The Myth Representation in the Postcolonial Context：A Comparative Study of Indigenous Sinophone Writings in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Der Shing Liou, 劉得興
• Other Authors: 簡瑛瑛教授
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/qqauk5

博士 === 輔仁大學 === 跨文化研究所比較文學博士班 === 101 === In academic cross-culture and language studies, comparative literature holds a notable position. The investigation has reached literature works of different cultures and languages and has even further crossed different subjects applying comparative analysis with close investigation. After World War II, the post-colonial discourse has been developed as a research method of comparative literature, which mainly focuses on the awareness of the colonies, after having become independent from the colonial rulers, realizing their culture was still under the governance and control of the colonial mother countries. Thus, the writers attempt to counter cultural re-colonization with literary writings. The post-colonial literature was born in such social atmosphere. Its writing purpose aimed to be free from cultural hegemony of the colonial rulers and meanwhile tried to represent traditional cultures of native tribes on their own land. However, while the nations generally accept colonial language and culture left by the former colonial rulers, the post-colonial literature writers doubt and criticize that these colonial writers using colonial languages to create their own writings had merely become helpers of the cultural hegemony. Since native language is an important foundation that maintains tribal emotions, stabilizes continual development of tribal culture, and even further produces tribal collective consciousness and imagination of the tribal cultural development, how can a literary writer, who has forgotten his own tribal language, successfully represent traditional culture that was constructed by tribal mythology? Indigenous Sinophone Writings in Taiwan were developed after the war in the mid 1980’s, which differ from long-lasting Indigenous oral literature. After experiencing the colonial and post-colonial periods, the writers of Indigenous Sinophone literary works in Taiwan use the literal written form to resist the decrease of tribal language and culture. They attempt to call people to revive the tribal history and culture, which mainly are based on mythology. However, if the writers of Indigenous Sino-phone literary works use Chinese to write and to create literature, it means that Indigenous tribes in Taiwan are not yet free from the governance and control of Chinese Culture: a re-colonial culture, as the post-colonial discourse suggests. Owing to the above, this thesis will apply research methods of Comparative Literature to investigate Indigenous Sinophone writings which were developed after the war since the mid 1980’s. With an objective and open research attitude, the writer hopes to analyze and criticize the development of Indigenous Sinophone writings in Taiwan, in order to clarify whether or not these literary works enhance the Indigenous tribes to maintain their cultural subjectivity, and even to build a future cultural view of the Indigenous tribes. If the tribal writers creating Indigenous Sinophone writings can meanwhile pay respect to the importance of native literature that can really enhance the tribal development, then Indigenous Sinophone writings in Taiwan will not only tell others ‘who I am’ but also can tell the tribes ‘who we are’. Furthermore, it can develop a cultural view with tribal subjective consciousness.