A Case Study of Language Attitude: How Do Taiwanese Females View Mandarin-Speaking and Taiwanese-Speaking Males?

This study is a case study of how Taiwanese females perceive Mandarin-speaking males and Taiwanese-speaking males. The focus is on their language attitudes towards Mandarin and Taiwanese. Specifically, the match-guise technique is employed in order to elicit information about how language attitudes influence one’s perceptions on different languages. A Mandarin-Taiwanese male guise was selected and a list of questions was designed. Female participants were asked to judge the guise based on the selected adjectives so as to elicit information about their attitudes towards Mandarin and Taiwanese respectively. It was found that in general the female participants considered the Taiwanese male guise more positively than the Mandarin male guise. Moreover, features associated with the Taiwanese male guise included being interesting, educated, friendly, outgoing, popular, happier, and of more attractive voice. On the other hand, features associated with the Mandarin male guise included being hardworking, polite, and physically attractive. In addition, language proficiency and age were considered as factors contributing to language attitudes. Although the proficiency level of Taiwanese of the female participants was rated lower than that of Mandarin, they perceive Taiwanese slightly more positive than Mandarin. Finally, age was not found to be a factor influencing their language attitude.