Language Education Policies on Taiwan: A Case of Comparative Colonialism and Discourse Power

This article uses theoretical perspectives on colonialism and language planning to compare the language and education policies of two successive regimes on Taiwan: the Japanese colonial administration from 1895-1945, and the Republic of China from 1945 through the Cold War. The case of Taiwan reveals how blurry the distinction between oppression and liberation can become, and how this ambiguity can remain consistent across different regimes and geopolitical circumstances on the same population. This discussion includes some personal anecdotes from the author’s time in Taiwan, exploring how discourse is used to assert power by groups with competing cultural ideologies.