ABSTRACT
Two people from Taiwan are traveling in a place in Asia outside Taiwan. One hears the other speaking Mandarin Chinese in an accent that is “southern” and distinct from the “standard” Chinese of the north (Kubler, 1985; Sandel, 2003; Su, 2009). The questions then begin: Ni si Taiwan ren ma? (Are you a Taiwan person?) The verb shi (to be) is pronounced in the familiar and colloquial form as si. (Mandarin words and phrases are italicized and Taiwanese are underlined.) The response follows the same pattern: Si ah (Yes I am). The questioner switches to Taiwanese (also called Tai-gi, Hokkien, Hoklo) and asks: Li Tai-oan doa do-wi? (Where do you live in Taiwan?) “Tainan,” a city in Taiwan’s south, is the reply. Then beginning in Mandarin and switching mid-sentence to Taiwanese: Tainan. Wo you yige gege di Tai-lam be jia-eh. (Tainan. I have an older brother in Tainan who sells things to eat [has a small restaurant or is a food vendor].) The smooth, sudden, and natural switch from Taiwanese-accented-Mandarin (also called Taiwan Guoyu, Su, 2009) to Taiwanese is a sign that the two share a communicative code and are members of a speech community (Hymes, 1974). It is also a metacommunicative device that indexes a shared identity as Taiwan ren (Taiwanese person) in the midst of others who do not count as “Taiwan ren.” They discuss familiar topics-places, family, and food-and may talk at length as they happily learn that among the throngs of thousands, it is yuan-a predestined relation (Chang, 2011), that they have found each other.
