Negotiating Differential Belonging via the Linguistic Landscape of Taipei

Abstract

[from the editors' introduction] Curtin (Chapter 5) investigates ways in the which the linguistic landscape constitutes an important arena in negotiating ‘boundaries of in-/ex-clusion’ for both the Taiwanese peoples and the island itself at local, (trans)national and global levels. She analyzes a range of practices involving ethnolinguistic, sociocultural, (geo)political and cosmopolitan belonging, in exploring a number of key ideas: (i) domains and scales of in/exclusion; (ii) degrees of in/exclusion; and (iii) motivations for in/exclusion. Her study focuses on how the symbolic power of language in Taiwan is particularly evident in the linguistic landscape of Taipei, where both the referential content combined with the visuality of language and script choice play prominent roles in indexing different identities and allegiances, including those that manifest themselves in the econopolitical complexities in particular struggles over ‘social inclusion’, such as that which surfaced during the early 2014 Sunflower Movement protests. Her detailed analysis soundly demonstrates that any model of social inclusion must not only allow for highly fluid boundaries of difference and belonging; it must also incorporate the relational dynamic between inclusion and exclusion, acknowledging that any bid for inclusion inevitably entails constituting ‘boundaries of difference’. She concludes that although a complex and fuzzy concept, social inclusion is a useful tool in understanding the relationship between language practices and differential belonging (Piller and Takahashi, 2011).