New Taiwanese and New Chinese : Dialectics on Language and Identity in the New Century
In this paper, we examine the impact of nationalistic and post-nationalistic discourses on language and identity by using, as cases in point, Taiwans quest for a national identity and the changing status of Chinese as a rising global language. We adopt the theories of Stuart Hall (1996) on identity, stressing agency and the politics of identity formation in a post-nationalistic era, applying these to analyses of the discourses on identity advanced by Taiwans first three presidents directly elected since 1996. In addition, we survey a global trend in the status of the Chinese language, namely a trend found in the US (Wang 2007) where policies have been adjusted to adopt Chinese as a strategic global language. We look as well at language policy transformations in Taiwan, where a pluralistic policy has replaced monolithic nationalistic policies in matters of language and identity (Scott and Tiun 2007; Huang 2000; Tse 2000). We argue for a pragmatic view of identity and language where the coming to terms with ones roots replaces the twin traps of returning to roots or running from them. The arguments and results generally should help encourage additional comparative studies on language and identity in a post-modern era and specifically help ease transitions for communities in the greater Chinese world.
Jennifer M. Wei
English Department Soochow University
国际会议
2009 International Conference on Applied Linguistics & Language Teaching(2009应用语言学暨语言教学国际研讨会)
台湾
英文
653-670
2009-04-01（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）