Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin: A Text-mining Approach to Speaker Stereotypes

Abstract

This study adopts text-mining techniques to investigate Chinese mainlanders’ attitudes toward gangtaiqiang, a mediatized variety of Taiwanese Mandarin. The study provides evidence for an emerging shift in attitudes toward gangtaiqiang as discussed in Peng (2018). Using key qualifiers (e.g., babyish, soft, and polite) scraped from online forums discussing gangtaiqiang and Taiwanese television programs, this study constructs a “lexical network” with links between words or phrases that co-occur in the data set to discover distinct themes or conceptual categories linked to gangtaiqiang. Our analysis attributes the effeminized perceptions of gangtaiqiang to (1) the mediatized representations of Taiwanese Mandarin inspired by Korea’s burgeoning trend of metrosexuality and (2) a patriarchal culture that equates China’s ascending global power with traditional notions of manhood.

Keywords

• language attitudes
• masculinity
• gender representations
• popular culture