Multilingualism in Taiwan SU-CHIAO CHEN
Abstract This study investigates the extent to which multilingualism has been practiced in Taiwan and the related factors that contribute to it. Taiwan is composed of various ethnic immigrants who usurped the lands of the existing AustroPolynesian aboriginal populations. These ethnic languages provided the basis for the way in which multilingualism manifests itself in Taiwan, and were exposed to the impact of various language policies implemented throughout history. However, how those policies affected the development of multilingualism and to what extent is yet to be investigated. This study intends to do precisely this. First, it analyzes the contact situations among the ethnolinguistic groups and concurrent interventions of language policies. This analysis provides the background of the multilingual-make-up of Taiwan. Then, the vitality of languages in the current verbal repertoire is investigated in terms of Taiwanese people’s language proficiency, language use in different domains, and language attitudes. The results show that the existing multi-ethnolinguistic community that developed from different waves of immigration in Taiwan has been subject to a high level of intervention by the Government’s top-down language policies. The National Language Policy, which favors Mandarin at the expense of all Taiwanese ethnic languages, has led to the rapid shift of Taiwanese ethnic languages, but attempts to reverse language shift via the Mother Tongue Language Policy have not been effectively implemented. Issues of globalization have resulted in revisions to the English Language Policy, with English becoming strongly favored though not widely used. Other (ethnic) languages, although not officially restricted in use, appear to be in the process of rapidly losing capacity at the level of the expression of pragmatic functionality. Keywords: language shift; language policy; language attitude; language use.
0165–2516/10/0205–0079 © Walter de Gruyter
Int’l. J. Soc. Lang. 205 (2010), pp. 79–104 DOI 10.1515/IJSL.2010.040
80 S. Chen 1. Introduction Multilingualism has often been used interchangeably with bilingualism in the literature to refer to the knowledge or use of more than one language by an individual or a community (Sridhar 1996: 47). This study follows such a tradition. Developed through language contact, multilingualism is a worldwide phenomenon. Most of the nation-states in the world are de facto multilingual; however, they may differ in terms of the extent to which multilingualism is practiced and in terms of related social factors within their own territory. It is these different extents of practice that will be the focus of our nation-state case-study, which sets out to comprehend the complexity of factors that are involved. Each nation-state case-study is a valuable step that contributes to our understanding of how the varying extent of multilingualism might be developed in each nation-state with its own sociolinguistic context. In this way, the study of multilingualism in Taiwan can provide a further step toward the understanding of the development of multilingualism around the world. Yet it has previously attracted little attention from scholars. Located in Southeast Asia, Taiwan is basically composed of four main ethnolinguistic groups: Southern Min, Mainlanders, Hakka, and Austro- Polynesian aborigines. This multilingual nation was in due course joined by some other ethnic groups at the turn of this century when new cross-border marriage immigrants, mainly from Mainland China and Southeast Asian countries, arrived. Their arrivals brought with them their native languages, which thus came into contact with the already-existing local languages, widening the linguistic repertoire of Taiwan. Under such circumstances, the nature and extent of multilingualism in Taiwan must be influenced to a certain degree, which is yet to be investigated. The arrival of the recent immigrants corresponds to the development of globalization worldwide, in which movements between nations of commodities, resources, information, and even populations between nations have become more intense. Under this globalization process, the global forces, interacting with national or local forces, have certainly led the Taiwanese to increase their contacts with outsiders and develop a “global consciousness” (Robertson and White 2003). This development must have impacted on multilingual development in Taiwan, and thus also needs to be investigated. In the study of multilingualism, some scholars (e.g., Fishman 1966; Gal 1979) have investigated language change or language shift in terms of domains of language use. Domains are defined as “institutional contexts and their congruent behavior co-occurrences” (Fishman 1972: 441). Language shift occurs when the use of a language is reduced in certain domain or replaced by another language. Others (e.g., Holmes et al. 1993; Vila 2004) have analyzed the degrees of language competence exhibited by community members. In fact, lan-
Multilingualism in Taiwan 81 guage use and language proficiency are closely related and mutually reinforcing. The less one uses a language, the more difficult it will be to maintain proficiency in it (Dorian 1981). Moreover, an attriting language falls out of use in many domains and the functional division of languages is thus changed in a given speech community. This whole process reveals values that are assigned to languages or varieties by members of the speech community. Such values are particularly easy to identify in bilingual communities (Pride and Holmes 1972). It is the different values assigned to languages that contribute to linguistic stability being hard to attain in a multilingual community, as the imbalance of power among languages or varieties in a speech community may lead to language shift (Schiffman 1993). One of crucial interventions is the implementation of an official language policy. Language policies, embodying and shaping public attitudes toward language (McGroarty 1996), are involved in the allocation of resources and envision the direction of language change, which is crucial to multilingual development. Big languages are often led to spread, but small languages are led to shift throughout history. In fact, it is not only public attitudes (fructifying in language policy) but also individual attitudes that affect language use in a multilingual community. Attitude reflects the value associated with languages as perceived by community members, and can be categorized into two types of functional orientation: integrative and instrumental. While integrative functions include those that show group solidarity and intimacy, and social and cultural integration; instrumental functions include those used as tools for socioeconomic survival and upward mobility (Dua 1989). Some studies (e.g., Lukmani 1972) have found integrative motivation to be more strongly linked with success in second language study; other studies (e.g., Edwards 1985; Gal 1979) have revealed language shift motivated by the perceived instrumental functions of a specific language. Still other studies (e.g., Gardner and MacIntyre 1991) have found that instrumental motivation can be just as or even more powerful than integrative motivation. Despite divergences among scholars, their work has shown that both integrative and instrumental functions are associated with effects in multilingual development. The above discussion shows that the analysis of group members’ language use in domains, language policy, and language attitude reveals how one language or variety in a speech community may become more valuable than another in specific contexts. Against the background of the foregoing theoretical discussion, this study investigates the extent of multilingualism in Taiwan in the light of frequency of language use in different domains, the degree of language proficiency exhibited by Taiwanese and both public and individual attitudes toward languages. The contribution of this article is to provide a timely analysis of the language behaviors of the Taiwanese under the impacts of both new arrivals and globalized forces, and to relate multilingual developments in
82 S. Chen contemporary Taiwan to insights into how varying patterns of multilingualism can be developed with their own sociolinguistic contexts. In the following, I will first analyze the sociolinguistic background of Taiwan, and describe the types of language contact situations among the ethnolinguistic groups. This will be followed by an analysis of the language policies that have been implemented, with a view to showing how unequal public attitudes contribute to the complexity of multilingualism. Finally, I will examine the current languages vitality in terms of language use and language attitudes, to show the pervasiveness of multilingualism in Taiwan. 2. The sociolinguistic background in Taiwan In this section, I will give a general account of the ethnolinguistic groups in Taiwan, tracing the sociolinguistic background and the course of multilin gualism in Taiwan from a historical perspective. This discussion will provide a background to the multilingual-make-up of Taiwan against which the ramifications of language use, language policy, and language attitudes will be investigated in the rest of the paper. Taiwan is geographically composed of one major island and several smaller offshore islets, and is separated from Mainland China by the Taiwan Strait. It has been the major remaining territory of the Republic of China (ROC) since 1949 when the Kuomingtang (KMT), the ruling party of the ROC, retreated from Mainland China and relocated there. The population of Taiwan is currently estimated at 23.059 million (Bureau of Statistics 2009). The population is composed of four main ethnolinguistic groups: Southern Min (73.3%), Mainlanders (13%), Hakka (12%), and Austro-Polynesian aborigines (1.7%) (Huang 1993: 21). It was noted that the ratios of the four groups remained about the same in the 2000 population census. The Austro-Polynesian aborigines are officially called “native Taiwanese”. The Southern Mins, Hakka, and Mainlanders are descendants of Han Chinese. They themselves or their ancestors came to Taiwan mainly in three successive waves of immigration from China, beginning in the 17th century and continuing until the early 1950s. The fourth wave of immigration began in late 1990s, when marrying foreign brides became popular in Taiwan. These recent immigrants originate in a variety of ethnicities; some are Han Chinese from Mainland China, others are mainly from Southeast Asian countries, with Vietnamese as the largest group, followed by Indonesians, Thai, and then Philippinas. They brought with them their native languages and cultures. The four waves of immigrants are discussed further below. The first period of immigration began at the time when Taiwan was colonized by the Dutch (1624–1662) in the south and by the Spanish (1626 –1642)
Multilingualism in Taiwan 83 in the north. It continued until Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895 (Chen 2006). Earlier in this period, the Austro-Polynesian aborigines had outnumbered the Southern Min speakers from Mainland China. Those Southern Min speakers are the first group of immigrants who settled in Taiwan in response to the economic and political disintegration of the Ming dynasty in China and the large demand for a labor force by the Dutch colonials (Jordan 1973: 37). After Taiwan came under the sovereignty of the Ching Empire in 1683, a large number of Southern Min speaking immigrants moved from Fujian. The influx of Southern Min speakers caused their language, Southern Min, to become the dominant language of Taiwan. This was followed by a much smaller migration of Hakka speakers from Guangdong in the 18th century. Owing to the smaller number and the later settlement of the Hakka speakers as opposed to Southern Min speakers, the Hakka speakers became a minority group, and were pressured to be bilingual in Southern Min and Hakka. During the period of colonialism, the colonists adopted a pragmatic language policy that was neither oppressive nor discriminatory (Tsao 1999). They supported the codification of the native aboriginal languages in Romanized orthography (Tse 2000: 155). After the colonists were driven out, the Ching dynasty government took over Taiwan but left it unaffected by any real language policy. Therefore, the status of the languages was decided by the majority of speakers (Huang 2000). Thus the most important language during this period was Southern Min, followed by Hakka and then by the Austro-Polynesian aboriginal languages. The second wave of immigrants began at the cession of Taiwan to Japan in 1895 and continued until the ROC army arriving from Mainland China then took over Taiwan in 1945 (immediately following the end of World War II). During Japanese colonization, the majority of immigrants were Japanese. While the number of immigrants was small, their influence on language use was significant. As the Japanese were the colonial rulers, they spread their language, Japanese, primarily through education, and made it an official language. Virtually the totality of educational and administrative sectors were required to use Japanese (Young 1989: 29). As the language policy implemented was oppressive and discriminatory in regard to Southern Min, Hakka, and Austro-Polynesian local languages, the status of these languages was seriously damaged in this period. Further damage to the status of Taiwan’s local languages occurred in the third wave of immigration. After being defeated in World War II, Japan lost the right to occupy Taiwan, and the ROC army from China took control of Taiwan in 1945, and this followed in 1949 by the ROC Government’s retreat from Mainland China to Taiwan. Many Chinese then fled from the Mainland to Taiwan. This movement brought an influx of a variety of Chinese dialect speakers who are commonly called “Mainlanders”. In addition to bringing with them
84 S. Chen their Chinese dialects, they also brought, as the official language, Mandarin, which was basically unknown to the Taiwanese until that point in time. Through political domination and the enforcement of a Mandarin language policy, Mandarin was effectively promoted as the official and national language at the cost of the suppression of Taiwan’s local languages (Chen 2006). Thereafter, social and linguistic inequalities were created among the various ethnolinguistic groups. Just before and around the beginning of the current century, on foot of social and political changes in Taiwan, the indigenization and internationalization of Taiwan were promoted, and multilingualism and multiculturalism were favored. These developments proceeded in association with and in response to the worldwide globalization phenomenon. A result of this was the fourth wave of immigration movement, which began in the late 1990s, particularly after the turn of the century, when commercial marriage migration brokers began to introduce brides from Mainland China and Southeast Asia (mainly from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines) to Taiwan’s fishery and agricultural villages because of a so-called “bride famine” in those rural areas. Since then, the number of foreign bride immigrants has increased steadily. In the year 2009, there were 387,788 foreign brides among new immigrants, the largest group of bride immigrants originating in Mainland China, the second largest group originating in Vietnam, and the third largest group originating in Indonesia (www.immigration.gov.tw/aspcode/info9804.asp). At present the number of new immigrants is in fact larger than that of Austro-Polynesian aborigines. One out of four couples registered in Taiwan for marriage represents a cross-border marriage and one out of eight newborns is the offspring of foreign brides (Ministry of the Interior 2002). Regardless of the fact that the immigrants seeking marriage in Taiwan are from different countries and speak a variety of native languages, they are all categorized together simply as foreign brides — a group which are stigmatized, because of their status as an intermarriage “commodity”. They are generally concentrated at the lower end of the Taiwan social structure (Chen 2008). During this period, multilingualism became popular, and the “Mother Tongue Language Policy” and “New English Language Policy” were simultaneously implemented. Despite the multilingual environment, the foreign brides generally have Mandarin proficiency at a higher level than proficiency in other local or ethnic languages (see Section 4), because Mandarin is the official language, and the only language in which classes are offered in the extensive government-sponsored language programs. Nevertheless, through daily contacts, many of the incoming brides are quite fluent in Southern Min, and those who are Hakka offspring or who lived in Hakka villages also have some Hakka proficiency. In brief, the ethnolinguistic heritages in Taiwan result from four waves of immigrants who took over the lands of the existing Austro-Polynesian aborig
Multilingualism in Taiwan 85 inal populations. Those immigrants brought with them their own ethnic languages, which enriched the linguistic environment of Taiwan. While the continued co-existence of these ethnolinguistic groups has made Taiwan de facto multilingual, multilingualism has not always been favored and promoted throughout history. Attempts of various kinds have been made by the Government to influence, via language policies, the status and functions of languages present across the Taiwanese territory. We shall turn to such matters in the following section. 3. Language policy and language planning Language policy and language planning are frequently used, both in the technical and in the popular literature, either interchangeably or in tandem (Kaplan and Baldaur Jr. 1997). For the purpose of this study, these two terms are interchangeably used. Language planning refers to “deliberate efforts to influence the behavior of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language codes” (Cooper 1989). It involves the allocation of resources and envisions the direction of language change, which is crucial to the multilingual development of Taiwan. As was mentioned previously, waves of immigrants in Taiwan’s history corresponded to the waves of more positive policies and more negative policies towards multilingualism. A close look at these language policies will contribute to our understanding of the process of their development in Taiwan. Such an examination will also provide insights into how economic, social and political changes interacted with the formulation and implementation of language policy, which in turn have influenced the multilingual evolution of Taiwan. From the historical perspective, the “National Language Policy”, the “Mother Tongue Language Policy”, and the “New English Language Policy” are three language policies that especially warrant further discussion. 3.1. The National Language Policy The National Language Policy was one of the policies that drastically changed patterns of Taiwanese language use. It was formulated and implemented during the third wave of immigrants one year after the ROC assumed control of Taiwan. The KMT government under Martial Law, decided to Mandarinize the Taiwanese in order to achieve national unification. As a result, the National Language Policy, also called the National Language Movement, was developed and Mandarin was imposed as the national and official language in 1946, with the establishment of the Taiwan Provincial Committee for the Propagation
86 S. Chen and Promotion of the National Language (TPCPPNL). First, the committee made attempts to ban Japanese use in all domains. Later, the use of languagevarieties other than Mandarin was restricted or even prohibited in public domains. A series of actions was further taken to discourage or prohibit the use of language-varieties other than Mandarin (including foreign languages). In 1948, Southern Min was declared as “inadequate for academic and cultural communication” (Cheng 1979: 560). In 1956, Mandarin became the sole language of schooling. Education and the mass media became the primary channel for the promotion of Mandarin. Beginning in 1958, all students were required to pass a compulsory Mandarin proficiency examination in order to graduate (Young 1989). In addition, the Government promoted the idea that linguistic unity was necessary for the good of the Chinese people. The ideal of national unity was thus strongly promoted, and any resistance to the spread of Mandarin was interpreted as a Communist intrigue. Finally, linguistic unity as a national policy was officially proclaimed by the Minister of Education on March 24, 1973. The evidence of such practices makes clear that Mandarin Language Policy was harshly enforced, and, at the same time, that all Taiwanese ethnic languages were seriously stigmatized. The outcome of the National Language Policy was the effective promotion of Mandarin as the national and official language in Taiwan at the expense of the suppression of the development of Taiwan’s ethnic languages. Fortunately, Martial Law was lifted in 1987, and the language policy was liberalized, with the use of Taiwanese ethnic languages coming to be tolerated. However, as a result of the harsh enforcement of the Mandarin-only policy for 40 years, the use of all Taiwan ethnic languages has drastically decreased, while the use of Mandarin has continued to increase (Huang 1988; Young 1989). Current patterns of language use and language attitudes will be further analyzed in the next section. Today, after most of the people in Taiwan have shifted to using Mandarin in most domains, the major task left to the Mandarin Promotion Council (MPC) for Mandarin affairs has been dealing with the choice of a Romanized phonetic scheme for Mandarin. Tongyoung Pinyin (TP), a system which was developed locally, and Hanyu Pinyin (HP) which was developed and used in Mainland China, were the two most competitive phonetic schemes. Each had its own advantages and disadvantages for Taiwanese society. Although these two systems were basically the same, with only slight differences, they are associated with two opposing political ideologies representing two ethnonationalisms which are respectively supported by two groups of people called pan-greens and pan-blues respectively. The pan-greens support Taiwanese nationalism and are composed predominantly of Taiwanese ethnic groups; they are represented politically by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a grass-roots
Multilingualism in Taiwan 87 political party. The pan-blues are associated with Chinese nationalism and composed predominantly of Mainlanders; they are represented politically by the KMT. The pan-greens support TP, as it symbolizes a Taiwanese identity separate from that of Mainland China. The pan-blues, on the other hand, support HP as it symbolizes a Chinese identity closely bound up with Mainland China. The dispute between these two distinct political ideologies became particularly pronounced between 2000 and 2008 when the DPP gained national political power. Although the MPC opted for the TP system as the country’s official spelling system for Romanizing Mandarin, the decision met with boycotts from the pan-blues. In consequence, the Romanization of Mandarin was implemented as a “one country, two systems” decentralized policy. While the pan-green administrators accepted the TP system, the pan-blue administrators accepted the HP system. Such division is totally at odds with the call for linguistic unification in the earlier phrase of the National Language Movement before the lifting of Martial Law. It was not until 2008 that the pan-green DPP lost the Presidency, and the pan-blue KMT regained national political power in Taiwan. The pan-blue central government decided to exert its political power to enforce and implement HP as the national system for Romanizing Mandarin. As the KMT has also gained the majority in Congress, their decision can be fully enforced. It can be predicted that HP will be fully promoted as the only Romanized transcription system for Mandarin, and that TP will completely lose its status and even disappear in the near future. 3.2. Mother Tongue Language Policy The public’s awareness of the importance of pluralism and the value of ethnocultural identity has been aroused since the lifting of Martial Law in 1987, when Taiwan went through rapid changes in its social, political and eco‑ nomic environment. One important development in this connection was the launching of the Mother Tongue Language Movement, the origins of which are mainly linked to the establishment of the DPP, with its advocacy of nativization, the promotion of Taiwanese identity and the use of ethnic languages. In this context, the Mother Tongue Language Movement developed from below, and the Mother Tongue Language Policy was formulated in order to repair Taiwan’s decaying ethnic languages, including Southern Min, Hakka and Austro-Polynesian Aboriginal languages. Since then, limits on the use of nonMandarin languages have ended following the abolition of the 20th regula‑ tion of the Broadcasting and Television Law (Newsletter of the Legislative Yuan 1993). Concomitantly, discussion of Taiwanese ethnic identities has flourished, research on Taiwanese culture has abounded, and demands for the
88 S. Chen use of Taiwanese ethnic languages have increased. This movement is, in fact, in conflict with the previous National Language Movement. While the National Language Movement encouraged the homogenization of Taiwan’s citizens as Mandarin speakers, the Mother Tongue Language Movement encourages multilingualism, particularly the preservation and use of the Southern Min, Hakka and Austro-Polynesian Aboriginal languages. Given that all Taiwanese ethnic languages have to date existed only in spoken form, it is essential and a matter of urgency to select an appropriate variety within each ethnic language to codify and standardize. This is necessary in order to move beyond the current vernacular status of these Taiwanese ethnic languages and to promote their spread to in-groups and out-groups. However, the choice of an appropriate system within each ethnic group has encountered serious setbacks throughout the process. Emotionally charged regional differences in respect of the preferred variety have complicated the situation. As the Government was unable to strictly enforce the process by requiring everyone to use one particular variety in each case, the choice was left in the hands of publishers and scholars, neither of whom are necessarily credible to the general public. Codification in the Mother Tongue Language Policy is inchoate in the standardization of the vernacular languages, which includes at least graphization, grammatication, and lexication (Ferguson 1968). Inconsistency became the norm rather than the exception. One clear consequence is the lack of consensus regarding the selection of a writing system to standardize the different vari eties. This has affected the effectiveness of attempts to revitalize the Taiwanese ethnic languages. The formal implementation of the policy began in 2001 when the nine-year joint curriculum reform was implemented and Taiwanese ethnic language teaching became incorporated into the formal curriculum. Each student nationwide from the first grade through the sixth grade is now required to take one or two periods (40 minutes/period) each week of Taiwanese ethnic languages. The ethnic languages offered at each school depend on the ethnic origin of the majority of students and the availability of teachers. It was found, however, that the Mother Tongue Language Policy was not effectively put into practice. In some schools, the teaching of Southern Min dominates the implementation of the Mother Tongue Language Policy (Chen 2006), pointing to a situation illustrating the dictum that “every minority has its own minorities” (Blommaert and Verschueren 1991: 373). The intention to save minority languages proclaimed in the Mother Tongue Language Policy may turn out to be a new form of oppression that threatens other minority languages (Hsiau 1997: 313). In some other schools, ethnic language teaching was integrated into Mandarin classes. In still others, efforts were hampered by a lack of trained native language teachers, of well-designed textbooks for teaching literacy skills in the
Multilingualism in Taiwan 89 Taiwanese ethnic languages, or of appropriate resources (Chen 2006). All of the foregoing bespeaks the ineffectiveness of the Mother Tongue Language Policy. The fact that Taiwanese ethnic languages have not been standardized or effectively promoted leads to a widespread belief that, compared with Mandarin or even English, they are not useful for expressing instrumental and communicative functions. 3.3. New English Language Policy The direct fruit of favoring multiculturalism since the lifting of Martial Law has been the promotion of English in Taiwan. This has developed partially as a result of political and economic pressures to “internationalize” Taiwan since the early 1990s, only a little later than the development of the Mother Tongue Language Policy. Taiwan’s existing English Language Policy was reformulated as a New English Language Policy. This New Policy has changed from the previous one along the following three dimensions: (1) the inclusion of English as a subject in elementary schools; (2) the establishment of a national project to encourage people from all walks of life to gain general English proficiency; and (3) the use of English as a medium of instruction in part of the curriculum of higher education. While the old English language policy focused on the development of English reading and writing for the purpose of academic, professional or technological use only (Tse 1987), the new one aims to develop English proficiency in all skills, with a particular focus on oral English proficiency for inter- as well as intra-national communication. It was stated in “Challenge 2008”, a White Paper issued in 2002, that English should become a part of Taiwanese life. Because English has spread internationally as a lingua franca in science, business, technology, and diplomacy, Taiwanese are well aware of the demand for pragmatic competence in English and thus generally favor the formulation of the new policy to develop their oral proficiency so that they are able to participate in many international domains, e.g., to join international civil aviation body (Taiwan News 29 April 2002: 3). As English is a foreign language in Taiwan, the process of this planning basically involved in selection and implementation among the four steps claimed by Haugen (1983). Selection concerned the choice of variety of En glish to be learned. This was not publicly debated, but arose from a general consensus among policy makers who took the view that Taiwanese learners should aim at proficiency in international English, which subsumes all native varieties of English, e.g., American English, British English, and Australian English (Professor Shih, personal communication 7 April 2001). The concept of using English as an international language or global English was accepted by the general public and recently further promoted in response to the TOIEC
90 S. Chen test-type. Several conferences have been conducted to spread the international English concept (e.g., TOEIC Newsletter 17 2009). It has been shown for the first time in several decades that American English was no longer the sole English variety to be learned in Taiwan. The implementation stage was mainly focused on the allocation of resources for English learning or English pragmatic use according to the three dimensions of the policy just mentioned. Starting in 2001, English as a subject has been included in the regular curriculum of elementary schools. Students in Grade 5 and above were required to receive at least one 40-minute period of English each week, although the final implementation of English language teaching at this level is a matter for the decision of local governments. This marks the first time in 50 years that English has been officially allowed to be taught in public elementary schools. However, not all local governments follow the line set by the Central Government. It was found in 2003, for instance, that 70% of elementary schools were already teaching English in the first or second grades (Chou 2003). It was also found that many schools offered more hours in English teaching than required (Tsao 2004). In response to this En glish learning fad, from 2005 the Central Government revised its position, to allow students in the third grade and above to receive two 40-minute periods of English per week. Nevertheless, many local governments introduced English at even lower grade levels and for more hours. This shows that the perception in Taiwan is that it is never too early to learn English. This fad for English learning is attributed to the fact that English is regarded as providing personal benefit in the form of international outlook and socioeconomic advantage (Chen 2006). The second dimension in the new policy is the promotion of basic speaking skills by people from all walks of life. Proposed by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2002 under the program of “Challenge 2008” — a six-year National Development Plan (Government Information Office 21 May 2002), this scheme has led to the establishment of a number of programs including a project offering basic English conversation classes to those people who come into contact with foreigners on a regular basis. These include taxi drivers, hotel and restaurant attendants, ticket-sellers, and salespersons at scenic or recreation areas, police officers, and phone operators. These courses were planned to be offered as intensive programs in community colleges or learning centers to help Taiwanese develop the ability to engage in basic English conversation. While many of the bureaus of education in different counties of Taiwan were interested in such a scheme, very few courses were offered. In fact, most people in the relevant occupations were lukewarm toward the English learning project. Reasons or excuses were provided for their low interest in it. For example, many police officers complained that their long working hours and their frequent changes in locations prevented them from participating in the pro-
Multilingualism in Taiwan 91 gram. Their reasons for showing low interest in the scheme were summarized as follows: (1) they can do business without talking in English; (2) most of the foreigners in Taiwan can understand some Mandarin; (3) the English spoken by foreigners may be different from what they learn in the class; (4) short lessons or a few classes are not sufficient to improve their English abilities (Chen 2003). The third dimension in the new policy to be implemented was the use of English as a medium of instruction in parts of the curriculum of higher education, i.e., in colleges. This was proposed by the MOE in 2002 under the Scheme of Promotion of Colleges Internationalization, within Challenge 2008 (Government Information Office 21 May 2002). Professors in colleges were encouraged to use English only in their classes as the medium of instruction in return for various types of financial rewards, depending on the financial resources. From a series of telephone interviews conducted by the present researcher in the spring of 2009, it emerged that, in some universities, those professors who use English only in their classes can earn 50% extra in terms of hourly pay. In other universities, professors can earn sums ranging from 10 to 30 thousand Taiwanese dollars (1 US$ = 33 NT$) by way of bonus per semester. Courses offered in the English department were excluded from this scheme. Although the Government took the approach of making this English-only use optional, and the implementation was quite decentralized, the promotion of the use En glish as the language of instruction at colleges showed an intention to raise the status and function of English to that of a second official language. This seems to correspond to the suggestion made by the former President, Chen Shui-bian, that the use of English could have some form of official status (The Liberty Times 31 March 2002: 4). In responding to this, a Taipei-based poll found that over 70% of the respondents were in favor of making English the second official language. Only a small percentage of respondents were in favor of making Southern Min the second official language (The Liberty Times 6 June 2002: 12). Similar results were reported by a TVBS opinion poll of Taiwanese citizens (Taipei Times 30 March 2002: 8). The favoring of English as the second official language indicates that the New English Language Policy has gathered to itself greater influence and authority than the Mother Tongue Language policy has. In response to the growing status and function of English, college students are basically required to pass one of the several publicized English certification examinations before they graduate. A pass at the intermediate level of the GEPT test has been widely adopted as the graduation threshold by most of the national universities (e.g. National Chiayi University). The others have adopted a lower standard, i.e., the basic level of the GEPT test. All of these implementations reflect support for the New English Language Policy from the government officials, school administrators and the general public.
92 S. Chen 3.4. Summary The three language policies mentioned above represent three different public attitudes toward language varieties in Taiwan. These attitudes, intertwined with Taiwan’s sociopolitical development, aim to assign functions to certain languages and thus change the language functional distributions in the linguistic repertoire of Taiwan. While nationalists have opted for a Mandarin-only policy for national unification, nativists have emphasized the revitalization of Taiwanese ethnic languages for multicultural purposes. Regardless of their opposing political ideologies, both nationalists and nativists have gained con sensus to promote the use of English for globalization purposes. While the National Language Policy has successfully accomplished the spread of Mandarin, the Mother Tongue Language Policy has found little room to maneuver, because mother tongues are identified as local and ethnic languages with few pragmatic functions in the modern era. On the other hand, English is considered to be the lingua franca of globalization and is associated with socioeconomic mobility and prosperity. The unfolding of language policy described above shows the way in which top-down enforcement has intervened in the functional distribution of language varieties in Taiwan’s multilingual community. Its influence has contributed to the development of the current level of vitality of the relevant languages, which will be discussed in the following section. 4. Language vitality This section discusses the extent to which multilingualism has been practiced in Taiwan from the perspectives of variations in people’s language proficiency, language use and language attitude, all of which reveal not only what people actually do with the language varieties but also what values and status people attribute to them. As different language varieties meet different social, instrumental, and communicative needs for speakers, a speaker’s choice of language varieties in his/ her linguistic repertoire in a multilingual society is subject to social and cultural constraints that emanate from the social norms shared by community members. This illuminates the changing patterns of habitual language use and perceptions of the status and values associated with the language varieties available to the community members, both of which indicate the extent to which multilingualism has developed in that speech community. The data for language proficiency, language use in certain domains and language attitudes were collected through the use of a questionnaire survey in both urban and rural speech communities, including 11 locales throughout Taiwan. The goal was to assess the abilities of Taiwanese (new immigrants were
Multilingualism in Taiwan 93 not included) in respect of their command of the five major languages (Southern Min, English, Hakka, Mandarin, and Austro-Polynesian Aboriginal languages) used in Taiwan. The survey was conducted in 2003, under the auspices of a National Science Council-funded research project entitled “Language Vitality in Taiwan”. A total of 2,750 questionnaires were sent out, of which 2,139 were returned. Some returned questionnaires were incomplete, but this caused no problem as each question was analyzed individually. Therefore, the proportions for different questions may be based on different sample sizes. All statistical results were produced using computer software MINITAB version 15. 4.1. Language proficiency Among the five commonly used languages in Taiwan, Mandarin is the official language, English is a foreign language, and the rest are called Taiwanese ethnic or local languages. The proficiency in those languages exhibited by Taiwanese was investigated in terms of self-rating. The results of the self-rated language proficiency by all the respondents were summarized in Table 1. This table shows that about 98% of respondents assessed themselves to be able to speak Mandarin fluently, regardless of age, mother tongue, educational level, and occupation group. In other words, on this basis it seems that almost everyone in Taiwan can communicate well in Mandarin. However, this is not the case for other languages; about 68% of respondents claimed to speak Southern Min fluently, followed by about 18% of respondents who claimed to communicate well in English, then by 6% of respondents who gave this answer for Hakka, and by only 1% of respondents who reported themselves as good communicators in Aboriginal languages. Furthermore, respondents’ language proficiency, except in the case of Mandarin, seemed to be affected by a variety of social factors. It was found that, according to their reports, Southern Min and Hakka proficiency decreased with age. In other words, the older the people were, the more frequently they reported proficiency in Southern Min or Hakka. The age variable also appears to affect English proficiency. It was found that more respondents who were in the 19–29 age group claimed to have English proficiency than those in other groups. The oldest group least often reported having proficiency in English among all the respondents. Mother tongue also emerged as an important factor affecting Taiwanese people in their language proficiency. It was found that Southern Min was reported as being spoken fluently by 85.41% of Taiwanese with Southern Min as mother tongue, by 53.29% of those with Hakka as mother tongue, by 49.52% of those with Mandarin as mother tongue, and finally by only 16.52% of those with aboriginal languages as mother tongue. With respect to Hakka proficiency, only 53.29% of Hakka offspring reported speaking Hakka fluently. The other
94 S. Chen Table 1. Language in use with fluency* Category
Languages Mandarin
English
Southern Min
Hakka
Aboriginal languages
Age (a) 12/under ( b) 13–18 (c) 19–29 (d) 30–45 (e) 46–60 (f ) 60/over
97.37 99.34 98.84 98.81 96.05 66.67
19.68 11.80 37.60 17.52 14.18 6.45
44.09 55.29 71.48 93.21 93.29 100.00
2.79 2.13 4.44 9.43 14.60 32.14
0.72 0.87 1.40 2.94 0.83 5.26
Mother tongue (a) Mandarin ( b) South. Min (c) Hakka (d) Aborigines (e) Others
98.73 97.86 99.35 99.15 78.26
22.03 16.65 15.17 10.34 21.74
49.52 85.41 53.29 16.52 52.17
1.48 1.65 51.97 0.87 18.18
1.64 0.20 0.00 50.06 35.86
Education (a) High school ( b) College (c) Graduate school
97.48 99.79 97.22
11.84 34.54 61.11
63.38 83.54 88.57
4.83 9.26 3.03
4.01 2.06 3.57
Occupation (a) Professional/managerial ( b) Clerk (c) Semi-/non-skilled worker (d) Businessman (e) Farmer (f ) Housework (g) Student
100.00 99.56 95.38 97.59 86.67 94.00 98.76
21.43 23.11 8.77 10.26 0.00 8.33 19.56
93.33 83.27 90.70 93.98 90.32 93.24 55.01
17.54 12.38 6.964 6.49 14.81 10.71 2.56
4.35 2.21 6.60 0.00 8.33 2.50 3.52
Whole population
98.06
17.91
68.06
5.61
1.21
* Percentage in each cell ( N = 2139)
groups reported almost no Hakka proficiency at all. A similar pattern transpired in respect of the reported use of aboriginal languages. As to English proficiency, not much difference emerged among different mother tongue groups. In brief, mother tongue background reportedly affects proficiency in Southern Min, Hakka, and aboriginal languages, but not in Mandarin and English. Educational level was found to have little influence on Taiwanese people’s reported language proficiency except in the case of English. In this case, the higher one’s educational level is, the better one’s English proficiency. With respect to the relationship between occupation and language proficiency, it was found that most of the Taiwanese subjects reported good Mandarin proficiency regardless of their occupational categories. While the subjects reported good
Multilingualism in Taiwan 95 Southern Min proficiency in all occupations except that of student, claims of good communication in English surfaced only among office clerks (23.11%), professionals/managerials (21.43%), and students (19.56%). Fewer reports of good proficiency in Hakka and Aboriginal languages emerged, regardless of occupational categories. In brief, this survey shows that no matter who they are and how old they are, most Taiwanese people have sufficient Mandarin proficiency to communicate with others. This survey also indicates a decrease in proficient speakers of other Taiwanese ethnic or local languages, including Southern Min, Hakka and Aboriginal languages. While there still appear to be a fair number of Taiwanese who have proficiency in Southern Min, there are seemingly fewer and fewer Taiwanese who can speak Hakka and Aboriginal languages, both of which are seldom learned by people in cross-ethnic groups. People in the younger generations of Hakka and Aboriginal groups appear only to limited extent to be proficient in the relevant languages. Although English has grown in importance in Taiwan, people’s English proficiency is not very high. As their English proficiency increases with their educational levels, the best way to develop their English proficiency is to encourage Taiwanese to stay in school longer. 4.2. Domains of language use Domain, a conceptual framework of language use introduced by Fishman as a higher order summation of particular role-relationships, topics and locales (Fishman 1972), is used in this study to analyze the functional distribution of languages in Taiwan community, and is categorized into family, religion, friendship, school/government, and work. The term Taiwanese in this section is used to note a general category which covers three ethnic or local languages: Southern Min, Hakka and Aboriginal languages. The survey of language use by the respondents in various domains is summarized in Table 2. Among those domains of language use, it was found, as shown in Table 2, that Mandarin dominates in all five domains. Even in the family domain, a place where Taiwanese ethnic languages were originally used, inroads have been made by Mandarin. The high frequency of Mandarin use is followed by the use of Taiwanese ethnic languages in all domains. However, the frequency of Taiwanese ethnic language use is much lower than that of Mandarin. Taiwanese ethnic languages were reported as most frequently used in the domain of family (46%), followed by the religious domain (36%), the friendship domain (30%), the work-place domain (29%), and finally the school or government domain (17%). On the basis of the use of Mandarin and Taiwanese ethnic languages as discussed above, it appears that the diglossic relationship of Mandarin and Taiwanese claimed by Huang (1993) and Tsao (1999), with Mandarin
96 S. Chen Table 2. Language use in domains* Domain
Frequently used language Mandarin
Taiwanese
English
(Southern Min, Hakka or Aboriginal lg) (a) Home ( b) Religion (c) Friendship (d) School/Gov’t (e) Work
78 71 84 89 84
46 36 30 17 29
3 2 2 2 4
* Percentage in each cell ( N = 2139)
as the High language and Taiwanese ethnic languages as the Low language, is in the progress of rapidly shifting. With regard to English use, these results suggest that English is frequently used in the five domains by 2– 4% of the people. Its frequency is much lower than that of Taiwanese ethnic languages. This corresponds with Ho’s (1998) study, claiming that English has no place in people’s daily lives. People usually do not need to use English because Taiwan is a place where Mandarin can fulfill all language functions. Nevertheless, the use of English has begun to encroach on all five domains, even on as intimate domain as the family. In summary, the patterns of language use discussed above indicate that Mandarin dominates language use in all five domains, followed by Taiwanese ethnic languages and finally by English. As Taiwan is a society where Taiwanese ethnic groups comprise more than 80% of the people, the fact that less than half of the population use Taiwanese in the family and less than one fifth of the population use it in the official school/government domain shows that the imbalance of power between the two varieties is leading to the decline of the minority languages, i.e., Taiwanese ethnic languages. The decline of Taiwanese ethnic languages is also attributable to the low level of intergenerational transmission, manifest in the fact that the youth do not use Taiwanese ethnic languages (Chen 2006). The low frequency of English use in Taiwan reflects the fact that English is not used widely to fulfill pragmatic functions in daily life. The low frequency of English use does not reflect with the very favourable attitude toward English in Taiwan, which will be discussed in the following section. 4.3. Language attitudes Attitude reflects the value associated with languages as perceived by community members. In this study, respondents were asked to express their percep-
Multilingualism in Taiwan 97 Table 3. Percentages of perceived functional values of languages Perceived value
Taiwanese
Mandarin
English
(i) Marker of authority (ii) Marker of solidarity (iii) Marker of social status (iv) Marker of global views (v) Tool of upward mobility (vi) Tool of communication (vii) Official language (viii) Language worth transmitting
26 70 19 32 36 57 38 79
50 70 47 59 65 88 79 84
36 30 53 77 77 52 48 60
tions of the functional value of three language categories, namely Taiwanese ethnic languages (including Southern Min, Hakka and Aboriginal languages), Mandarin, and English. These perceived functional values include: (1) marker expressing authority, (2) marker expressing solidarity, (3) marker expressing higher social status, (4) marker expressing internationalized views, (5) tool of upward mobility, (6) tool of communication, (7) status as an official language, (8) status as a language worthy of being transmitted cross-generationally. The results are presented in Table 3. Table 3 shows that people in Taiwan have very positive attitudes toward Mandarin, the most frequently expressed positive attitudes relating to it as a tool of communication (88%) and as a language worthy of cross-generational transmission (84%). The least frequently expressed positive attitude relates to Mandarin as a marker expressing social status. In terms of attitude toward En glish, the survey shows that attitudes toward English range from the most frequently expressed positive attitudes relating to English as a tool cultivating global views (77%) and a tool of upward mobility (77%) to the least frequently expressed positive attitude relating to English as a tool expressing group solidarity (30%). Attitudes toward Taiwanese ethnic languages range from the most frequently expressed positive attitude relating to it as a language deserving cross-generational transmission (79%), through the next most frequently expressed positive attitude relating to it as a marker expressing group solidarity (70%), to the least frequently expressed positive attitude relating to it as a marker expressing social status (19%). This analysis shows that Mandarin dominates all the perceived functions except those relating to the expression of global views, to social status and to social upward mobility, all of which are dominated by English. Taiwanese ethnic languages do not dominate in any perceived language function, but are perceived positively as tools expressing group solidarity and worthy of crossgenerational transmission. This shows that Taiwanese people perceive En‑ glish to have greater instrumental value than Mandarin, while Mandarin is perceived to be the primary tool for communication in Taiwan. Taiwanese ethnic
98 S. Chen languages are left to perform integrative functions. When people’s attitude toward English was compared with their actual English use, it was found that the perceived value associated with English exceeded the actual roles it played. This pattern was not found in respect of Mandarin or in Taiwanese ethnic languages. 4.4. Language proficiency and language use of new immigrants from Southeast Asia As was mentioned earlier in this chapter, the new immigrants from Southeast Asia came in great numbers around the beginning of the present century. As they are a group generally different from the old Taiwanese in terms of their linguistic background, the language survey for this group was sponsored by the National Science Council of Taiwan and I conducted it in 2008 independently from the survey relating to other Taiwanese. The following report is based on data from 455 foreign brides from Southeast Asia who returned the questionnaire. Their language proficiency and language use are the main concern of this investigation, because both of these reflect the degree of language shift evidenced by this group. New immigrants from Mainland China are not included because they speak Mandarin as other Taiwanese do. In the context of the investigation of their language proficiency, the respondents were asked to rate their proficiency from 1 to 5 ( poor to excellent); each score in the questionnaire was followed by an explanation of the proficiency level it was intended to signify. A score of 4 or 5 was interpreted as denoting high proficiency. The respondents were also asked to check one among five points on a scale (ranging from never use to very frequently use) to show their domains of language use. A score of 4 or 5 was considered to indicate high frequency of language use. The percentages of numbers of the new immigrants who rated themselves to be proficient in the four language skills are summarized in Table 4. This table shows that, among these new immigrant subjects, 68.90% reported good listening ability in Mandarin, followed by 58.60% in Southern Min, and then by 28.34% in Hakka. The same reported proficiency pattern held for their speaking, reading, and writing ability across the three major languages used in Taiwan. Their listening and speaking ability in Mandarin, Southern Min and Hakka was reported as much better than their reading and writing ability in the three languages. In general, their literacy proficiency in Mandarin, Southern Min and Hakka was reported as very low, even lower than their English literacy proficiency. Their low literacy proficiency in Southern Min and Hakka can be explained by the fact that these two ethnic languages are commonly used in their oral forms. Their low proficiency in Mandarin, however, reflects the fact,
Multilingualism in Taiwan 99 Table 4. New immigrants’ reported language proficiency in four skills* Skill
Mandarin
Southern Min
Hakka
Mother-Tongue
English
Listening Speaking Reading Writing
68.90 39.19 22.60 14.80
58.60 34.92 7.42 5.99
28.34 23.50 5.12 4.20
81.74 74.66 69.23 64.61
23.80 18.89 22.69 22.30
* Percentages in each cell ( N = 455) Table 5. New immigrants’ language use by domains* Domain
Mandarin
Southern Min
Hakka
Mother-tongue
English
Home Work School/Gov. Friendship Religion
53.03 56.59 59.51 46.26 44.47
44.29 41.15 35.39 30.14 33.03
9.09 4.91 5.09 12.56 4.9
8.51 9.35 5.30 43.31 18.20
3.55 5.16 4.86 9.95 7.67
* Percentages in each cell ( N = 455)
expressed by most of the new immigrants, that they did no or little study at school but learned to use the language only through day-to-day contact with other Taiwanese. Clearly such day-to-day contact would have helped to develop oral rather than literacy skills. Language use by domain as reported by the new immigrants from Southeast Asia is summarized in Table 5. The above results show that Mandarin was used most frequently in all domains by the new immigrants from Southeast Asia. More specifically, Mandarin was reported by 53.05% of subjects as being used at home, by 56.59% as being used at work, by 59.51% as being used in school/government contexts, by 46.26% as being used in contexts of friendship, and by 44.47% as being used in religious contexts. Second in frequency to the use of Mandarin was the reported use of Southern Min in all domains, the relevant figures being 44.29% for use at home, 41.15% for use at work, 35.39% for use in school/government contexts, 30.14% for use in contexts of friendship, and 33.03% for use in religious contexts. The frequency of using Hakka, English or their own mother tongues was reportedly very low, with the exceptions of the use of Hakka (12.56%) or the new immigrants’ mother tongues (43.31%) in contexts of friendship. This pattern of use raises two issues: (1) home is not necessarily a domain that can help the new immigrants to maintain their mother tongues, since these new immigrants’ family members are unable to speak or understand the mother tongues of the new immigrants; (2) the friendships of the new immigrants are mainly confined to their own ethnic networks. Although their
100 S. Chen social networks, which are still very small, help them maintain their mother tongues, the pattern of language use at home, which is often accounted the last domain in which one can maintain the mother tongue (Conklin and Louri 1983), may result in this group shifting extensively from their mother tongues to the use of Mandarin or Southern Min. The above discussion shows a rapid shift of this group from their mother tongues to the use of Mandarin or Southern Min. Their shifting toward the use of a dominant language in Taiwan suggests that shifting is in the direction of the language of the socio-economically favored group, which corresponds with Gal’s (1979) study. English does not gain the status of a lingua franca or a dominant language among this group. While these new immigrants seem to have gained sufficient Mandarin and Southern Min oral skills for survival, their limited literacy in Mandarin causes them to remain marginalized, with little hope for upward social mobility. 5. Conclusions: multilingualism and language shift Multilingualism in Taiwan has been created by successive waves of immigration of Southern Min, Hakka, Mainlanders, and a variety of ethnic groups from Southeast Asia, who took over the lands of the existing Austro-Polynesian aboriginal populations. While the Southern Min have become the largest group since the end of 19th century, the status of their ethnic language has remained minor, and that of the other Taiwanese ethnic languages has remained even less significant, not to mention the ethnic languages from Southeast Asia. This has been attributed to the enforcement of the Mandarin-only national language policy under the Nationalist KMT regime before the lifting of Martial Law in 1987. Although recent sociopolitical changes have resulted in the formulation of a mother tongue language policy, aimed at reversing the rapid shift away from Taiwanese ethnic languages, these have not been able to resist the hegemony of Mandarin. Similarly, the ethnic languages spoken by new immigrants from Southeast Asia are in rapid decline because these languages are not undergoing transmission to the younger generations (Chen 2008). It has been shown that the current sociolinguistic profile of Taiwan is attributable to two factors: the government’s language policy and the spontaneous sociolinguistic development which has resulted in a division between the national lingua franca, the international lingua franca, and languages that serve ethnic identity. These two factors influence each other, but the latter is influenced more by the former. More specifically, through the imposition of the Mandarin-only National Language Policy for several decades, the status and function of Mandarin was well established as the sole official language and a lingua franca for wider and national communication. The unequal status of
Multilingualism in Taiwan 101 languages attributable to the imposed language policy contributed to and reinforced the situation whereby Mandarin dominates in all domains in which minority languages usually survive, such as the domains of home and religion (Clyne 1997: 308). The same pattern is also displayed in the attitudes of people in Taiwan toward language use. Mandarin is currently spoken by nearly 90% of the contemporary Taiwanese population (Huang 2000: 148) and has dominated in all domains of use according to the analysis of this study; this implies that the distinctions between the integrative and instrumental functional use of Mandarin have broken down for most people in Taiwan, which is a sign that language shift has been accomplished (Edwards 1985: 146). Because the use of two or more languages in the long-term depends on the need for these two languages (Fishman 1977), the lack of need for Taiwanese ethnic languages is a huge obstacle in the process of nativization in Taiwan. As well as being dwarfed by the incomparably high status of Mandarin, the Taiwanese ethnic languages have even lost standing in comparison with En glish. English has spread in Taiwan first as a foreign language in schools, and now as part of the proposed move to make it a second official language and a language for instruction in part of the curriculum in higher education. Neither of these status markers is available to the Taiwanese ethnic languages or ethnic languages spoken by new immigrants from Southeast Asia. The spread of En glish renders Taiwan’s multilingual community much more complex. English is perceived as a language associated with modern technology, with socioeconomic progress and with globalization, and is associated with elitism and individual upward mobility. English is considered more appropriate than Taiwanese ethnic languages for use as a High language and for expressing instrumental and communicative functions in Taiwan society. Favorable attitudes toward English will grow stronger as English continues to be highly valued for access to power and success. However, English is frequently used by only about 2– 4% of the total population in their daily lives. English use in Taiwan can be described as experiencing highly favorable attitudes but a low frequency of daily use. This shows that the value associated with English is not a function of the quantitative dimension of the roles it actually plays. Nevertheless, as pointed out by Spolsky (1998: 77), “the spread of English is producing a new sociolinguistic reality, by threatening to take over important functions from other major languages, and by furthering language shift.” The impact of English on the languages as well as the community in Taiwan continues to grow as the New English Language Policy continues in its implementation and spread. In short, in modern Taiwanese history, three aspects of language planning, nationalization, nativization, and internationalization, have developed Man darin and English into big languages that have spread, but Taiwanese and other
102 S. Chen ethnic languages into small languages that are in rapid decline. In the face of competition from Mandarin, the national lingua franca, and English, the international lingua franca, the Taiwanese ethnic languages, defined as local languages, will, in the absence of more vigorous protection and promotion from Government, undoubtedly continue to lose their functions. National Chiayi University Correspondence address:
[email protected]
References Blommaert, Jan & Jef Verschueren. 1991. The role of language in European nationalist ideologies. Pragmatics 2(3). 355–375. Chen, Su-chiao. 2003. The spread of English in Taiwan: changing uses and shifting attitudes. Taipei: Crane. Chen, Su-chiao. 2006. Simultaneous promotion of indigenisation and internationalisation: New language-in-education policy in Taiwan. Language and Education: An International Journal 20(4). 322–337. Chen, Su-chiao. 2008. Language maintenance and shift among the Vietnamese brides and their children in Taiwan. In Shin-mei Kao & Shelley Ching-yu Hsieh (eds.), Language across cultures (Monograph series 1), 33–59. Tainan: Foreign Languages and Literature Department, National Cheng Kung University. Cheng, Robert L. 1979. Language unification in Taiwan: present and future. In William C. McCormack & Stephen A. Wurm (eds.), Language and society: anthropological issues, 541–587. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter. Chou, Cathy. 2003. Schools give early English lessons. China Post. http://www.chinapost.com.tw (accessed 28 July 2005). Clyne, Michael. 1997. Multilingualism. In Florian Coulmas (ed.), The handbook of sociolinguistics, 301–314. Oxford: Blackwell. Conklin, Nancy Faire & Margaret A. Louri. 1983. Host of tongues: language communities in the United States. New York: Free Press. Cooper, Robert. 1989. Language planning and social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dorian, Nancy. 1981. Language death: the life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dua, Hans R. 1989. Functional types of language in India. In Ulrich Ammon (ed.), Status and function of languages and language varieties, 122–152. Berlin & New York: Walter De Gruyter. Edwards, John. 1985. Language, society and identity. Oxford: Blackwell. Ferguson, Charles A. 1968. Language development. In Joshua A. Fishman, Charles A. Ferguson & J. Das Gupta (eds.), Language problems of developing nations, 27–35. New York: Wiley & Sons. Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.). 1966. Language loyalty in the United States. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter. Fishman, Joshua A. 1972. Domains and the relationship between micro- and macro-sociolinguistics. In John J. Gumperz & Dell Hymes (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: the ethnography of communication, 435– 453. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Multilingualism in Taiwan 103 Fishman, Joshua A. 1977. The social science perspective: Keynote. In Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Bilingual education: current perspectives, 1– 49. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Gal, Susan. 1979. Language shift. New York: Academic Press. Gardner, Robert C. & P. D. MacIntyre. 1991. An instrumental motivation in language study: who says it isn’t effective? Studies in Second Language acquisition 13. 57–72. Government Information Office, 21 May 2002. Haugen, Einar. 1983. The implementation of corpus planning: theory and practice. In Juan Cobarrubias & Joshua A. Fishman (eds.), Progress in language planning: international perspectives, 269–290. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Ho, M. C. 1998. Culture studies and motivation in foreign and second language learning in Taiwan. Language, Culture and Curriculum 11. 165–182. Holmes, Janet, M. Roberts, M. Verivaki & A. Aipolo. 1993. Language maintenance and shift in three New Zealand speech communities. Applied Linguistics 14(1). 1–24. Hsiau, A-chin. 1997. Language ideology in Taiwan: the KMT’s language policy, the Tai-yu language movement, and ethnic politics. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 18(4). 302–315. Huang, Shuanfan. 1988. A sociolinguistic profile of Taipei. In Robert L. Cheng & Shuanfan Huang (eds.), The structure of Taiwanese: a modern synthesis, 301–335. Taipei: Crane. Huang, Shuanfan. 1993. Yu yen ser hui yu chu chuen yi she [Language, society and ethnicity in the Chinese language]. Taipei: Crane. Huang, Shuanfan. 2000. Language, identity, and conflict: a Taiwanese study. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 143. 139–149. Jordan, David K. 1973. Language choice and interethnic relations in Taiwan. La Monda LingvaProblemo 5. 35– 44. Kaplan, Robert B. & Richard B. Baldauf Jr. 1997. Language planning: from practice to theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. The Liberty Times, 31 March 2002. The Liberty Times, 6 June 2002. Lukmani, Y. M. 1972. Motivation to learn and learning proficiency. Language Learning 22. 261– 273. McGroarty, Mary. 1996. Language attitudes, motivation, and standards. In Sandra Lee McKay & Nancy H. Hornberger (eds.), Sociolinguistics and language teaching, 3– 46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newsletter of the Legislative Yuan, 1993. Pride, John B. & Janet Holmes. 1972. Sociolinguistics. England: Penguin Books. Robertson, Roland & Kathleen E. White (eds.). 2003. Globalization: critical concepts in sociology. London: Routledge. Schiffman, Harold F. 1993. The balance of power in multiglossic languages: implications for language shift. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 103. 115–148. Spolsky, Bernard. 1998. Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sridhar, Kamal K. 1996. Societal multilingualism. In Sandra Lee McKay & Nancy H. Hornberger (eds.), Sociolinguistics and language teaching, 47–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taipei Times, 30 March 2002. Taiwan News, 29 April 2002. TOEIC Newsletter, 17 2009. Tsao, Feng-fu. 1999. The language planning situation in Taiwan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 20. 328–375. Tsao, Feng-fu. 2004. Guo xiao ying yu jiao yuu de zhan wang [Prospects of English teaching in elementary schools in Taiwan]. Paper presented at the Conference on Cross-Strait English Language Teaching, National Chiayi University, Taiwan, 2–3 May.
104 S. Chen Tse, J. K. P. 1987. Language planning and English as a foreign language in middle school education in the Republic of China. Taipei: Crane. Tse, J. K. P. 2000. Language and a rising new identity in Taiwan. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 143. 151–164. Vila i Moreno & F. Xavier. 2004. Barcelona (Catalonia): language, education and ideology in an integrationist society. In E. Witte, L. Van Mensel, M. Pierrard, L. Mettewie, A. Housen & R. De Groof (eds.), Language attitudes and education in multilingual cities, 53–86. Contact forum. Young, Russell. 1989. Language maintenance and language shift among the Chinese on Taiwan. Taipei: Crane.
