DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L316.60
Authors:Yu-Wen Chih
Abstract: Li Qiao's (李喬, 1934- ) Wintry Night Trilogy (寒夜三部曲 ) represents and narratively critiques the politics of multilingualism. Li Qiao's pathbreaking narrative discourse seizes the language of the centre and re-places it with a multilingual discourse adapted to the colonised place. In the novel, published in three volumes: Wintry Night (寒夜), The Deserted Village (荒村) and The Lone Lamp (孤燈), the narrative uses and represents various languages, including Chinese, Hakka, Holo, Atayal and Japanese, which are interrelated in pronunciation, meaning, or character associations. In this paper I examine the function of language as a medium of power, either as a standard, dominant language or as a local variety with distinct usage and community identity. I also discuss Li Qiao's narrative's linguistic practices in relation to hybridity and the link between ‘standard’ Chinese and various colonial and post-colonial Chinese varieties. I argue that amongst the various forms of linguistic hybridity, ‘code-switching’ is a form of textual practice central to the novel. I also show why and how Li Qiao narrativises code-switching to provide insights into the emergence of Taiwanese national consciousness in the 1970s.
Keywords: multilingualism; code-switching; Taiwaneseness; identity; hybridity; Holo; Hakka.
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