Dimension of “Complexity”

The last dimension, complexity, includes two attributes, difficult-easy and complex-simple. The mean scores of the difficult-easy feature present respondents’

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different impressions on Mandarin and Taiwanese. Mandarin was rated to be closer to the end of easy (Taipei 1.75 and Kaohsiung 1.47). The results of the Pair Test indicate a significant difference (p<0.05) between the ratings of Mandarin and Taiwanese. The score of Taiwanese (3.44) given by Taipei subjects suggests that it was rated to be closer to the end of difficult. Figure 5.4 briefly illustrates the distribution of the ratings.

Figure 5.4. Average Ratings on Five Features in “Complexity” Dimension

As for the complex-simple scale, the insignificant difference between Mandarin (3.04) and Taiwanese (3.33) in Taipei areas demonstrate that Taipei subjects reported Mandarin as complex as Taiwanese. A possible reason for this might be that the respondents gave ratings by thinking about the nature of the language. Kaohsiung respondents shared the same impression with Taipei counterparts by showing a similar score (3.41) in evaluating Taiwanese. That is, both groups of respondents consistently gave scores closer to the side of complex on the scale. When evaluating Mandarin, Kaohsiung subjects, unlike Taipei respondents, tended to give a rating (2.62) closer to the end of simple.

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

difficult-easy complex-simple

Mandarin (Taipei) Mandarin (Kaohsiung) Taiwanese (Taipei) Taiwanese (Kaohsiung)

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In summary, Mandarin was evaluated as easy because this is the language the participants are accustomed to. Taiwanese, especially for Taipei subjects, was judged to be difficult. As for the complex-simple scale, both groups thought Taiwanese to be complex while in evaluating Mandarin, the two groups of subjects held different attitudes.

5.6.5 Summary

Table 5.24 below presents the two groups’ ratings of their stereotypical impressions of Mandarin and Taiwanese on four judgmental dimensions. The results of the Pair Test, except for the dimension of activity, indicate significant differences between the two languages. Mandarin was evaluated as more valuable, more potent, and less complex than Taiwanese. In the dimension of activity, though no significant difference between Mandarin and Taiwanese was apparent, the two groups tended to give higher ratings to Mandarin. Figure 5.5 below provides a clear demonstration on the patterns of two regional groups’ stereotypical impressions on four judgmental dimensions. The reason why Mandarin was evaluated higher than Taiwanese on the dimensions of value, potency, and complexity might be that Mandarin serves all kinds of functions for the respondents. For example, the use of Taiwanese to talk about different topics is extremely low. This has implied that the participants rely on Mandarin instead of Taiwanese when talking about different kinds of knowledge.

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Table 5.24. Two Regional Groups’ Ratings of Their Stereotypical Impressions on Four Judgmental Dimensions

Dimension Area Mandarin Taiwanese p value

Value

Note. Comparisons significant at the 0.05 level are indicated by asterisk mark ‘*’.

Figure 5.5. Overall Ratings on Four Dimensions

Figure 5.5 offers a clear demonstration of the two regional groups’ stereotypical impressions of Mandarin and Taiwanese. In general, Mandarin was evaluated positively through all four dimensions, i.e., both regional groups rated Mandarin as

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valuable, potent, active, and less complex. As for Taiwanese, as shown in table 5.24, the ratings of the two regional groups are generally lower than 3.5. This seems to suggest that Taiwanese was considered to be less valuable, less potent, less active, and more complex.

A phenomenon noticed in Table 5.24 is that in the dimension of complexity, the ratings given to Taiwanese by the two regional groups (3.39 and 3.09 respectively) indicate the degree of complexity. In other words, for the sample population, Taiwanese was considered to be difficult and complex. This might be because the subjects who participated in this survey were recruited from universities: usually they grow up from an environment filled with all kinds of Mandarin-related demands.

Moreover, Taiwanese might only be used in certain domains like families or traditional markets, and respondents’ proficiency in Taiwanese may not be as good as their proficiency in Mandarin. Therefore, Taiwanese is considered to be more difficult and complex than Mandarin.

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Chapter 6 General Discussion

This chapter aims to provide a general discussion about the results and analyses in Chapter 4 and 5. Language use is described in section 6.1. Section 6.2 discusses language attitudes. Stereotypical impressions of Mandarin and Taiwanese are delineated in section 6.3.

6.1 Language Use

Generally speaking, subjects’ self-reported language proficiency in Mandarin is much higher than Taiwanese (p<0.05). The results are plausible because Mandarin is the language used in school instruction, and it is expected that people have a better command in Mandarin than in Taiwanese. When regional factors are put into consideration, Kaohsiung subjects’ Taiwanese proficiency is higher than Taipei subjects (p<0.05). This pattern is consistent with the sociolinguistic background of Taipei and Kaohsiung. Since Kaohsiung is usually associated with localization and authentic Taiwanese culture, it is very likely that Kaohsiung people have better command in Taiwanese. On the other hand, since Taipei carries more traces of international influences, people from the area may attach more importance to English rather than Taiwanese proficiency. This contrast corresponds with the results of the statement indicating that people from the southern areas of Taiwan speak better Taiwanese than those from the northern areas.

With respect to the frequency of Taiwanese in the three kinds of domains:

interlocutors, locations, and topics, the results indicate that subjects’ use of Taiwanese is quite low. Nevertheless, several patterns are observed from the data of the three domains. Firstly, regarding interlocutors, the hierarchical order of speaking Taiwanese

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by frequency is: family members > neighbors and close friends > strangers, school associates, and work associates. As for locations, traditional market/night market and home are the places where Taiwanese is most frequently used. With regard to topics, Taiwanese is used most frequently in discussing daily life. Overall, the subjects’

responses to the use of Taiwanese in the three domains show that Taiwanese does not form a serious competitor with Mandarin, due to its low usage with interlocutors and topics. Moreover, Taiwanese has lost its prestige because its low domains, like family and traditional market/night market, have been invaded by Mandarin.

Compared to Taipei subjects, Kaohsiung subjects’ frequency of speaking Taiwanese in the three domains are consistently higher. This seems to be linked with Kaohsiung respondents’ better control of Taiwanese. People’s frequency and proficiency differences are closely related to cultural geography. According to Huang (1995: 38), most Mainlanders reside in urban regions, with Taipei metropolitan areas being the main portion (49.5%). As for labor market structure, most Taipei residents are employed in service, manufacturing, or high-tech industry. Moreover, Taipei is the capital as well as the political, economic, and cultural center of Taiwan, with all major resources being invested in Taipei. Accordingly, Taipei is widely viewed as the most modernized and internationalized city in Taiwan. The ethnic makeup of the Taipei population and the city’s economic structure contribute to a limited use of Taiwanese.

In contrast to northern regions of Taiwan, the Mainlander population in southern areas is significantly smaller (Wang, 2002: 31). Although Kaohsiung City is the largest city in the South and recognized as a harbor with heavy industries, most areas of the South remain farmland. As a result, Kaohsiung is often perceived to be grass-rooted and full of Taiwanese local color. Kaohsiung’s population makeup and its economic structure create more opportunities for language use in Taiwanese.

A parallel contrast between the North and the South can also be observed in the

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governmental ideologies and development policies of the northern and southern regions of Taiwan (Su, 2005: 75-80). As has been mentioned, Taipei has a higher population participating in service and high-tech industry. Due to its labor structure, more cross-strait economic interactions with China are processed in northern Taiwan.

The business strategy tends to support the blue-ish parties’ trade policy on investment in China and unavoidably leads to issues of political orientations and Taiwanese identity. On the other hand, since a higher percentage of the southern Taiwan population supports the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), people to some extent may show resistance to extensive interactions with China in order to maintain their sense of Taiwanese identity. Such a perception contrast between the North and the South illustrates that regionality not only refers to a geographical distinction but also suggests cultural concepts which are associated with language use.

6.2 Language Attitudes

Concerning attitudes toward Taiwanese, the sample population showed that they are both instrumentally and integratively oriented to speak Taiwanese. According to Ryan and Deci (2000), intrinsic and extrinsic orientations are located on a continuum in which there is no clear separation between integrative and instrumental motivations.

The ratings derived from the subjects reveal that integrative and instrumental functions of Taiwanese are of equal importance in different concerns. First, in terms of the intrinsic orientations forming the most self-determined forms of motivation, the respondents revealed high ratings on issues related to transmission and identity. That is to say, people were willing to transmit Taiwanese to their children and they agreed on the value of the language: a representation of authentic Taiwanese culture.

In addition, Taiwanese also serves functions in promoting self-expressiveness and expressing solidarity. For example, the respondents were aware of the

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employment of Taiwanese to express feelings, and they were also conscious about the use of Taiwanese in order to improve interpersonal relationships.

On the other hand, the subjects also revealed their agreement on the instrumental functions of Taiwanese. For instance, the subjects spoke Taiwanese in order to communicate with older people who do not understand Mandarin. Besides, it is found that the respondents spoke Taiwanese in order to satisfy an external demand like employment or to demonstrate an ability like ego enhancements. Overall, the results elicited from the sample population reveal that people were intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to speak Taiwanese. The subjects’ degree of agreements on using Taiwanese is determined by the contexts described.

Another phenomenon noticed in the study is that attitudes/beliefs may not be consistent with behaviors. This is found in the results of categories of transmission, identity, and solidarity. Firstly, the sample population showed their willingness on the transmission of Taiwanese while the degree of agreement on the actual behaviors was weaker compared to their attitudes. Moreover, while the subjects were proud of speaking Taiwanese, the agreement on the statement “every resident in Taiwan should be able to speak Taiwanese” was relatively low. With regard to the issue of solidarity, the informants believed that speaking Taiwanese with other Taiwanese-speaking people is a way to strengthen solidarity. Yet, in reality, the subjects may not choose the language to communicate with other people. There are two possible explanations to such discrepancy. Firstly, though Taiwanese serves both an integrative and instrumental function, the data of this study show that its use is quite low. Even in domains like family, traditional market/night market, and temple/church, where Taiwanese is supposed to be used most frequently, the reported ratings have suggested its limited use. That is, Mandarin has gradually replaced Taiwanese in all aspects of people’s life since the implementation of National Language Policy in the 40s.

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The conflict between attitudes/beliefs and behaviors has been a common phenomenon in Taiwan. Huang (1995: 226) argues that in a multilingual society, one might be aware of his/her ethnic group, yet his/her language ideology may be influenced by the social trends and then tends to show identification of prestigious languages. In other words, while one may subconsciously project sentimental attachment to local Taiwanese languages, which is part of ethnic consciousness, he/she cannot deny the instrumental functions of prestigious languages, which results from language policy and the development of language ideology.

With the lifting of the Martial Law, the importance of Taiwanese identity and the value of multilingualism have been aroused. An important phenomenon in this regard is the revival of Taiwanese. Hsiau (1997: 311) indicates that the revival of Taiwanese, or Tai-yü in Hsiau’s term, is determined by a well-established Taiwanese pronunciation symbol system and a standard writing system. Robert L. Cheng (1993:

186; cited in Hsiau: 1997: 312) even argues that “it is only when we write Tai-yü that we can think through Tai-yü and that we can appreciate native authenticity and reality.”

Cheng holds the view that Taiwanese cultural particularities should be expressed through Taiwanese, i.e., language is the carrier of culture. Subjects’ responses to the statement “only when one speaks Taiwanese can s/he understand Taiwanese culture”

seem to match Cheng’s argument. A writing system and speaking ability in Taiwanese are thought to be an indispensable part of Taiwanese culture. Although the Education of Indigenous Languages has raised people’s consciousness of ethnic identity as well as the value of multiculturalism, this does not mean that language use should go along with ethnic identity. People are proud of speaking Taiwanese, which represents authentic Taiwanese culture, but to some subjects in the current study, it is not necessarily the case that every resident in Taiwan should be able to speak Taiwanese.

This is associated with the subjects’ weaker Taiwanese proficiency, especially people

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from Taipei areas whose Taiwanese proficiency is not as good as that of older generations, like their parents or grandparents. Despite their lower proficiency in the language and when responding to intrinsic-/extrinsic-oriented statements, subjects displayed positive attitudes toward Taiwanese. The questionnaire data hence suggests that the use of Taiwanese is partly communicative and partly symbolic.

Second, the reason that attitudes/beliefs do not correspond to behaviors might be due to practical concerns on whether Taiwanese is competitive or not. For example, more than half of the sample population agreed that learning English is more practical than learning Taiwanese. The results correlate with their disagreement on the statement of decreasing English classes to learn Taiwanese in primary schools.

Therefore, in attitudes/beliefs, people cherished the preservation of Taiwanese, whereas in practice they seemed to be struggling with the more promising and competitive value of English.

6.3 Stereotypical Impressions of Mandarin and Taiwanese

The study intends to investigate the subjects’ stereotypical impressions of Mandarin and Taiwanese in four dimensions: value, potency, activity, and complexity.

The results and discussions are summarized as follows.

6.3.1 Dimension of “Value”

Regarding the dimension of “value”, Mandarin was given positive ratings in five attributes whereas Taiwanese was evaluated as negative in the careful-sloppy and elegant-vulgar scales. In other words, the results reveal that the sample population had the impression that Taiwanese is sloppy and vulgar. However, in terms of warm-cold attribute, Taiwanese was given with much higher ratings (p<0.05). The pattern might be associated with people’s language use.

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Firstly, according to subjects’ frequency of speaking Taiwanese in three kinds of domains (interlocutors, places, and topics), the highest ratings occurred with family members, traditional/night markets, and issues related to daily life. Since the use of Taiwanese most frequently takes place in low domains, people usually do not need to care about using a formal way to interact with family members or people at traditional/night markets. Besides, people can be more casual in discussing materials of daily life. Consequently, people might tend to mark Taiwanese with less careful (sloppy) and less elegant (vulgar). Su (2008: 346) provides another explanation and indicates that the most frequently used swear words or phrases originate, to a large extent, from Taiwanese. The stereotypical linkage between profanity and Taiwanese shows how people ideologically connect the impression of vulgarity and a linguistic variety. Another parallel phenomenon comes from Taiwanese TV programs (Hsiau, 2000). Usually the languages used in soap operas are sloppy and vulgar, and it is possible that people project the impressions to the language in reality. Unlike Taiwanese, Mandarin is the language most frequently used in official institutions such as schools, work environment, or department stores. Thus people form the impression that Mandarin is careful and elegant.

Su (2008: 346) indicates that the evaluation of refinement and vulgarity is associated with social meanings of Taiwanese, Taiwanese-accented Mandarin, and profanity. For example, women are considered to be lacking in qizhi (refinement) when they speak Taiwanese. She furthermore demonstrates how linguistic practices are socially associated with the perception of qizhi. According to the evaluation of a female interviewee in Su’s study, it would sound funny if a female speaks Taiwanese-accented Mandarin. The two cases reveal a natural connection between Taiwanese or Taiwanese-accented Mandarin and the people who use it, which are ideologically mediated through iconization (Su: 2008: 346). The present study does

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not discuss issues regarding gender here. However, it is noted that people seem to connect Taiwanese or Taiwanese-accented Mandarin with the lack of qizhi. The stereotypical linkage expressed by Su’s interviewees seems to be parallel with the results of the study in which the subjects evaluated Taiwanese as vulgar.

While the results of this current study suggest that Taiwanese was evaluated as vulgar, Su (2008: 349) shows that there are counter discourses in which Taiwanese was considered to be more sophisticated than Mandarin with respect to its morphological richness or its complex tone system. The opposite views which attach the social images of vulgarity and sophisticated morphology to Taiwanese illustrate contradictory attitudes toward Taiwanese. In other words, there seem to be competing ideologies which co-exist in contemporary Taiwan.

Second, the reason why Taiwanese was rated to be closer to the side of ‘warm’

might be also related to language use. The results of language use indicate that with family members, in traditional market, and about daily topics are the three domains where Taiwanese was spoken most frequently. When people are talking about daily life materials with their family members, they do not have to communicate in a way like in school, work environment, or other official institutions. It is possible that people draw associations between the use of Taiwanese and less serious topics. In other words, people speak Taiwanese in the most relaxed environment, and thus the impressions may be projected to the language itself.

6.3.2 Dimension of “Potency”

With reference to the dimension of “potency”, overall, Mandarin was rated with higher ratings than Taiwanese in the tender-hard and persuasive/non-persuasive scales.

Mandarin was viewed to be tender and persuasive. On the other hand, Taiwanese was evaluated as neither tender nor hard. This phenomenon may be linked to the

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respondents’ command of Taiwanese. The subjects’ reported Taiwanese proficiency and frequency indicate that, in average, people may not be able to hold a fluent conversation in Taiwanese. The weaker Taiwanese proficiency and limited use of Taiwanese are perhaps the reasons why Taiwanese was judged to be less tender than Mandarin.

6.3.3 Dimension of “Activity”

There are three bipolar attributes in the dimension of “activity”: fluent-awkward, energetic-inert, and slow-fast. The findings and the implications of this dimension are

There are three bipolar attributes in the dimension of “activity”: fluent-awkward, energetic-inert, and slow-fast. The findings and the implications of this dimension are