Japan mania and Japanese loanwords in Taiwan Mandarin: Lexical structure and social discourse

• Main Authors: Hsieh, Shelley Ching-yu, Hsu, Hui-li
• Other Authors: 外國語文學系
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Chinese University Press 2006
• Subjects: The Pointers
• Online Access: http://ir.lib.ncku.edu.tw/handle/987654321/108960

Japan fever introduces new Japanese loanwords to Taiwan Mandarin. This study examines the Japanese loanwords from three streams of borrowings and collects data from newspaper corpus, speaker’s colloquial usages and the literature. It aims to investigate the morphological representations of the loanwords, observe their influence to the lexical structure of Taiwan Mandarin and to examine the Japan mania and thesocial pattern in Taiwan. Transliteration, loan translation, and form-meaning reproduction are three main types of written representations of theseloanwords. The vocabulary in Mandarin is enriched either by the direct, indirect borrowings or by revivals due to the intensive contact in the history between Chinese and Japanese. In the new millennium, Japan is more a commercial example to Taiwan than an academic medium as it was a century ago. The Japanese loanwords are the pointers of Taiwan’s awareness when pacing toward globalization.