Suchergebnisse

Abstract
This article examines the street name signs of Taipei City in their ideological, linguistic, and semiotic dimensions. These different levels of analysis correlate with different processes of sign development. Combining critical toponymy and linguistic landscape research, it is claimed that in ideological and linguistic terms the post-war period has been one of the fundamental changes that has been arguably unparalleled elsewhere. By contrast, the ideological about-turn after the 1980s has had relatively little influence on the contents of street name signs. Alluding to Western-style modernity, semiotic features like the colour of the signs and the direction of writing are later innovations. It is also argued that in the broader context of their multilingual environment, there is an enormous discrepancy between visible normativity and audible multilingualism.

Abstract
This topical section brings together five essays that cover different aspects in the intersection of language and society in contemporary Taiwan. Briefly outlining the contents of each essay, this introduction focuses on the question how the essays complement each other in terms of level of analysis, empirical basis, and interdisciplinary approach. It shows how research on language planning on the national level and its underlying ideology ties in with analyses of the language choice behaviour of individual speakers at the receiving end of language planning. Claims derived from individual case studies in turn require quantitative data to allow for generalisability. Finally, interdisciplinary research in the intersection of language and media studies helps us to understand how language standards and dominant language ideologies are disseminated, reproduced, and challenged.

Fell, Dafydd: Inter-party competition in Taiwan since the 1990s Göbel, Christian: Beheading the hydra : combating political corruption and organised crime Mattlin, Mikael: Same content, different wrapping : cross-strait policy under DPP rule Chang Bi-Yu: From Taiwanisation to de-sinification Rawnsley, Gary D. ; Rawnsley, Minh-Yeh T.: Media reform since 1987 Klöter, Henning: Language policy in the KMT and DPP eras