The COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled the latest surge of anti-Asian hate. Raising Taiwanese university students' awareness about the dangers of racism has never been more important. This study draws on a class activity about media discourse, particularly on the representations of xenophobia and other forms of intolerance toward Asians during the…

It has been argued for many years that a new standard of Mandarin is developing within Taiwan, distinct from the official form based on the Beijing pronunciation, as well as the nonstandard vernacular, Taiwan-guoyu. The parameters by which this new standard, Taiwanese Mandarin, may be recognized, however, and the extent to which it exists in…

Since the lifting of martial law in 1987, the rapid liberalization and democratization of Taiwan has led to the transformation of its political structure from a single-party system to a full-fledged two-party system. Along with this political opposition are the two contrastive concepts, the North and the South. Located in this background, this…

The problem: Many previous studies have pointed out that EFL learners tend to face communication breakdowns with native speakers because their traditional classroom and textbooks are not able to provide learners with sufficient pragmatically appropriate input (Bardovi-Harlig, 1996; Rose, 1994, 1997). On the contrary, they are exposed to rich input…

A total of 65 letters of reference written by American referees and 65 letters written by referees from 5 Asian cultures were analyzed to discover the conventions and expectations guiding readers and writers from these backgrounds. Results found that Asian referees tended to use direct recommendations more frequently than their American…