Doctoral Dissertation Research: Language Styling and Switching in Speech and On-Line Contexts: Identity and Language Ideologies in Taiwan

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Drs. Keith Walters and Qing Zhang, Ms. His-Yao Su will conduct fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. She will compare accent shifting between standard Mandarin in Taiwan and Taiwan-accented Mandarin, on the one hand, and language switching between Mandarin and Taiwanese, on the other, in face-to-face interactions and in on-line environments. She will study students from colleges in Taipei and Tainan, one in northern and the other in southern Taiwan. She will record their on-line and face-to-face interactions, interview them, and collect on-line questionnaire data to see how their linguistic practices are connected with their identities, language attitudes, and the sociopolitical context of contemporary Taiwan. The Taiwanese context is especially interesting for study of identity and language ideologies because of its unsettled national status in international politics and its politically hostile, yet economically beneficial, relation with China. This research thus concerns the complex relations among regional identity, ethnic identity, elite identity, and national identity. This research is significant in two ways. First, it touches on important themes in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology like the construction of identity. It also incorporates analysis of language interaction on the internet, a communication medium that has shaped human experiences tremendously but has not been much used as a source of data. Second, this research will contribute to better understanding of language attitudes and identities in Taiwan. This should prove useful to educators and policy makers concerned with the promotion of bilingual education in Taiwan or the standardization of Taiwanese. This research will also shed light on how the Taiwanese elite position themselves in relation to China and increase the general public's understanding of the complexity involved in the political stalemate between Taiwan and China.