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

在基思沃尔特斯博士和张青博士的指导下，苏希尧女士将为她的博士论文进行实地考察。她将比较在台湾的标准普通话和台湾口音的普通话之间的口音转移，一方面，和普通话和台语之间的语言转换，另一方面，在面对面的互动和在线环境。她将研究台北和台南大学的学生，一个在台湾北方，另一个在台湾南部。她将记录他们的在线和面对面的互动，采访他们，并收集在线问卷数据，以了解他们的语言实践如何与他们的身份，语言态度和当代台湾的社会政治背景相关联。台湾的背景是特别有趣的身份和语言意识形态的研究，因为它在国际政治中的不稳定的国家地位和它的政治敌对，但经济上有利，与中国的关系。因此，本研究关注的是区域认同、族群认同、精英认同和国家认同之间的复杂关系。这项研究在两个方面具有重要意义。首先，它涉及社会语言学和语言人类学的重要主题，如身份的构建。它还结合了对互联网上语言互动的分析，互联网是一种极大地塑造人类体验的通信媒介，但并没有被用作数据来源。其次，本研究将有助于更好地了解台湾的语言态度和身份。本研究对推动台湾双语教育或台语标准化的教育工作者及政策制定者，应有所助益。这项研究也将揭示台湾精英如何定位自己与中国的关系，并增加公众对台湾与中国之间的政治僵局所涉及的复杂性的理解。

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.