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This paper offers a historical and sociolinguistic interrogation of Taiwanese to demonstrate the significance of language continuum in relation to identity formation. To this end, Taiwanese is discussed as a particular variety of language. Literacy practices in the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) are contrasted with the precolonial and post-Japanese colonial period. The paper maintains that policies of Japanese linguistic colonialism strengthened the sociosemiotic cohesion amongst speakers of Taiwanese, and discusses how this experience resonated with the new reality after Japanese colonial rule in 1945 when Taiwan was reunited with its Chinese historical and cultural heritage. It suggests that in the post-Japanese colonial period, spoken Taiwanese continued to be a convincing vehicle of struggle for an alternative national identity. A proper appreciation of this situation depends on how we define literacy practices and comprehend these in the context of Taiwan's sociolinguistic landscape, past and present. Special reference will be made to diglossia, the connotation between script and language, criteria of literacy (functional and cultural), Chinese language standardisation and Japanese linguistic colonialism. (Contains 6 notes.)

Denton, Kirk A. The Landscape of Historical Memory: The Politics of Museums and Memorial Culture in Post-Martial Law Taiwan. The Cold War - Chapters 5 and 6 - on the Kuomintang martial memory and memory of the Chiang dynasty benefit the most from comparison and parallels with Republican, Communist, and post-socialist China, because they illuminate the "personality cult" and an emerging PRC domestic and mainlander tourism to Taiwan. [Extracted from the article]

The article introduces the theme of the journal, namely literature and/or popular culture in Taiwan, including depiction of the deity Nezha in popular Taiwanese culture, literary criticism of Taiwanese authors, especially gay authors, and historical literature in Taiwanese popular culture.

This study is considered an exercise in new cultural history, one in which the representational nature of written history is offered through the prism of several literary genres and narratives that carry ideological implications. The article argues that cultures develop a collective imagination, explicable as narrative forms. This will be illustrated by zooming in on three specific culturally defined visual representations: manga drawing, picture book and textbook illustrations. The first example introduces a manga used for educational and didactic purposes that singles out the representation of one aspect of intellectual history from the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945). The second example draws on contemporary situations and depicts a socio-political satire through the icon of textbook visuals. The third visual is taken as a representative example of Taiwan local manga that taps into the craftily cultivated tradition of socio-political satire. As suggested by Roland Barthes' rhetoric of image, each case study pays special attention to the orthography in the linguistic and symbolic messages that accompany the comic art. Itamar Even-Zohar's interpretation of culture planning allows us to link these three case studies under a common denominator: a strong generational undercurrent in their production, which is embedded in the material structure of the publishing world and in the socio-political institutions of the authors. Against the background of this generational demarcation perception in popular culture, this article seeks to evaluate some of the observations that have brought about the inclusion of Taiwan manga in scholarly research activities associated with East Asian comic art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss various articles within in the issue on topics such as the development of Taiwanese culture under Japanese rule, the effect of local culture on Taiwanese national culture, and Taiwanese literature.

This paper offers a historical and sociolinguistic interrogation of Taiwanese to demonstrate the significance of language continuum in relation to identity formation. To this end, Taiwanese is discussed as a particular variety of language. Literacy practices in the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) are contrasted with the precolonial and post-Japanese colonial period. The paper maintains that policies of Japanese linguistic colonialism strengthened the sociosemiotic cohesion amongst speakers of Taiwanese, and discusses how this experience resonated with the new reality after Japanese colonial rule in 1945 when Taiwan was reunited with its Chinese historical and cultural heritage. It suggests that in the post-Japanese colonial period, spoken Taiwanese continued to be a convincing vehicle of struggle for an alternative national identity. A proper appreciation of this situation depends on how we define literacy practices and comprehend these in the context of Taiwan's sociolinguistic landscape, past and present. Special reference will be made to diglossia, the connotation between script and language, criteria of literacy (functional and cultural), Chinese language standardisation and Japanese linguistic colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]