A Linguistic Study of Taiwan and Beijing Mandarin

• Main Authors: Dai, Kai-Feng, 戴凱峰
• Other Authors: Wei, Shu-Lun
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1997
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/81258827171229686842

碩士 === 政治作戰學校 === 外國語文學系 === 85 === 　　The intent of this paper is to analyze the underlying causes of the differences between Taiwan and Beijing Mandarin. After several decades of separation between Taiwan and the Chinese Mainland, the social, political, economic situations and even the language on the both sides of the Taiwan Straits have varied to some extents. These discrepancies may be reflected in orthographic, phonologic, semantic, and even syntactic varieties of Mandarin in Taiwan and Mainland China. On the one hand, Mandarin in Taiwan has been influenced by the local dialect, mainly Minnan dialect, and foreign languages, English and Japanese. On the other hand, since the establishment of their regime, the Chinese Communists have produced an unbroken stream of specialized vocabulary to promote their political movements and to achieve their political intents. Therefore, we know that different politics, social background, and ideology have generated two kinds of language expressions on the bilateral sides of the Taiwan Straits. 　　The framework and methodology are in accordancy with Saussure's four binary theories of language:"language and speech," "diachronic and synchronic," "signified and signifier, " and"paradigmatic and syntagmatic" Given the corpus, we can examine the comparative studies on both Taiwan an Beijing Mandarin with comprehensive analysis. On language and speech perspective, we can find out the language comonly used in both sides of the Taiwan Staits is Mandarin; in Taiwan, however, the speech is different from Beijing Mandarin because of the influence of Minnan dialect. Secondly, the diachronic and synchronic analysis provides us an overall view of innovations and revival words. Thirdly, the signified and signifier is concerned with the differences of concept and sound image. In addition to those mentioned above, the paradigmatic and syntagmatic analysis explores the collocatively restricted words and some syntactic research of the language. 　　These findings show that the linguistic change is a dynamic process. English, for example, has been changing throughoue its history and it is still changing today. The disparities found in Taiwan and Beijing Mandarin show that they do not fololw the same process in thinking, speaking, and writing. They systematically reflect the cultural differences between the primary Chinese communities, Taiwan and the Chinese Mainland. This is why Saussure said "language is social facts." In addition, the more profit this thesis will make is to language planning, translation, and the application of political warfare. At a concrete level, this study may improve the better understanding of our people in Taiwan and on the Mainland, but also remove the cultural and academic barriers between the Taiwan Straits.