communists took over the mainland. The anti-communist National Government of the ‘Republic of China’ under the general Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan in 1949; they considered the island as part of China and as a base from which they would be able to reoccupy the mainland. They were accompanied by about 1.2 m retainers, members of the former administration and parts of the army (see Cheng, 361-62).
At first, the population was joyous, but this quickly changed:

First, after retrocession of Taiwan to China, early euphoria that Taiwan was returning to the motherland dissipated as Taiwan natives recognized the differences between themselves and those who, even before 1949, were already formally called [...] mainlanders. In one village in Pingdong County, [...] informants remember that there were puppet shows and festivities at retrocession, but that attitudes changed. (Bosco, 392).

Other sources express this in a ruder way. Tsai and Ng quote a Taiwanese saying about the change from Japanese to Chinese colonialists: ‘Pigs come after dogs are gone’. This refers to accusations of plundering and rape through the new rulers (Tsai; Ng, 1).
An authoritarian regime was established on Taiwan, led by the Nationalist party KMT, which has been governing the country since then. Unpopular measures were taken with the help of the Martial Law which was lifted only in 1987. Just until recently, the KMT held the claim to be the only legal represantation of entire China and hoped for reunification under non-communist rule. This claim is fixed in the official name of the country: ‘Republic of China on Taiwan’. In contrast, the Peoples’ Republic of China’ also aims for reunification on their terms. This conflict is still not solved, and both Taiwan and the mainland keep the status quo rather than ‘solve’ the problem ultimately (which would mean that one of the opponents would have to submit).
The new rulers replaced Japanese by Modern Standard Chinese (Mandarin) as the official language:

Since the end of the Second World War, the Nationalist Chinese government of Taiwan enforced its policy of spreading Mandarin under two assumptions: (1) Taiwan is a province of China, and (2) Mandarin is the national language of China. (Cheng, 361).¹

They also prohibited the use of Taiwanese and Hakka in school, army and government and promoted Mandarin in public life. Cherlene reports that she was fined for speaking Taiwanese when she attended elementary school (see Cherlene, May11th, 1999).
They even prohibited the learning of Taiwanese to their fellow mainlanders (see Bosco, 394). The mainland-standard was established for Mandarin, but no standard was developed for Taiwanese and Hakka.

[...]

1 Historically, Mandarin is a northern Chinese variety, rooted in the dialect of Beijing, the power centre of China throughout the centuries.