ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys Chinese translingual writing in several aspects, starting with an overview of the internal translingual mechanisms between spoken dialects and written Chinese. As a case of authors switching into Chinese, the adaptations of the “translingual generation” from Japanese to Chinese in mid-twentieth century Taiwan are explored. On writers who switch out of Chinese, the chapter traces a beginning in translingual public discourse by late nineteenth-century Chinese emigrants, followed by developments in translingual creative writing. Chinese translingualism shows that translingual writing expands the functions of the autobiographical self and that different treatments of cultural knowledge affect transcultural meaning production.
