Henning Klöter

Demokratie und Religion in Taiwan

„Nach der Reformation war die romisch-katholische Kirche nicht mehr die einzige heilige Gemeinschaft der westlichen Gesellschaft. Die Entstehung und Entwicklung zahlreicher neuer christlicher Konfessionen ist somit eine Folge der Sakularisierung. Wahrend des Ausnahmezustands galten Regierung und Regierungspartei KMT [in Taiwan] als heilig und unantastbar; selbst religiose Vereinigungen mussten sich ihnen unterwerfen. Das Ende des Ausnahmezustandes ist somit gleichbedeutend mit der Entsakralisierung von Partei und Regierung“ (Chiu 2001; Ubersetzung H.K).

What Is Being Borrowed? Language And Script Contact In Taiwan

The coexistence of two or more different languages in one linguistic community is one important condition for languages to attain contact. Coexistence of language does not necessarily entail script contact. One obvious reason is that not all of the languages in contact are necessarily written languages. Another possible reason is the exclusion of an existing script from official language planning. If a script is not being spread through educational institutions, it is unlikely to become established within a linguistic community. This chapter introduces various directions of language contact and a pattern of script contact in Taiwan and introduces existing loanword terminology. It distinguishes different types of borrowing on the basis of loanwords and their written representation in twentieth century Taiwan. The Western linguistic terminology sufficiently describes morphemic, phonemic, and semantic changes occurring in the process of borrowing from the donor language to the recipient language. Keywords: language contact; linguistic terminology; loanword; script contact; Taiwan

Book Reviews : A-chin HSIAU, Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. 220 pp., with bibliography and index. ISBN: 0- 415-22648-1 (hc). Price: £58.00

intellectuals’ attempts to oppose enforced assimilation into Japanese culture by promoting literature in the local Fujianese vernacular of Taiwan. As this local vernacular lacks a standard for its written representation, the literary debate soon turned to linguistic issues concerning the creation of a Taiwanese script. Although the advocates of local literature did formulate the notion of Taiwan’s cultural distinctiveness, Hsiau argues, &dquo;this transition of identity should not be seen in black-and-white terms. The insistence of using Chinese characters to signify tai-oan-oe [i.e., Taiwanese-H.K.] testified to the advocates’ Han Chinese