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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 902

Part of General Poster Session (Other abstracts in this session)

A study of language attitude toward English loanwords in Taiwan

Authors: Huang, Li-jung Daphne (1); Lin, Yi-wei (2)
Submitted by: Huang, Li-jung Daphne (Providence University, Taiwan, Republic of China)

For centuries, Taiwan has been a multilingual and multicultural society, where Mandarin and Taiwanese are spoken by the majority of the population (Huang, 1993). In addition, English plays an important role in various domains including business, technology, and education. The importance of English is highlighted in its inclusion in the curriculum at the primary school level as a compulsory subject. With the increasing influence of English in Taiwan, loanwords (or lexical borrowing) are becoming ubiquitous in daily conversation. Hence, this study examines language attitudes of young people toward English loanwords in Mandarin discourse. The design of the research is based on that of Hassall et al. (2008) on attitude evaluation toward western loanwords in Indonesia. Three instruments are used: (1) a matched guise task, (2) a questionnaire, and (3) a test of knowledge of English loanword. The questionnaire includes two sections: a Likert-type questionnaire on attitudes and participants’ demographical information. The participants are divided into three age groups based on their school level: 49 college students, 48 senior high school students and 62 junior high school students, amounting to 159 participants in total. Two research questions are raised: (1) What attitudes do the three age groups of young people (junior high, senior high, and college students) have in Taiwan toward English loanwords? (2) What factors affect their attitudes to English loanwords?

The result suggests that all the three groups have a positive attitude toward English loanwords. Although there are variations across the three groups, in general, English is rated positively along the two rated dimensions, solidarity and status. It is surprising that English is rated positively along the solidarity dimension among college students. This positive attitude toward English, however, does not affect their attitude toward Mandarin, the majority language, that is, participants still hold positive attitude toward Mandarin. This paper presents the results regarding the participants’ attitudes towards English loanwords along the dimensions of solidarity and status in comparison with their attitudes toward Mandarin.