1. How are college students’ language proficiency in Mandarin and Taiwanese?
Do people from Kaohsiung metropolitan areas speak better Taiwanese than those from Taipei metropolitan areas?
→ The subjects have a good command of Mandarin whereas their control of Taiwanese is weaker. Compared to students from Taipei metropolitan areas, Kaohsiung students have a better Taiwanese proficiency.
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2. How often do college students speak Taiwanese to different interlocutors? Is there any difference found between the two metropolitan areas?
→ Overall, the subjects spoke Taiwanese most frequently to their family members, with their grandparents being given the highest ratings. As for other interlocutors, the ratings turned out to be low. Moreover, it is found that Taipei subjects’ frequency of using Taiwanese is determined by intimacy whereas Kaohsiung respondents’ use of Taiwanese is more related to contexts.
When regional factors are taken into consideration, Kaohsiung respondents’
frequency of speaking Taiwanese is significantly higher than their Taipei peers.
3. How often do the college students speak Taiwanese in different situations? Is there any difference found between the two metropolitan areas?
→ By and large, the subjects seldom spoke Taiwanese, and the highest ratings were given to the traditional market/night market. This phenomenon implies that the home domain has been invaded by Mandarin. As for regional factors, Kaohsiung subjects are found to speak Taiwanese much frequently (p<0.05) than Taipei counterparts in different locations.
4. How often do the college students speak Taiwanese in talking about different topics? Is there any difference found between the two metropolitan areas?
→ In general, both groups of informants reveal their extremely low frequency in speaking Taiwanese when talking about different topics.
Regarding regional differences, Taipei informants’ ratings are lower than Kaohsiung (p<0.05).
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Part II: Language Attitudes
5. What are college students’ motivations to speak Mandarin? Are there any discrepancies between the two metropolitan areas?
→ Both groups of subjects seemed to be more integratively-oriented to speak Mandarin, with the reason that Mandarin can better express their thoughts and behaviors. Besides, the subjects from the two areas reveal similar patterns in answering the statements related to Mandarin motivations.
6. What are college students’ motivations to speak Taiwanese? Are there any discrepancies between the two metropolitan areas?
→ The sample population was more integratively-driven to speak Taiwanese because of the recognition of Taiwanese identity. In addition, both groups seem to have similar attitudes in responding to statements related to Taiwanese motivations.
7. How do college students react to the integrative motivations of speaking Taiwanese with respect to the categories of transmission, identity, self-expressiveness, and solidarity?
→ In general, the college students showed their agreement on the categories of transmission, identity, self-expressiveness, and solidarity, with each statement being ranked with different degrees. Despite the fact of agreement, there seems to be a gap between students’ attitudes/beliefs and behaviors.
This can be associated with subjects’ language use and social change.
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8. How do college students react to the instrumental motivations of speaking Taiwanese with respect to the categories of marker of social status, communication, and upward mobility?
→ Except for the statement related to social status, the informants tended to agree that they were extrinsically-oriented to speak Taiwanese. In other words, the behaviors are caused by an external demand or reward contingency, or ego enhancements. On the other hand, Taiwanese was not regarded as an index of being well-educated or having a certain social status.
Possible reasons may be due to the subjects’ stereotypical images attached to the language.
9. Which motivation is more important to college students when they speak Taiwanese?
→ In fact, integrative and instrumental motivations are of equal importance to subjects. In other words, the subjects were both intrinsically- and extrinsically-oriented to speak Taiwanese, with different degree of agreement on the statements.
Part III: Stereotypical Impressions of Mandarin and Taiwanese
10. How do college students evaluate Mandarin and Taiwanese in the dimension of “value”?
→ To a great extent, both groups of college students held positive attitudes toward the two languages, with higher ratings given by Kaohsiung subjects.
One thing worth mentioning is that Taiwanese was negatively evaluated regarding the attributes of careful-sloppy and elegant-vulgar. This may be associated with language ideology, in which people link a linguistic variety
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or features and the speakers using it.
11. How do college students evaluate Mandarin and Taiwanese in the dimension of “potency”?
→ Both groups generally maintained positive images on both languages, with Mandarin being given with higher ratings than Taiwanese. Possible reasons can be associated with people’s language proficiency and frequency.
12. How do college students evaluate Mandarin and Taiwanese in the dimension of “activity”?
→ In terms of the fluent-awkward and energetic-inert attributes, the two groups of subjects held similar attitudes in giving rating to the two languages.
Though both languages were positively evaluated, the patterns of the two languages oppose each other: Mandarin was considered to be more fluent than Taiwanese while Taiwanese was evaluated to be more energetic than Mandarin. Subjects’ language proficiency in both languages may be one of the reasons causing the difference. As for slow-fast attribute, there were no distinct ratings given to the two languages.
13. How do college students evaluate Mandarin and Taiwanese in the dimension of “complexity”?
→ Compared to Mandarin, Taiwanese was considered to be relatively difficult. This may be explained by observing subjects’ Taiwanese proficiency in the two regions. With regard to complex-simple attribute, both groups of the students remained the image that Taiwanese is a complex language. This suggest that, although there is not consistent writing system
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for Taiwanese, the language is as sophisticated as Mandarin.