Ethnolinguistic politics in Taiwan

Monolingual Mandarin Chinese policy was adopted during ROC’s occupation of Taiwan since 1945. Taiwanese people were forced to learn Mandarin Chinese and to identify themselves as Chinese through the national education system. In response to ROC’s Chinese language policy, the promoters of Taiwanese have protested against the monolingual policy and have demanded vernacular education in schools. This is the so-called ‘Tâi-bûn Ūn-tōng’ or ‘Taiwanese language movement’ that has substantially grown since the second half of the 1980s. The purpose of this paper examines the relationship among politics, nationalism and ethnolinguistic development in the case of Taiwan from the 1940s to current date.