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Abstract
This study investigates how the ethnic visibility of Taiwan Hakka is improved through language use. The usage of a unique Hakka symbolic code <nganggiang stiff neck> is focused on. Based on data from the four Taiwan major newspapers, an analysis with text techniques shows that the code emerges along with social-political developments in Taiwan, with its meaning turning from negative to positive connotation. Its frequency is highly correlated with major political events in Taiwan, with peaks during the two or three years before presidential elections. It illustrates semiotic innovation, extending from Hakka to Hakka non-human, to non-Hakka, and to non-Hakka non-human frames. The salient image it creates increases Hakka ethnic visibility and enhances their ethnic identity. A significant implication is that minority ethnic groups can employ a unique symbolic code, empowering it with positive connotation. Through extensive language use, its representation can raise their ethnic visibility and enhance their ethnic identity.
Acknowledgments
This study is based partly on research project MOST 104-2420-H-004-002-MY2, funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan. Many thanks are extended to all the research assistants for collecting the data and references for the study. I would like to extend my gratitude to Prof. Chao-lin Liu for providing not only the analytic tools but also the techniques for the treatment of the data. Thanks are also extended to the two anonymous reviewers of Asian Ethnicity for their constructive comments and suggestions. I am of course responsible for any errors remaining.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Hsu, ‘The Ethnic Relations in Taiwan’.
2. Chiou, ‘Hakka’s Invisibility in Taiwan’.
3. In terms of language use, Taiwan languages, Southern Min, Hakka, and languages of the indigenous peoples have all suffered from the Mandarin Only Movement, as pointed out by one of the reviewers. The impact has been quite consequential, as the three languages and their sub-dialects have suffered mother tongue crisis to the present day. However, this study with a focus on Hakka language use simply discusses the Hakka situation. A comparison and contrast of the three groups will be an issue for further research, but will be left for another context.
4. Chang, ‘Current Important Issues’.
5. Wang, ‘Diaspora, Identity and Cultural Citizenship’.
6. Ibid., 881.
7. Hsiao and Huang, ‘Hakka Movements’.
8. Laroche et al., ‘The Role of Language’.
9. Foley, Anthropological Linguistics.
10. Shih, ‘Process of Taiwan Democratization’; and Wang, ‘Diaspora, Identity and Cultural Citizenship’.
11. Kellner, Media Culture.
12. Orbe and Harris, Interracial Communication.
13. Weng et al., ‘The Virtual World of News’.
14. Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives.
15. Van Leeuwen, Introducing Social Semiotics.
16. Barthes, Elements of Semiology.
17. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By.
18. Kövecses and Radden, ‘Developing a Cognitive Linguistic View’.
19. Cameron and Deignan, ‘The Emergence of Metaphor in Discourse’.
20. Van Leeuwen, Introducing Social Semiotics, 33.
21. Lo et al., ‘Newspaper Coverage’.
22. Lo and Chung, ‘How Do Newspapers and Television’.
23. Ibid.
24. Hung, ‘How Do Newspapers Report’.
25. Kuan, Power Transfer and Electoral Politics.
26. Lo, ‘Introduction to Hakka’.
27. Hsu, ‘The Ethnic Relations in Taiwan’, 395.
28. Hawkins, ‘Ideology, Metaphor and Iconographic Reference’.
29. Dirven et al., ‘Categories, Cognitive Models and Ideologies’, 3.
30. Lee, Taiwanese Hakka Media.
31. Peng, ‘Variety of Hakka Images’.
32. Asante, ‘Identifying Racial Language’.
33. Porto and Manuela, ‘Newspaper Metaphors’.
34. See note 7 above.
35. See note 12 above.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Huei-ling Lai
Huei-ling Lai is currently a distinguished professor of linguistics at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Her research interests cover areas from lexical and conceptual semantics, grammaticalization, construction grammar, to metaphor, metonymy, and their interactions and applications. She has been working on Hakka language from both micro and macro perspectives, with an aim to establish Taiwan Hakka grammar in the multiple linguistic and cultural Taiwan society. She has published papers in Linguistics, Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Language and Linguistics, Concentric: Studies in Linguistics, Taiwan Journal of Linguistics, Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology Academia Sinica, Journal of Pragmatics, Language Awareness, and International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching.
Author’s postal address: Department of English, National Chengchi University, No. 64, Sec. 2, ZhiNan Rd., Wenshan District, Taipei City 11605, Taiwan.