Activity Reports

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The 2nd Young Scholars Workshop "Japanese as a 'Lingua Franca' for the elderly native people in Taiwan", CHIEN Yuehchen (Special Researcher, Tokyo University; Associate Professor, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan)

Date: Friday, 17 December 2010, 18:00-19:30
Venue: Medium Conference Room, 2F Administration offices, TUFS Fuchu campus

The 2nd Young Scholars Workshop was held on Dec 17 and Chien Yuehchen (Assistant Professor, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan) made a presentation on "Japanese brought over to Taiwan - Existence as a Lingua Franca". It is known that Japanese brought over to Taiwan during the Japanese rule is used as a lingua franca among a group of elderly people known as the "Japanese Generation", but the actual situation and language usage have so far not been well researched. According to Chien, Japanese was a taboo subject to be avoided under the Kuomintang rule. Even though her research had been branded as "colonialistic" by some people, Chien insisted that it was a subject worth researching even with that kind of historical background. Making full use of the time, she presented the results from her fieldwork. Western Japanese, especially Kyushu dialects have traditionally been a great influence on Japanese in Taiwan, but over time, many unique features have been produced due to grammaticalization and rationalization. Chien pointed out that these changes might possibly be advanced notice of future changes in Japanese, and emphasized that the diversity of Japanese need not be restricted to Japanese within Japan. Close to forty participants attended the workshop and many questions were asked. Lively discussions, including constructive criticisms had surely benefitted both the presenter and the participants.