Writing vernacular languages online: a case study of writing strategies of Taiwanese on social network sites among young generation

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• Chi-Cheng Tsai
• Wednesday 21 October 2015, 17:15-19:00
• Faculty of English, Room GR-05.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Afra Pujol i Campeny.

Even a standard orthography has been created or reformed by government or activists, it is not guaranteed that it will be used or even recognized by the ordinary speakers, especially when the language has long existed as a spoken language in informal context. In the case of Taiwanese, a variety of Hokkien spoken in Taiwan, despite the official dictionary and other work on standardization made by government, scholars and activists, the mass of the speakers have low awareness of the standard orthography. Moreover, many of them hold the misunderstanding that Taiwanese does not have a script and that Chinese characters can solely be used to write Mandarin. Yet, the misunderstanding and the limited knowledge of the standard orthography do not prevent the speakers from writing Taiwanese when they want to. Social network sites (SNS), for instance, provide great opportunity for them to write their vernacular language in a digital environment, as code-switching between Mandarin and Taiwanese is very common for Taiwanese people in less formal settings. The present study aims to answer three questions: to what extent is the young generation aware of the official Taiwanese orthography? How do they write Taiwanese on the Internet when they need to? How do they choose between different strategies? The analysis is based on an online survey conducted in December, 2014 and March, 2015 among the young generation (aged SNS as no reader would be able to identify codeswitching if translation has taken place. Lastly, the informants’ choice between different strategies is likely to depend on their awareness and knowledge of the Taiwanese characters, and their purpose of code-switching.

This talk is part of the Cambridge Endangered Languages and Cultures Group series.

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