Indigenous Language Education in Taiwan: Past, Present and Future | SOAS University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 11/03/2019

Indigenous Language Education in Taiwan: Past, Present and Future is a lecture given by Douglas McNaught at the Centre of Taiwan Studies, SOAS University of London on 19 March 2018. Find out more at http://bit.ly/2HtuDLt
Following successive colonializations by the Dutch (1623-1661), the Zheng family (1662-1683), the Qing (1684-1895), the Japanese (1895-1945) and the Chinese Nationalists (1945-Today), the Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan have seen half their languages wiped out by aggressive educational language policies. This, coupled with Taiwan’s industrial development in the 1970s, which resulted in decades of rural-to-urban worker migration, institutionalised racism and other socio-economic issues continue to erode the pride of young Aborigines has caused a generational disconnect between young urban aborigines and the older keepers of traditional knowledge, accelerating language loss. Despite this, recent digital technologies have attempted to bridge the gaps, both in terms of physical distance and in terms of the connection between generations. Moreover, on June 14, 2017, the Taiwanese government promulgated the Indigenous Languages Development Act in order to “achieve historical justice, further preserve and promote the indigenous languages, and guarantee that the languages are used and passed down…” This talk presents a historical overview of Formosan languages education in Taiwan, detailing the progression from forced colonial education to the inclusion of Indigenous languages on the National Curriculum, and focusing on the current issues hindering the successful emergence of a new generation of speakers followed by a proposal of potential pedagogical improvements for the future. 

Speaker Bio 
Douglas McNaught is a Doctoral Researcher in Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he recently defended his PhD thesis on the aspectual and modal system of Sakizaya, an endangered Formosan language of Taiwan. He is currently undertaking a PGCE in Modern Foreign Languages (Mandarin) at University College London’s Institute of Education where he continues to develop his pedagogical knowledge and interest in language education with the hope to develop educational resources and strategies to improve Indigenous language education in Taiwan.