3.3 Bopomofo vs. Romanization: Indirectly Elicited Metadiscourse about English English
3.3.3 YouTube news comments
The third dataset comes from YouTube news comments. The dataset is aimed to examine whether English and guojijiegui co-index each other to further justify the claim that English is introduced into the discourse because of the term guojijiegui. YouTube news comments are collected for two major methodological concerns. These news clips are uploaded by mainstream television news channels. Judging from the number of views and
comments, they offer ideal data sources to investigate the conceptualizations of these languages from the public‘s perspectives. In addition, YouTube news channels do not require
viewers to hold polarized opinions. This leads to lengthier, more informative comments when viewers evaluate. The study locates 16 news clips with the keyword search ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ
‗Bopomo‘ and 羅馬拼音 Luoma Pinyin ‗Romanized phonetic schemes‘ on YouTube.
Comments posted on these 16 pages are retrieved. A total number of 1801 comments are collected. Table 4 presents the titles, links and the numbers of comments from the 16 news clips.
Table 4. The 16 YouTube news clips and the number of comments on each webpage.
News clips comments
喊廢ㄅㄆㄇ改羅馬拼音 葉宜津：接軌世界
(‗Proposing to replace Bopomofo with Luoma Pinyin, Yeh Yi-jin ―To guojijiegui.‖‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVffHVNTBGM
233
南市將廢ㄅㄆㄇ？ 葉宜津提改羅馬拼音
(‗Is Tainan about to abolish Bopomofo? Yeh Yi-jin proposes to adopt Luoma Pinyin.‘)
209
86
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecEijDEbEaw 民調不到 1% 酸民虧葉宜津:ㄅㄆㄇ害的
(‗Poll shows less than 1% of approval. Haters quip, ―It‘s all about Bopomofo.‖‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfMNqZ2A-kU
211
廢除注音符號改用羅馬拼音民眾普遍反對 葉宜津：為什麼害怕改變 (‗General disapproval of replacing Bopomofo with Luoma Pinyin. Yeh Yi-jin [asks], ―Why are we afraid of changes?‖‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFHfnPsG6AY
211
轟她「丟掉ㄅㄆㄇ」瞎搞 王思佳爆氣：妳改英文名出來選
(‗Describing the proposal of abolishing Bopomofo as reckless, Sophia Wang challenges Yeh, ―Run for the election after changing your name into English.‖‘) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaebLNs7x64
203
「ㄅㄆㄇㄈ有蝦咪路用？」羅馬拼音考倒民眾 怎麼念都怪 國文老師點出 關鍵是這個
(‗―What on earth does Bopomofo do?‖ Luoma Pinyin confuses people and sounds weird no matter how you read it. Chinese teachers tell you why.‘) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcCBFS5pMx4
195
立委提廢注音ㄅㄆㄇ與國際接軌 「施氏食獅史」繞口令翻成羅馬拼音都 是輕聲？！
(‗A legislative member proposes to abolish Bopomofo to guojijiegui. Luoma Pinyin turns the tongue twister ―Shi shi shi shi shi" into light tones?!‘) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQtPhv_SLKM
158
葉宜津提廢ㄅㄆㄇ 改學羅馬拼音跟國際接軌！話一出引發論戰
(‗Yeh Yi-jin proposes to abrogate Bopomofo, and to adopt Luoma Pinyin to guojijiegui! The proposal sparks debates.‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqoLAUg772Y
105
「ㄅㄆㄇ有啥米路用？」葉宜津提改學羅馬拼音 引發網友論戰 (―What on earth does Bopomofo do?‖ Yeh Yi-jin proposes to adopt Luoma Pinyin. The proposal sparks debates.‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVEPl4cVC8w
93
選到昏頭？"廢ㄅㄆㄇ"跟國際接軌 葉宜津提改學羅馬拼音
(‗Proposing to abolish Bopomofo to guojijiegui, Yeh Yi-jin suggests adopting Luoma Pinyin.‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t13k1XwIcuw
49
最新》喊廢除ㄅㄆㄇ被罵翻 葉宜津：做對的事不計毀譽
(‗Latest>> Criticized for proposing to abolish Bopomofo, Yeh Yi-jin ―Do the right thing despite criticisms.‖‘)
41
87
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SnMAfliOck
2018 九合一－拋廢ㄅㄆㄇ引論戰 葉宜津:快速因應國際化
(‗Nine-in-one elections 2018—the proposal of scrapping Bopomofo sparks debates. Yeh Yi-jin ―In response to internationalization.‖‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQtPhv_SLKM
38
讓孩子跟國際接軌 葉宜津：教育先廢掉ㄅㄆㄇㄈ
(‗Making children guojijiegui, Yeh Yi-jin ―Bopomofo should be scrapped from the curriculum.‖‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re13Z1BI0-Y
21
立委提廢注音改羅馬拼音 語言教師表看法
(‗A legislative member proposes to replace Bopomofo with Luoma Pinyin.
Language teachers express concerns.‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae5ClTbdKvU
15
助國際接軌? 立委倡"廢ㄅㄆㄇ"學羅馬拼音
(‗To facilitate guojijiegui? A legislative member proposes to scrap Bopomofo and to learn Luoma Pinyin.‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba74sVihXZw
14
助國際接軌？ 立委倡「廢ㄅㄆㄇ」學羅馬拼音.
(‗To facilitate guojijiegui? A legislative member proposes to scrap Bopomofo and to learn Luoma Pinyin.‘)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDhxsAmbK8k
5
Total 1801
In the metadiscourse on Bopomofo and Romanized phonetic symbols, the mentioning of English is elicited indirectly. The study first identifies comments which explicitly contain phrases 英文 yingwen, 英語 yingyu and 美語 meiyu ‗English‘. When ‗ABC‘ is used to
refer to English, these comments are also included. To avoid over-interpretation and biased findings, related terms without specific reference to English, such as 外語 waiyu ‗foreign
language,‘ are again excluded. The number of comments is narrowed down to 182. Another 36 comments are excluded because they do not specify explicit evaluations toward English, an example of invalid comments shown in (2) below.
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(2) 中文注音不能廢。英文有 kk 音標,德文.法文也有音標。韓文也有自己的注音(類似
kk 音標)단 자 음單子音단 모 음單母音...等等。
(‗Bopomofo cannot be scrapped. English has its own phonetic scheme, so as German and French. Korean also has its own phonetic notation (similar to KK phonetic symbols) like consonants 단 자 음 and vowels 단 모 음, etc.‘)
Comment (2) states that English has a notation system of its own. Despite the arguable truthfulness of this proposition, the comment does not relate much to the social evaluations of languages. The comment is thus considered invalid. The study adopts the values coding to note the viewers‘ values and attitudes (Saldaña 2016) in the remaining 148 comments. The result of values coding is further examined to identify recurrent or contrastive values and beliefs about English. The result is presented in Section 6.3.
In addition to ‗English‘, the 1801 comments are also examined for another key term, guojijiegui. Comments which mention guojijiegui and related vocabulary, including 國際化
guoji hua ‗internationalization‘, 全球化 quanqiu hua ‗globalization‘ and simply 接軌 jiegui
‗connecting‘ are included. These comments are further analyzed with regard to how
guojijiegui is described as related to language use and how viewers (dis)align with one
another (Du Bois 2007). To avoid biased over-interpretations, only comments that overtly mention the above vocabulary with explicit references to linguistic practice are deemed valid
for analysis. An example of invalid comments is shown in (3).
(3) 這真的很好，這樣的確可以跟國際接軌
(‗This is really good, this can indeed guojijiegui.‘)
Because what the demonstrative pronouns 這 zhe ‗this‘ and 這樣 zheyang ‗this way‘
respectively refer to remain unspecified, this viewer could be commenting on Bopomofo
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abrogation, Romanization implementation, or both. The ambiguity causes this comment to be excluded from valid comments for this study. Among the 167 comments, 59 are considered invalid. A total of 108 comments are analyzed. At this present stage, the 148 comments that mention English and the 108 comments that mention guojijiegui, overlap by the number of 45, as Figure 7 shows.
Figure 7. The numbers of YouTube news comments that mention English, guojijiegui, and both.
It has to be noted that the overlapping is interpreted as merely co-occurrences for the time being. The analysis on values coding (Saldaña 2016) will discuss how English and guojijiegui are ideologically linked to each other. Each comment can potentially reveal multilayered language ideologies, as the study has argued and shown. With the relatively limited number of available comments, values and beliefs have to be found in at least two comments to be discussed in this section. The indexing of linguistic practice is present in Section 6.4.
The three sources of data allow the study respective dimensions of the rationalizations of English in the debate about phonetic systems. Figure 8 graphically presents how the data
(45) guojijiegui (63)
―English‖
(103)
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are approached. A discourse analysis on Yeh‘s speech gives a glimpse at how and why this
proposal is attention-drawing. The survey comments allow the study to observe whether there are correlations between viewers‘ dichotomous opinions and their rationalizations of
linguistic practice. With the YouTube news comments, the study examines the contestation in the ideologizing process and to attend to the (non)existence of the co-indexing association between English and guojijiegui.
Figure 8. The datasets, their collection and categorization procedures in indirectly elicited metadiscourse about English.
This chapter will again account the observation with the model of established language ideologies and ideological stances. The model is extended to further incorporate both Yeh‘s
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speech and the viewers‘ comments. Yeh‘s speech can be seen as both a language policy text
and a discursive representation shaped by her ideologies. The viewers who leave comments interpret the text with their own expectations, i.e. established language ideologies. The ideologization web therefore can be further modified as shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9. The ideologization web in the debate of phonetic systems.
The discussion of the debate on a phonetic system of Taiwan Mandarin is presented in Chapter 6.
Yeh‘s proposal speech
established language ideologies
the ideological stances established language ideologies
ideological stances:
Bopomofo should be scrapped.
Romanized phonetic systems would be adopted others‘ discourse
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C
HAPTER4
E
NGLISH INC
ONVERSATIONALJ
OKING INI
NFOTAINMENTHumor, as pointed out by Monro (1951), is all about ―inappropriateness‖ (244). It can be seen as a form of conflicts when our socially-fostered expectations fail (Ritchie 2005). In crosslinguistic humorous settings, these conflicts exhibit how things are supposed to be in the first place. This chapter approaches the ideologizing process of English by analyzing how English is used in domains other than those where it is considered to prevail, such as at workplace and in school. This chapter is motivated by the observation that scholastic attention to English use outside classroom remains relatively scarce in the Taiwan context.
The present study investigates crosslinguistic conversational joking for the following concerns. English is mostly taken as a ‗serious‘ language because it is perceived to be used in serious, non-daily sectors. This does not mean that English is not used in daily conversation.
Wasserfall (in press 2021) suggests that English lexical insertion is used so frequently in daily
conversation that English borrowings are adapted and indigenized. Su (in press 2021) discusses how speakers‘ evaluative comments on one‘s ‗showy‘ English reveals the
ambivalent attitudes Taiwanese hold toward English. Similarly, crosslinguistic conversational joking allows the study to observe the dos and don‘ts concerning English. As J.S.-Y. Park (2009) points out, the light-hearted, humorous contexts are more inclined to be reckoned as
‗ideology-free‘ when they are equally ideological (130). This chapter sees the audience‘s
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humorous reading as the ideological stances, and identifies what the background social knowledge about English are invoked as the established language ideologies to read the humorous side. The study argues that crosslinguistic humor is ideological and ideologizing.
Crosslinguistic humor is approached from the perspective of epistemics, i.e. speakers‘
commitment to knowledge revealed in discourse (Heritage 1984; Heritage & Raymond 2005;
2011; Stivers et al. 2011; Heritage 2013). Heritage (1984) distinguishes speakers‘ access to knowledge as relative in the current interaction. Speakers at K+ position possess relatively more knowledge than speakers at K- position. To be more specific, a question tends to be initiated by a speaker at K- and targeted at a speaker at K+ position. The study adopts the terminology in analyzing knowledge management in crosslinguistic humorous joking in infotainment discourse. Drawing from how the knowledge of English is transmitted in conversational joking in media, the study discusses how humor is a vehicle of exploiting and reinforcing the ideologization of English. The study attends to three levels of discourse representation. At linguistic level, the analysis of English-related humor draws from past literature on codeswitching, codemixing and crossing (Rampton 1995; Myers-Scotton 1998).
The study refers to the act of adopting multiple languages as codeswitching. At epistemic level, unlike Mandarin which is used across domains in Taiwan, the presentation of English requires more conscious management of knowledge to ensure comprehension especially in media communication where immediate feedback is absent. The communication carries
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speakers‘ assumptions about the audience‘s knowledge of English (Stivers et al. 2011). In
media discourse, the epistemic assessment occurs both among interactants on the scene of recording and between the programs and their target audience. Two levels of knowledge management and ideological process should be identified. The infotainment discourse is presented as a whole package to their audience. It will be presented later that media discourse anchors trances of different ideologization processes altogether as one discourse product.
To the best of my knowledge, less attention has been paid to bilingual humor in Taiwanese context. Therefore, even though the ideologizing process and pragmatics play crucial roles in both plotting and comprehending bilingual humors, the study opts for a typology of English-related conversational joking based on forms, presented in Section 4.1, and proceeds with its pragmatic and ideological significances in Section 4.2.