Language and Culture in Taiwan

Language and Culture in Taiwan
Written by Tien, Ching-Yi
Sep 15, 2008
1
Overview
• Socio-historical Context
• Ethnic Groups, Population and Language
Use
• Taiwan’s Colonial History
• The KMT Government
• Language Policy
• Chapter Summary
2
SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Archaeologists have found evidence that the
earliest inhabitants of Taiwan date back 12,000
or 15,000 years. The descendants of these early
settlers now comprise less than two percent of
the total population. Since the 17th century, the
Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese and
Mainland Chinese have arrived in Taiwan and
brought their cultures and languages to the
island.
3
Ethnic Groups, Population and
Language Use
• The earliest census for Taiwan, in 1905,
put the population at 3.12 million
(Yearbook 2003). Nearly a century later,
Taiwan has one of the highest population
total in southern Asia with a population of
nearly 23 million people, comprised of four
major ethnolinguistic groups.
4
• The first group is the early settlers, which
make up less than two percent of the
population. Nowadays these people are
known as aborigines. The evidence of
earliest habitants in Taiwan dates back to
between 12,000 and 15,000 years. The
settlers arriving from at least two places:
southern China and Austronesia.
5
• There are currently eleven major surviving
indigenous groups and their languages and
cultures are recognized as Malay-Polynesian
(Austronesian): the Amis, Atayal, Bunun,
Kavalan, Paiwan, Pinuyumayan, Rukai, Saisiyat,
Thao, Truku, Tsou, Yami and Sakizaya. In 2006,
the total indigenous population was nearly
475,000. Of this number, around 40,000 have
•
not identified themselves as belonging to a
particular group.
賽德克族正式成為台灣原住民族第14族
(5/8/2008).
6
阿美
泰雅
布農
噶瑪蘭
排灣
卑南
魯凱
賽夏
鄒語
雅美
邵語
太魯閣
賽德克
7
• The second ethnolingistic group,
comprising approximately 70 percent of
Taiwan’s population, is Hoklo (also called
southern Min or Taiwanese) who
emigrated from China’s coastal provinces
of Fujian in the 16th century. The
southern Min language is also known as
Hokkien, Tai-yu or Taiwanese.
8
• The third ethnolinguistic group is Hakka,
whose ancestors emigrated from China’s
coastal provinces of Guandong in the 16th
century. It comprises approximately 15
percent of Taiwan’s population.
9
• The last ethnolinguistic group are known
as ‘mainlanders’: those people who
emigrated from Mainland China in or
around 1949, now comprising
approximately 13 percent of the country’s
population.
10
• The Ministry of Education (MOE) is
outlining a language equality law that
aims to preserve the fourteen major
languages and dialects spoken in Taiwan:
Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, and fourteen
indigenous languages, which are
collectively classified as ‘Formosan’
(Yearbook, 2008) (cf. Ethnologue, 2001).
11
Taiwan’s Colonial History
• Contact with colonial powers can be
broken down into four phases. Each of
these phases left some influence on the
economic and linguistic climate in Taiwan.
• The first phase is the Portuguese, the
second phase is the Dutch, the third phase
is the Spanish, and the fourth phase is the
Japanese.
12
Phase One
• The natural beauty of the island attracted the
first European arrivals, the Portuguese, and the
first sailor exclaimed Ilha Formosa (‘the beautiful
island’) (Yearbook, 2003; Dreyer, 2003, p.390).
Since then, Taiwan has gained worldwide
attention for its distinctive location and natural
resources and has been known as ‘Formosa’ in
several western countries (Yearbook, 2003).
13
Phase Two
• The Dutch colonized southern Taiwan in 1624
and commenced international trade with China,
Japan and Southeast Asia. In addition to
economic development, Dutch missionaries were
sent to Taiwan in an attempt to convert Taiwan’s
inhabitants to Christianity. In 1636, the first
Dutch school was built in Sinkang and literacy
skills were taught to local inhabitants (Heylen,
1998).
14
Phase Three
• In 1626 the Spanish came to Taiwan and
established a colonial capital in the north
of the island to compete against Dutch
expansion. Keelung and Danshuei were
built as their bases for trading and for
spreading Christianity. In 1642 the Spanish
were expelled from Taiwan by the Dutch.
15
Phase Four
• In 1895, Cing’s administration in Taiwan was
disrupted by the Sino-Japanese War. Japan
determinedly defeated its neighbours in the war
between 1894-95 and Taiwan was ceded to
Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed
in 1895. During 50 years of Japanese
colonization in Taiwan, Japan actively developed
various programmes to pave the way for
converting the inhabitants of Taiwan into loyal
subjects of the Japanese emperor.
16
• Japanese language and writing systems were
implemented in elementary schools and onward,
and the inhabitants were forced to wear
Japanese clothing. Furthermore, the streets
were renamed in Japanese. The Japanese
colonial government eventually turned Taiwan
into an industrialized country, with extensive
agricultural plans and hydroelectric power. Under
the Japanese transformation plans, Taiwan
developed a rapidly growing economy.
17
• Yet the strong desire to retain Taiwanese culture
and identity and overt resistance to Japan’s
assimilative policies had stirred up severe
confrontations between the Japanese colonial
government and the Taiwanese. In 1945, World
War II ended with Japan’s surrender to the Allies.
Taiwan was handed over to China, governed by
Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang (KMT), after 50
years of Japanese occupation.
18
The KMT Government
• On October 25 1945, Taiwan retroceded to
the KMT Government. People on the island
were delighted and thought that peace
had eventually come. Unfortunately, the
first KMT troops sent to take over Taiwan
were poorly trained, insensitive and
undisciplined, and they soon destroyed
the island’s infrastructure and economy.
19
• The KMT Government eventually moved to
Taipei in 1949 due to defeat on the mainland
and brought a great number of immigrants to
Taiwan, including Chiang Kai-Shek himself.
Nearly two million people from various mainland
regions immigrated to Taiwan and also brought
in many different languages and dialects. Chiang
embarked on an ambitious programme of
nation-building on the island and was planning a
counter-attack to regain the administrative
power in the mainland.
20
• From 1951 to 1965, under the KMT’s nation-
building programme with enormous economic
and military assistance from the United States,
Taiwan’s infrastructure and agriculture
developed and improved dramatically. Some
Taiwanese people were sent to be educated
abroad. Farmers were able to purchase land
from landlords. The economic structure of the
island gradually shifted from agricultural exports
in the 1950s to industrial manufacturing in the
1960s and 70s. By the 1980s and 90s, Taiwan
had become a leading country for technological
and chemical products.
21
LANGUAGE POLICY
• Figueroa (1988) stated “[l]anguage policy
is political rather than linguistic in
nature. … [L]anguage policy can only be
made and enforced by those with political
power” (p.296). Evidence of political
influences on language policy can be
found throughout Taiwanese history.
22
Language Policy in the Japanese
Colonial Period
• In 1896, the languages spoken in Taiwan were
approximately 83% southern Min, 15 % Hakka,
and 2% aboriginal or other languages (Tsao,
2000). With the ambition of completing the
‘Japanisation’ on Taiwan, the Japanese rulers
were pragmatic, realising that it would be
impossible to complete the mission without
implementing the Japanese language in the
educational system and making people speak
Japanese.
23
Eliminating Taiwanese languages and to
replacing them with the Japanese language
• The first stage (1895-1919) was the
conciliation of the educational system.
• During the second stage, called the
‘assimilation’ stage (1919-1937), all
private Shu-Fangs were banned and
Chinese was made an optional subject;
Japanese was still the main instrument in
education.
24
• The last stage (1937-1945) was the stage of
complete Japanisation. The Chinese language
was banned not only in all private and public
schools, but also in all public domains, and in
the media. The Japanese language was to be
recognized as the Taiwanese lingua franca; the
indigenous languages were oppressed,
discriminated against and regarded as vulgar
languages by the Japanese government.
25
• After World War II, the Japanese government
surrendered and Taiwan was returned to China,
and the Japanese language policy ended in 1945.
Four years later the National Government (KMT)
lost the defeat with the Chinese Communists
and was forced to retreat from Mainland China.
After the KMT government relocated in Taiwan,
the new government implemented another
language policy.
26
Language Policy Under the KMT
Government
• When Taiwan was returned to China, the
people on the island were overjoyed that
they could freely speak their own
languages again. Shortly after KMT’s
arrival along with a large number of
immigrants from Mainland China, the KMT
Government faced the difficulty of
communicating with local people.
27
• people in the KMT Government only spoke
Mandarin. In order to demonstrate the
KMT’s authority and to make people obey
the government, The KMT Government set
out the new language policy, which
stipulated Mandarin as the national
language. Indeed, Mandarin was the
lingua franca when mainlanders arrived in
Taiwan with KMT troops (Li, 1983).
28
• The language situation at that time was
extremely complicated and needed to be
organized with a well-designed plan. With regard
to the KMT Government’s new language policy,
the government promoted Mandarin and
severely repressed all the local languages (Hsiau,
1997). Moreover, in order to eradicate the
Japanese language in the public domains, the
KMT Government set up the National Language
Movement to promote the standard of the
Mandarin language in 1946 (Tse, 1981, 1986).
29
• In 1965, it was stipulated by the KMT
Government that all civil servants must
speak Mandarin during office hours to
reinforce that Mandarin was the sole
national language.
30
• In 1962, when the first television channel
started, non-Mandarin programmes were
limited to less than 16% of the total
broadcast time. Taiwanese television
programmes, which were exceedingly
popular in 1971, were suppressed under
the KMT Government and rationed to less
than one hour per day on each channel.
31
• After more than three decades of
suppression by KMT’s monolingual policy,
the local people came to realize the
importance of preserving their own
language. The Taiwanese opposition
movement then rapidly developed and the
Tai-yu language (Taiwanese) movement
emerged in the late 1980s.
32
• Although Taiwanese language advocators have
made great efforts to arouse the language
equality, long under the influence of KMT’s
national language policies, Mandarin is always
regarded as the distinctive and prestigious
language, the high language (c.f. Berg, 1986,
1988; Tsao, 1999a). On the contrary, the local
vernaculars, such as Taiwanese and Hakka, are
treated as an unfavourable or ‘low’ language,
used by the uneducated.
33
• Since Taiwan became politically
democratic in 1986, restrictions on
languages used in the media were
gradually removed. Tai-yu programmes on
both television and radio increased greatly.
The restriction on speaking local
languages other than Mandarin in all
public domains was relaxed.
34
• In December 1990, the Hakka Association for
Public Affairs was founded to promote the Hakka
language and to raise Hakka ethnic awareness.
After the Tai-yu and Hakka language movements,
along with the aboriginal language awareness, in
April 1993, the Ministry of Education (henceforth
MOE) announced that Hakka, Tai-yu, and
aboriginal languages were offered as elective
courses at elementary schools (Dreyer, 2003).
35
Language Policy in 2001
• In recent years, people in Taiwan have become more
aware of the cultural diversity and the importance of
preserving the languages and dialects (Chiung, 2001;
Tiu, 1999). Due to the long neglect of the using of
local languages, many young generations no longer
speak their mother tongues, such as indigenous
language and Hakka. In order to maintain and
promote the local languages, the MOE announced
that from September 2001, elementary school
students are required to take at least one local
language course from the choices of Taiwanese (Taiyu), Hakka, or an aboriginal language. For junior
high school students, the local language courses
remained as an optional subject (Yearbook, 2003).
36
CHAPTER SUMMARY
• Having experienced several revaluations in
the past, the development of democracy
has given rise of Taiwan’s rapid
economical and technological growth.
Along with the political and economical
changes, people in Taiwan increasingly
paid attention to ethnolinguistic awareness
and cultural identities.
37

Download Report