Background and Motivation of College Students’ Perspectives and Employment
of Loanwords － A Case of Southern Taiwan University
Language does not only reflect human life, political economy, cultural
background and social psychology, and conflict between different nations, but also
shows how the Internet shortens the distance between countries. These factors
promote vocabulary development and a different cultural perspective.
There are more than twenty native languages in Taiwan, making it an extremely
multilingual country (Grimes, 1996). On the other hand, foreign cultures also
stimulate and change our life. When it comes to food, clothing, and life in conduct
and recreation, many different foreign cultures can be seen interacting in Taiwan. For
example, we have various ethnic and local foods, and they all help make up Taiwan’s
diet culture. What is more, multiple diet cultures also changes our favorite foods and
enrich our living style. To sum up, different languages and cultures are related to each
other.
In recent years, the government has promoted bilingual and multilingual
education policies, civil diplomacy, and foreign tourists visiting and so forth. Due to
these factors, English has become a mainstream language in Taiwan. The loanword is
a lexical item that enters a recipient language from a donor language, as ‘‘morphemic
importation without substitution’’ (Haugen, 1950, p. 214). There are many loanwords
that have undergone homonymic words substitution and in that form entered
Mandarin Chinese. We can see many loanwords in the media, including newspapers,
magazines, broadcasts, Internet, billboards and landmarks we can see many
loanwords. Therefore, the loanword imbues our life. Hymes (1964, p. 21) notes that
“speech is so fundamental an activity of man, language so integral a part of his culture.”
For the usage of foreign word, if loanwords themselves have no functions, they
will lose their value and disappear (Shi, 2000, p. 119-124). Regarding loanwords that
are used in Taiwan, we can distribute them into four types. The first, the functional
words, supports native language’s insufficiency, and serve a necessary
communicative purpose. Hence it enriches our ability to express. The second type of
loanwords are cultural. They can be seen as an emissary of external culture, and
disseminates foreign local folkway, technology and art. The third, the type of
loanword has a social function. The loanword usage serves a social code and stands
for the user’s social identity, class status and social space. The fourth type serves a
psychological function. These usually have a kind of exotic flavor and make confuse
or deep even xenophile (Shi, 2000).
To know more about the reason why of the loanwords are formed, disseminated
and become normal, we will attempt to find origin of the loanword into Taiwan.
According to the view of history, loanwords can be divided into seven main stages:
First are those that are Pre-ancient and Han dynasty originate from all Central Asian
languages. Second are those from Wei, Southern and Northern dynasties and originate
from Sanskrit. Third are those from Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties, which originate
from Turkey and Mongolia. Fourth are those from the Reform Movement of 1898 to
the Revolution of 1911 and originate from Japanese. Fifth are those that entered our
language after the May 4th Movement (1919). These loanwords originate from English.
Sixth are those that entered after 1949 and originate from Russian. Lastly, others
originate from areas in the southern pacific region and minority nationality languages
(Zhang, 1982).
As this review has shown, we know culture and language are closely linked and
both enrich our life. The papers in Holmes (2001) states that “it seems conceivable
that preferred discourse patterns and linguistic usages may reflect and even influence
a particular view of social reality and socio-cultural relationships” (P. 334). However,
the influence of the loanwords has its strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, the
loanwords are generally welcome in Taiwan, but on the other hand people eliminate
and select suitable loanword. How do we accept external culture while simultaneously
preserving and creating our own culture. This is a main issue for us. In the study, the
researcher hopes to better understand the loanword backwash in our society and how
it influences culture in Taiwan.