Acceso usuarios
Sin-Yi Chang
The Bilingual 2030 policy in Taiwan has attracted both support and criticism since it was introduced in 2018. Those who embrace the policy consider it an opportunity for Taiwan to become more globally connected, while those who are skeptical question whether the policy could actually lead Taiwan to a better place in the longer run—not just linguistically, but also socially, economically, and politically. Driven by this concern, this paper seeks to systematically examine the public’s response towards Bilingual 2030—through the analysis of opinion pieces and polls collected between 2019 and 2022, in addition to a series of comments gathered from a policy petition filed in 2023. With Ruiz’s (NABE J 8:15–34, 1984) theory as a guiding framework, this paper shows that the public’s language orientations are relational, intersecting, and multilayered, implicated in wider language power dynamics. In particular, the findings unveil a disconnect between what is projected and what is received, moving from an English-as-resource focus to a more dynamic discussion of resource, right, and problem orientations associated with different languages in Taiwan. While there is ample discussion around the economic benefits of English, issues related to national identity and de/colonization are also very much alive and kicking in interpretations of the policy. The main argument of this paper is that the “bilingual” label in policy discourse needs to be taken more critically and in ways that address the language concerns of the people. The paper ends with some suggestions to advance the vision of enhancing multilingual Taiwan.
