CHAPTER 2 TERMINOLOGY
The relevant terms in the discussions and studies of Taiwan Mandarin were not
unified in previous literatures. The present study defines these terms as follows.
2.1 Taiwanese Mandarin
Taiwanese Mandarin refers to the Southern-Min accented Mandarin. This is
mainly because Southern Min has the largest population among the language groups
in Taiwan; the people as well as language of Southern Min are thus generally named
Taiwanese. It is noteworthy that equalizing Southern Min with Taiwanese has been
recently criticized as one type of Southern Min chauvinism. Thus the
overgeneralization of Southern Min to Taiwanese in Taiwan is gradually waning.
Taiwanese Mandarin, in many aspects, is phonologically affected by Southern
Min.3 Since the speakers of Taiwanese Mandarin acquire Mandarin as a second
language and usually speak it only when speaking to non Southern-Min speakers,
3 For details, see section 3.4.
Southern Min remains the daily language they can most comfortably manage. These
people are relatively aged in the population in Taiwan. In general, Taiwanese
Mandarin is a stigmatized variety of Mandarin because for decades “Standard
Mandarin” had been exclusively promoted for decades in the education system, as
well as the mass media. Cheng (1997, p.IH:39) analogized Taiwanese Mandarin4 with
ebonics in that both maintained unique structures and systems, but were stigmatized
and not officially recognized.
2.2 Taiwan Mandarin/ Guoyu
Taiwan Mandarin, like Taiwanese Mandarin, also refers to a variety of Mandarin
spoken in Taiwan. The differences between these two varieties lie in the phonological
features and the status. As described above, Taiwanese Mandarin is stigmatized, but
Taiwan Mandarin is not. Contrastively, Taiwan Mandarin refers to the Mandarin
natively spoken by people in Taiwan, particularly the young people. The Southern
Min features that stigmatized Taiwanese Mandarin are in general no longer observable
in Taiwan Mandarin. However, Taiwan Mandarin, due to its constant contacts with
local languages in Taiwan, remains distinct from the Mandarin spoken in China, and
has developed its own stable linguistic system. The speakers of Taiwan Mandarin are
generally bilingual of Taiwan Mandarin and (one of) their parents’ first language(s),
but with better capability of Mandarin. Some younger speakers are even Mandarin
monolinguals. The ethnicity of Taiwan Mandarin speakers can hardly be recognized
via their Mandarin accents.
Guoyu, literally meaning “national language”, refers to the “Standard Mandarin”
taught at schools in Taiwan. It was mainly modeled after Beijing Mandarin, especially
at the phonological level, but with some modifications. However, the idealized
Beijing Mandarin “standard” has never pervaded Taiwan, probably due to the
relatively small number of native Beijing Mandarin speakers among the Mandarin
promoters in Taiwan, and the frequent contacts between Mandarin and Taiwan local
languages (Cheng 1985). In Taiwan, the “myth” that Standard Mandarin roughly
equals Beijing Mandarin has gradually shifted to the reality of the existence of Taiwan
Mandarin. In the present study, Guoyu and Taiwan Mandarin are used
interchangeably.
2.3 Putonghua
In the present study, Putonghua, literally meaning “common languages”, loosely
refers to the Standard Mandarin promoted and spoken in China. As Guoyu, Putonghua
was mainly modeled after Beijing Mandarin.
2.4 Benshengren(本省人)
The ethnic groups in Taiwan can be broadly categorized into four groups, They
are Southern Min, Hakka, Mainlander, and Aborigines. As Southern Min has the
largest population among these four groups, Southern Min people are usually
overgeneralized as Taiwanese, or Benshengren, literally meaning “the people of this
province” with “this province” referring to “Taiwan”. They are the descendents of the
Chinese immigrants from Southern Min dialect areas of Fujian (also named Min)
Province during the period of late 17th to late 19th century.
2.5 Waishengren (外省人)
Waishengren, literally meaning “the people from other provinces”, refers to
Mainlanders, or the Chinese immigrants to Taiwan after World War II and their
descendents. The first generation of Waishengren are from various dialect areas in
China. In other words, Standard Mandarin, the language that had been promoted in
China since early 20th century is not the first language of most of the first generation
of Waishengren.
However, politically and communicatively, Mandarin, the national language
promoted by a national government policy, has been aligned to Waishengren. The
large-scaled immigration of Waishengren to Taiwan was politically activated, and a
large portion of the first generation Waishengren then started to work in the
government, as school teachers, in military service, or other governmental institutes.
Politically, Waishengren thus generally adopt Mandarin as their language.
Communicatively, although most of the first generation Waishengren are not native
speakers of Beijing Mandarin, the closest Mandarin dialect to Standard Mandarin,
many of them are native speakers of various dialects of Mandarin. Mandarin, in a
broad sense, naturally becomes the lingua franca among Waishengren. Contrastively,
the local languages in Taiwan, mainly southern Chinese languages, are geographically
and etymologically more distant to Standard Mandarin. Thus, in terms of political and
linguistic aspects, Waishengren are generally associated with Mandarin. In other
words, the linguistic background of Waishengren has been overgeneralized and they
are thus regarded as the speakers of Standard Mandarin, the code promoted by the
government.
It is noteworthy that since the term Waishengren carries the modifier “Wai”,
literally meaning “outside”, implying exclusivity and alienation, some friendly new
terms have been coined recently to refer to Waishengren, such as xin1yi2min2 (the
new immigrant 新移民) and xin2zhu4min2 (the new resident 新住民). The current
study still adopts the term Waishengren instead of such new terms because they are,
comparatively, not as widely used as Waishengren. Furthermore, the ethnic standoff
between Benshengren and Waishengren has been significantly reduced to nearly
inexistent among the people of Taiwan. It is believable that most people of Taiwan, as
the current study, simply neutrally use these two terms as proper nouns when ethnicity
is referred.
