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Copyright of EurAmerica is the property of EurAmerica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Taiwanese Sociology is the property of Taiwanese Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Taiwanese Sociology is the property of Taiwanese Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Mass Communication Research is the property of Guoli Zhengzhi Daxue Xinwenxue Yanjiusuo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Taiwanese Sociology is the property of Taiwanese Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Taiwanese Sociology is the property of Taiwanese Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Mass Communication Research is the property of Guoli Zhengzhi Daxue Xinwenxue Yanjiusuo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Taiwanese Sociology is the property of Taiwanese Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the age of green energy, is it possible that Taiwan, as a latecomer compared with European countries, the United States, and Japan in terms of technology, can have its own unique "green technological innovation" instead of merely relying on "green technology transfer"? If the answer is yes, then what are the characteristics of such innovation, specific to Taiwanese society? This paper starts with a deep description of the social history of technology, elaborating on the characteristics of technological innovation in such a latecomer society as Taiwan, by tracing and analyzing the story of a native of Yun-lin County, Taiwan, who, born shortly after WorldWar II, is an inventor as well as an entrepreneur. The analytical frame of this paper is based on actor-network-theory (ANT), while applying and revisioning the social construction of technology (SCOT). With little formal education, but a large amount of industrial local knowledge, this greenenergy technological innovator invented "small-scale water current turbines," based on traditional irrigation systems, an infrastructure constructed all over Taiwan. This innovator began his career by repairing clocks and watches, and after many years, he identified technological problems and developed technological solutions unique to a latecomer society, by constantly confronting himself with and developing his knowledge of foreign objects. Through the "latecomer technological frame" and "industrial local knowledge," small-scale water current turbine systems have gradually formed heterogeneous associations between humans and nonhumans and have attempted to negotiate and thus stabilize the emerging network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possibility of theorizing the multitude of Taiwanese dialysis patients' organizations' actions and various impacts. Drawing from the deployment perspective of Michel Foucault and Actor-Network theory, this paper proposes the concept of "deployment of agency" to articulate the constitution and transformation of patients' agency in these actions. Following the deployment perspective, the organizations' ten types of action are specified as "assistive," "supplementary," "transforming," "antagonizing," and "innovative" strategies in terms of their relations to the dialysis regime, which (intend to) interfere with the constitution of patients' agency in terms of its subsistence, institution, identity, and knowledge aspects. This paper also argues that agency is more than a "yes or no" or "enabling or not" issue. The concept of deployment of agency proposes to portray the temporal and spatial configurations, transformation, and stabilization of agency. Apart from specifying patients' situations, this concept might be a plausible candidate for enhancing our practical and theoretical understandings of the self-transformation of social actors and the competing deployments of social regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The General English Proficiency Test (GEPT), a five-level criterion-referenced test, was developed to assess the general English proficiency of Taiwanese EFL learners. Since its first administration in 2000, the GEPT has won wide recognition, with four million Taiwanese having taken the test. This paper reports on an empirical study of the relationship between self-assessment and test performance. The self-assessment tool, developed in accordance with the test construct in the GEPT, consists of 22 listening and 21 reading can-do statements. Eight thousand and six Taiwanese EFL learners were invited to take a GEPT test and respond to the self-assessment statements. The data were analyzed by Rasch model and ordinal logistic regression. Results show that the self-assessment statements have achieved acceptable accuracy (0.68 for listening; 0.65 for reading) in estimating learners' language levels. The paper concludes that the GEPT self-assessment statements can be considered a useful tool allowing learners to pre-estimate their ability before registering for a GEPT test and therefore recommends that the tool be utilized to enhance learners' awareness of their learning and proficiency, and ultimately encourage autonomous learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses year 2004 survey data for Taiwan to analyze whether weak ties help job seekers attain better occupational positions and incomes than strong ties. In addition, this paper explores whether the effects vary with job seekers' socio-economic status. The findings show that, for either wage rates or socio-economic indices, the use of weak ties helps job seekers attain better job market outcomes than strong ties, which supports the "strength of weak ties" hypothesis. However, when the respondents are divided into two subgroups based on socio-economic status, the results show that the hypothesis is sustained only for the high-status sample. For the low-status sample, the strength of ties does not affect job-search outcomes. As a result of this distinctive finding, the study further examines the role of social resources in the job-search process. The results indicate that weak ties help job seekers find better jobs only when higher social resources are accessed through weak ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients' work over the course of an illness is usually invisible to standardized medical systems. This is also the case in a project for promoting peritoneal dialysis (PD) in Taiwan. Based on insights into medical practices, this paper explores different types of PD trajectories and experiences and suggests implications for medical practices. Fieldwork, consisting of interviews with 48 patients in focus groups and 8 patients at home practice, yielded six types of PD trajectories--progress, follow, regret, victimized, active explore, and passive explore. Patients' different invisible work on emotion, sociability, and medical knowledge and techniques are also discussed. These efforts illustrate the struggles that patients coordinate through their daily lives and medical schemas. The paper concludes by explicating how the discussion of illness trajectories and invisible works contribute to medical practices,medical sociology, and other theoretical and moral issues. The rationale is that the medical profession and policy makers should take patients' point of view into account and try to support patients with different abilities and backgrounds to do dialysis safely and flexibly rather than choose the already capable patient for the standardized dialysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores social stratification and social inequality in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan by comprehensively analyzing the effects of occupation on one's class status. In this paper, the author examines the effects that a person's occupational conditions, such as occupation (interpreted narrowly), employment status, type of employment contract (standard or non-standard), and company size, have on his/her individual income and class consciousness, and how these effects vary within East Asian societies on the basis of each society's unique labor market structure and local institutions. The analysis of the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) survey data led to the following findings. On the whole, the effects of occupational conditions on income and class consciousness are similar within all these societies. However, the relative impacts of these conditions differ considerably. While occupation (narrowly interpreted) has predominant effects in Taiwan, the effects of company size and type of employment contract are also considerable in Japan, and partly so in Korea. It is also notable that in the case of Japanese males, company size and type of employment contract have significant effects on class consciousness, even after the effects of individual income are controlled. These effects can be attributed to some factors that are unique to the Japanese management system, such as career-long employment and the wage seniority system that are usually offered to the standard male employees of large companies. From these findings, we can conclude that we should focus on local institutional factors as well as global factors for a better understanding of present-day social stratification and social inequality in East Asian societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the so-called dual nature of the mid level tone in Xiamen (Bao 1999). Based on tone distribution in (a) rhyming syllables in folk opera, (b) Mainstream Taiwanese naming, (c) adjective triplication, and (d) ABB adjectives, it is concluded that the tone in question is consistently low-registered in both underlying and derived environments. Moreover, in addition to listing six register possibilities the mid level tone allows, this paper also lays out Fuzhou tonal phenomena which pose a challenge to Bao's theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1957, the late well-known economist Alexander Eckstein who was sent from the United States to Taiwan to investigate academic conditions there, reported that Taiwan was a "cultural desert". Eckstein's view was shared by many Chinese scholars. But Eckstein's report was made 27 years ago. Taiwan is no longer a cultural desert. The United States and the Republic of China have had a history of more than 20 years of fruitful academic cooperation. In this paper we treat a number of themes which contributed to Taiwan's evolving from that cultural desert: 1) The establishment of the Chinese National Science Council under the support of the American Agency for International Development. 2) The financial assistance of U. S. private foundations to R.O.C. academic circles. 3) Sino-American cooperation which helped scientific and technological development in Taiwan. 4)The returned students who helped to build up academic standard in Taiwan; and. 5) Finally, an overview of American academic influence in Taiwan. This paper was originally delivered at the Conference on US-ROC Relations: From the White Paper to the Taiwan Relations Act (Sept. 23-24, 1983) held by St. John's University in New York, and published by the American Asian Review to which those who are interested may refer to for the original English text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, by using literature research method, comparative analysis method and questionnaire research method, make a study on problems related to the development of well-being and female students to comb, we discussed the related strategies to improve mainland female students, and to find the better development of the well-being education o, to help correct cognitive well-being of female college students, evaluation of happiness and improve their ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares media relations in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. There are several significant findings. First, the media-public relations practitioner relationship is more informal and closer in Asia than it is in the U.S. Second, media ethics, such as gift giving and informal gatherings, are different in these Asian cultures and in the U.S. Finally, the U.S. journalists and public relations practitioners have more positive attitudes toward on-line types of source-reporter relations than Asian journalists and practitioners do. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed based on the findings of this comparative analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Taiwan, a large portion of Taiwanese undergraduate students in departments of applied foreign languages work in enterprises of different industries after their graduation. In order to increase the competitiveness of these students in the job market, curriculum designs of foreign language education should meet the needs of different industries. To help improve the curriculum design in related departments, this study investigates the uses and needs of foreign languages in Taiwanese enterprises of different industries. Comparing the results of the questionnaire survey of the present study with those reported in another similar survey conducted in 1998 by Shih et al., we find both similarities and differences caused by contextual changes. In addition to the uses and needs of foreign languages, evaluation on the workplace performances of graduates from departments of applied foreign languages by professionals form different industries and the suggestions provided by these professionals will also be discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the book "Science and Civilisation in China," Joseph Needham made some comparisons between western science and Chinese science without focusing on the encounter between them. In fact, the transmission of western learning by Jesuits missionaries brought about the encounter of two traditions of natural knowledge, and left lots of topics concerning the conflict, competition and comparison between them. In view of the encounter and mutual impact between modern civilizations of East and West, this paper aims to analyze several topics on history of science and technology in the last 20 years in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many highly skilled migrants do not begin a fixed or immobile livelihood after migrating to a host country. Instead, the tendency is to show a continuing and two-way movement in a transnational social space. This paper analyzes migration experiences of transnational professionals: Taiwanese managers in the Shanghai area. The theoretical background is drawn from transnationalism approaches that complement the prevailing focus on the movement of professionals, which is categorized as a "brain drain/gain or circulation" between sending and receiving countries, and leading to the neglect of analyzing migratory process at the micro level. Empirical data for this study are generated from a three-stage field research, in which narrative interviews were conducted with 52 Taiwanese managers and 4 of their spouses. Using typological analysis, three different migration patterns of Taiwanese managers were distinguished: 1) long-term settled 2) for reasons- of-job settled, and 3) cross-border marriage. Nevertheless, these professionals are common during the migratory process, meaning that they continually travel back and forth between societies of origin and settlement to use local material and social resources, establish transnational social networks, and span pluri-local connections, which contribute to their having stable, transnational lives. The emphasis on the transnational linkage of social practices, as well as both symbolic and material resources in migratory lives, could serve as indicators explaining why Taiwanese expatriates in the Shanghai area are neither cosmopolitan elites nor homeless diasporas, but rather, transmigrants who continually return home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese/English Translation has long been an essential part of the curriculum of English Departments in Taiwan. This paper presents an action research of a Chinese-to-English translation class where the instructor tried to address the problem of Chinese students' insufficient knowledge of English discourse by incorporating corpora and text analysis tools into the course. The data collection includes an end-of-course questionnaire and the translation assignments, translator' notes and self-reflection from students' learning portfolio. The results show that corpus resources can enhance students' confidence and performance when translating into a foreign language, while text analysis tools derived from functional linguistics can help students become more aware of the English discourse structure crucial to the development of Chinese-to-English translation competence. Some suggestions are proposed for designing Chinese-to-English translation courses, taking into account the specific challenges students face when translating into their foreign language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The translation and regulation of scientific and technical term are vital to the development of science and technology of any country. The variant translations of one certain English term are very common among China mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong due to historical, political and geographic factors, which has posed a serious obstacle to many domains like economic, educational and academic exchanges among these regions. The inconsistency of translated terms is most prevalent and troublesome in information technology (IT). This paper attempts to look into the current problems taking IT as the study case in the semantic perspective and to put forward some solutions to regulating the translation of scientific and technical terms in three regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a group of metaphoric and symbolic images (the "boundless sea" ..., "Ch'iu-jan" ..., "Wei-t'o" ..., "Ts'ang-hai Chun" ... and "Cheng Yen-p'ing" ...) that occurs repeatedly (69, 27, 34, 5, and 5 times, respectively) in poems written by Ch'iu Feng-chia ... after he left Taiwan for mainland China. Through this analysis, we find that the image of the "boundless sea" is a metaphor for Taiwan that is indicative of Ch'iu's profoundly tragic mood. At the same time, the frequent appearance of these images symbolizes his ideal of establishing Taiwan as an independent island nation. Even though the fact that he never actually attempted to carry out armed revolt meant that his ideals never progressed beyond utopian fantasy, the repeated imagery reveals his strong memories of and feeling of responsibility towards Taiwan and his protest against the lack of concern for Taiwan's fate shown by the Ch'ing court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we shall pay attention to a series of problems which concern the recent development trends of folk religion belief and activities in Taiwan. Three categories are divided: basic theological ideas, the management of temples, and the religion movement. In the first category, we shall notice some important problems. New gods and goddesses increase gradually. The spirit worship and the hero worship are the main factors which are dominating the occurrence of these new gods and goddesses. Although we know that Chinese would like to worship many gods and goddesses at a same time, it is true that the monotheism exist actually in Chinese society for a long time. This monotheism is not an exclusive monotheism, but a henotheism. The famous Eternal Mother belief is the best example of this henotheism. The belief of the Eternal Mother is very popular in modern Taiwan society. We can trace its history back to the Sixteenth century. On the other hand, a confused style of religious belief which mix with the Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, play an important role. It makes us deduce the distinctions between these religions and philosophies. Many famous temples put the gods of three religions together. In the second category, we shall discuss the management of the temples. Due to the lackness of temple's own properties, the contribution of the believers becomes the main source of the temple's income. How to attract a huge number of people to visit the temple? It is the major theme of the management of the temples. We select the Fo-kuang-shan-shih (...) as the best example for discussing the management problems. We also notice the pilgram activities in modern Taiwan. It is a combination of religious and travelling purposes. In the third part of this category we may notice the money income and the social philanthropies of the temples. In the third category, we shall notice three important trends in the religious-social aspect. The first, the spirit medium, or shaman, and his private chapel increase rapidly. Because it is a kind of folk medicine for releasing people's psychological anxiety in a serious competitive society. On the other hand, the utilitarianism is the basic philosophy of this religious behaviors. The second, the cultural and religious revital movement occur in the last decade. It is accompany with a rapid social change. People who leave their native homes to metropolitan for seeking jobs. They suffer isolate, unfamiliar and unfriendly, and heavy living pressure. Some people hope eagerly to touch again the life of country style, so that they participate different religious groups which stress the traditional way of life style, human relations, and mutual helpness. Under such a condition, some folk religious sects, such as I-kuan-tao (...), Ju-chung Sheng-chiao (...), Tse-hui-tang (...), etc., grow up very quickly. These sects are majorly branches of the Eternal Mother belief. Religion is a part of cultural and social system. It is influenced by other parts of the society. Chinese folk religion has no special doctrines and philosophy, it is confused with the Confucianism and the morality of daily life. When the changes occur in the daily life, the religion produce responses. In general, folk religion suggest and provide some methods and chances to release the anxieties which is accompany with the social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Taiwanese Sociology is the property of Taiwanese Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)