Language Policy in Taiwan in the 21st Century : Development from Monolingualism to Multilingualism

This book provides insiders' views of how Taiwan's monolingual language policy has evolved into multilingual language policies since its peaceful transition to a democratic society in the late 20th century. From three major perspectives, it examines the conflicts and compromises of monolingual and multilingual ideologies, challenges and approaches in language management, and actual language practice in families and communities in the transformation process in the last three decades. The book intends to theorize Taiwan's multilingual experience and introduce it to the international scholarly community, who are more familiar with the monolingual development on the other side of the Taiwan Strait and less aware of the multilingual development in Taiwan. It is an eye-opening book for language planning and policy students, language educators, public policymakers, and all those with a stake in multilingualism.

Chen-Cheng Chun Professor Chen-Cheng Chun is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second/Foreign Language at National Kaohsiung Normal University in Taiwan. He has been a multiple-time recipient of the Special Outstanding Talent Award from the National Science and Technology Council in recognition of his sustained contributions to the field. To date, he has pioneered four significant areas in the domains of language revitalization and Chinese language education in Taiwan: (1) language revitalization and bilingual education, (2) Chinese language education in international schools, (3) education for transnational students,
and (4) Chinese language education for immigrants. Several of his research findings have been incorporated into the foundational knowledge used in the development of both local and central government language policies.

Der-Hwa Victoria Rau Professor Der-Hwa Victoria Rau, an Austronesian linguist, was funded by the Endangered Language Documentation Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London to lead an interdisciplinary research team to document and conserve the Yami (Tao) language in collaboration with the indigenous community on Orchid Island. She is a recipient of the Taiwan Indigenous Language Promotion Individual Achievement Award in 2023. She has also created massive open online courses (MOOCs) for the Indonesian and Philippine languages to promote learning of Western Austronesian languages for Chinese speakers. During her doctoral training at Cornell University, after serving as a Chinese instructor in the FALCON-Chinese program, she founded the Ithaca Chinese School. She is the author of “Research Methods and Academic Writing in TCFL” and has advised many doctoral dissertations and MA theses in L2 Chinese Language Teaching in the Institute of Linguistics at National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan.