| Abstract |
This study discusses how the expression guojijiegui 'to connect with the world' is conceptualized in relation to linguistic practice and what role language ideologies and indexicality play in the meaning-making process, by drawing from online metapragmatic discussion on the once heated debate of replacing the current phonetic system for Taiwan Mandarin with Romanization. Bopomofo, the phonetic system for Taiwan Mandarin, was once proposed to be replaced with Romanized phonetic schemes in order to guojijiegui. Though the term is semantically unspecific, the proposal sparked heated discussions on the association between guojijiegui and linguistic practice. The general public's great attention suggests that guojijiegui has implicit and shared meanings ＂out there.＂ The study will discuss that news viewers' understanding of guojijiegui from earlier texts becomes extra-textual knowledge (Gumperz, 1996). The knowledge influences their interpretations of this policy proposal and shapes the current metapragmatic discussion, as an example of how expressions and meanings travel among different texts, namely, intertextuality (Kristeva, 1980; Bakhtin, 1986; Briggs & Bauman, 1992). Past studies on intertextuality in the Taiwanese context seldom addresses its role in daily conversation. This study attempts to complement known studies on intertextuality and addresses how intertextuality affects speakers' everyday discourse in the Taiwanese context. |
