Mandarin in Taiwan, probably due to its long-term predominance and the imposed image of homogeneity, has received little attentions in language attitude studies. Young Taiwanese people are too young to be contextualized in the Mandarin-only policy implementation. This study thus intends to survey young people’s attitudes towards Mandarin varieties.
We employed the revised matched guise technique (MGT). Five Mandarin varieties were adopted – Waishengren Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin, TaiwanESE Mandarin, Northern Chinese Mandarin, and Southern Chinese Mandarin.
Waishengren Mandarin refers to the Mandarin variety spoken by the second generation Waishengren, those who migrated to Taiwan with KMT government after WW II. During the time when Chinese identity was strongly imposed in Taiwan, Waishengren were considered standard Mandarin speakers.
TaiwanESE Mandarin refers to Taiwanese-accented Mandarin. It is mainly spoken by the peer Taiwanese of the above-mentioned Waishengren. TaiwanESE Mandarin has been stigmatized in Taiwan.
Taiwan Mandarin refers to the currently de facto standard Mandarin in Taiwan. It was formed in the process of the localization of Mandarin and became stabilized Mandarin in roughly the 1990s.
As to Northern Chinese Mandarin and Southern Chinese Mandarin, Taiwanese people had been imposed the concept that Chinese people speak standard Mandarin, which is Beijing dialect-based. In the early years, Taiwan and China had no contacts; the above-mentioned Waishengren thus then functioned as “model” Chinese. Currently, “real” Chinese people and their Mandarin varieties are common in Taiwan. We thus adopted two representative China Mandarin varieties.
We have three research questions:
1. Among Waisheng Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin, northern China Mandarin, southern China Mandarin, which is considered the standard Mandarin?
2. What are Taiwanese people’ s attitudes towards these five Mandarin varieties?
3. Whether the long-term stigmatized Taiwanese Mandarin remain negatively evaluated?
Results showed that subjects could mostly distinguish these five varieties. Two Chinese Mandarin varieties were not evaluated high. Waisheng Mandarin was evaluated highest and TaiwanESE Mandarin lowest in all but “frienliness” dimension. Ironically, TaiwanESE Mandarin was evaluated highest in this dimension. This result triggers a pragmatic issue – whether “friendly” functions as a negative adjective towards Mandarin in Taiwan.
