Aim : The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of simulated hearing loss on the acoustic contrasts between declarative questions and declarative statements and on the perception of speech intonation. A further purpose of the study was to investigate whether any such effects are universal or language specific. Method: Speakers included four native speakers of English and four native speakers of Mandarin and Taiwanese, with two female and two male adults in each group. Listeners included ten native English and ten native speakers of Mandarin and Taiwanese, with five female and five male adults in each group. All participants were aged between 19 and 55 years old. The speaker groups were asked to read a list of 28 phrases, with each phrase expressed as a declarative statement or a declarative question separately. These phrases were then filtered through six types of simulated hearing loss configurations, including three levels of temporal jittering for simulating a loss in neural synchrony, a high level of temporal jittering in combination with a high-pass or a low-pass filter that simulate falling and rising audiometric hearing loss configurations, and a vocoder processing procedure to simulate cochlear implant processing. A selection of acoustic measures was derived from the sentences and from some embedded vowels, including /i/, /a/, and /u/. The listener groups were asked to listen to the tokens in their native language and indicate if they heard a statement or a question. Results: The maximum fundamental frequency (F0) of the last syllable (MaxF0-last) and the maximum F0 of the remaining sentence segment (MaxF0-rest) were found to be consistently higher in declarative questions than in declarative statements. The percent jitter measure was found to worsen with simulated hearing loss as the level of temporal jittering increased. The vocoder-processed signals showed the highest percent jitter measure and the spread of spectral energy around the dominant pitch. Results from the perceptual data showed that participants in all three groups performed significantly worse with vocoder-processed tokens compared to the original tokens. Tokens with temporal jitter alone did not result in significantly worse perceptual results. Perceptual results from the Taiwanese group were significantly worse than the English group under the two filtered conditions. Mandarin listeners performed significantly worse with the neutral tone on the last syllable, and Taiwanese listeners performed significantly worse with the rising tone on the last syllable. Perception of male intonation was worse than female intonation with temporal jitter and high-pass filtering, and perception of female intonation was worse than male intonation with most temporal jittering conditions, including the temporal jitter and low-pass filtering condition. Conclusion: A rise in pitch for the whole sentence, as well as that in the final syllable, was identified as the main acoustic marker of declarative questions in all of the three languages tested. Perception of intonation was significantly reduced by vocoder processing, but not by temporal jitter alone. Under certain simulated hearing loss conditions, perception of intonation was found to be significantly affected by language, lexical tone, and speaker gender.

This creative project consists of a documentary about how two Taiwanese immigrant families try to maintain Taiwanese culture in the United States. One is a Taiwanese family, and the other is a biracial family (mother is Taiwanese and the father is Caucasian). Even though their family backgrounds are different, both families wish to maintain the Taiwanese culture and teach their children to be proud of their identity. / Department of Telecommunications

Between 1945 and 1987, as part of its efforts to impose a Chinese identity on native-born Taiwanese and to establish and maintain hegemony, Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) government pursued a unilingual, Mandarin-only policy in education. This thesis studies the changing meaning of “becoming Taiwanese” by examining the school experiences of four generations of Taiyu speakers who went to school during the Mandarin-only era: 1) those who also went to school under the Japanese; 2) those who went to school before 1949 when Taiwan was part of KMT-controlled China; 3) those who went to school during the 1950s at the height of the implementation of KMT rule; and, 4) those who went to school when Mandarin had become the dominant language. Two data types, interviews and public documents, are analyzed using two research methods, focus group interviews as the primary one, and document analysis as the secondary one. This research found that there is no direct relationship between how people negotiated language, hegemony and Taiwanese identity. First, as KMT hegemony became more secure, people’s links to their home language became weaker, so their view of Taiwanese identity as defined by Taiyu changed. Second, as exposure to hegemonic forces deepened over time, people were less able to find cultural spaces that allowed escape from hegemonic influences, and this, along with other life-course factors such as occupation, had an impact on their contestations of language and identity. The study recognizes the role of human agency and highlights the interactive and performative aspects of identity construction. The results reflect the different possibilities of living with hegemony in different eras, and also show that Taiwanese identity is not fixed, nor is there a single, “authentic” Taiwanese identity.

好時光廚藝教室推廣計劃 / Good Old Times Cooking Studio is a venue where one can create the most unforgettable culinary experience. The studio offers an opportunity to learn how to cook traditional Taiwanese food with skilled and friendly teachers who can impart the secrets of Taiwanese cooking in a fun, conducive, and personalized environment. More importantly, the cooking studio will allow you to experience the true beauty of Taiwanese traditional culinary culture and bring you the warm embrace of a Taiwanese home. Through this business plan, Good Old Times Cooking Studio hopes to extend the traditional Taiwanese culinary culture overseas but also retain it locally. The customized services enable more potential customers to join our program. We use “Marketing Mix Model—5P” to attempt to generate the optimal response in the target market, followed by a financial assessment to evaluate the feasibility of Good Old Times Cooking Studio in the near future. This business plan then capped off by a “Business Model Canvas” which includes our core value proposition, customers, infrastructure, and financial streams.

Today's processes of cultural globalization involve three major trends: (I)the global expansion of transnational communications conglomerates; (2) the global implementation of market-oriented cultural policies; and (3) the global diffusion of new communication technologies. These processes have set in motion complicated consequencesa nd prompted a range of national responses.B oth China and Taiwan, the two locations which embody the Asian region's largest cultural formation, have experienced major shifis in their internal political and economic organisation and been significantly influenced by these interlinked global processes since the early 1980s. Taking the national film industries in both locations as a case study, this thesis examines the impact of globalisation on the organisation of national cultural production and distribution, and explores the uses of film in representing shifting conceptions of national culture and identity.

The author seeks to compare the Chinese and English editions of Wu Zhuoliu’s (1900-1976) Orphan of Asia (1956). Through the analysis of several characters and the political ambiguity within the text, the author first attempts to compare the two target translations of the original Japanese text. In addition to the close reading of the novel(s), the author employs paratextual analysis of the Chinese and English versions of the story in order to challenge the publishing practices of translation. The re-reading of translations thus includes an investigation of the content of the story as well as the packaging of the text. The objectives of this project include adding to the research completed on Wu’s canonical text, in translation studies, and in paratextual studies.

The author seeks to compare the Chinese and English editions of Wu Zhuoliu’s (1900-1976) Orphan of Asia (1956). Through the analysis of several characters and the political ambiguity within the text, the author first attempts to compare the two target translations of the original Japanese text. In addition to the close reading of the novel(s), the author employs paratextual analysis of the Chinese and English versions of the story in order to challenge the publishing practices of translation. The re-reading of translations thus includes an investigation of the content of the story as well as the packaging of the text. The objectives of this project include adding to the research completed on Wu’s canonical text, in translation studies, and in paratextual studies.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-107). / ix, 107 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

According to the Children's Bureau of Taiwan (2007), the number of Taiwanese children abused and neglected sharply increased from 6,059 to 10,094 between 2000 and 2006. Reports of abused and neglected children also rose from 8,494 to 13,986 in that period. This followed enactment of the Children and Youth Welfare Law in 2003 imposing a range of health, education and social welfare professionals, including nurses, the statutory duty to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Previous studies in Taiwan have indicated that despite the legislation, a range of factors continue to act against nurses reporting child abuse and neglect (CAN) cases according to the law. Previous research had examined factors that influence CAN reporting by health, education, and welfare professionals including registered nurses in Taiwan. The study herein sought to extend knowledge of these factors by identifying and assessing nurses' self-efficacy as a prime factor influencing professional commitment to legal reporting of CAN. The aims of this research were to: (1) examine influencing factors of nurses' likelihood to report CAN in Taiwanese health care settings, and (2) develop and test a new instrument Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Self Efficacy (CANRSE) to measure nurses' self-efficacy in CAN reporting. The research was conducted in two phases. Phase one investigated nurses' experience with CAN reporting and examined relationships between nurses' perceptions, attitudes, knowledge, and likelihood to report CAN cases. Two hundred and thirty-eight nurses from emergency departments, paediatric units and community centres in Taiwan completed a survey. The results showed that using a series of vignettes, a significant relationship existed between the likelihood to report CAN and perception, attitude, and knowledge. Notably, perception was the most significant variable in predicting nurses' likelihood to report CAN cases. Findings indicated nurses had poor perceptions of recognizing and reporting CAN and lacked faith in child protection services. Knowledge of Taiwanese CAN reporting laws was poor. In general, most nurses believed that they needed more training courses on the recognition and reporting of CAN. These findings, in particular the importance of perceptions of legal reporting behaviour, were worthy of further investigation. In Phase two, a measure of CANRSE was developed and tested. Data were collected from 496 nurses working in Taiwanese health care settings. Development of the CANRSE was guided by an extensive literature review, findings from Phase one of the study and by an expert panel. The CANRSE consisted of five sections: (1) demographic information, (2) efficacy-expectation for suspected cases, (3) efficacy-expectation for known cases, (4) outcome-expectation of CAN reporting, and (5) likelihood to report CAN. The influence of nurses' self-efficacy on their likelihood to report CAN cases was also analysed. Structure of the CANRSE was supported by structural equation modeling using AMOS 6.0. Additionally, correlation and regression analyses were applied to investigate the validity and reliability of the CANRSE. CANRSE met accepted psychometric standards for reliability and validity in this study. Nurses' CAN self-efficacy yielded strong prediction over personal characteristics, experience as a nurse, experience as a parent, and age. Thus, the research provides an important contribution to the literature relating to mandatory reporting by professional groups in particular nurses. It was the first research to successfully develop a new instrument to evaluate nurses' selfefficacy in CAN reporting. The findings provide a basis for understanding the influence of Taiwanese nurses' decision making for CAN reporting. Further research can extend the scope of CAN training programs and their evaluation.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the approaches identified for the translation of Taiwanese Mandarin dialogues into English subtitles is different from those described in research studies which examined the translation of English film dialogues into Mandarin subtitles using data gathered from a Taiwanese movie entitled Cape No. 7. Taiwanese Mandarin is significantly influenced by the Tai-yu dialect, and in order to carry out the translation of Taiwanese Mandarin, it is important to deal with the functions of the dialect and related culture-specific items (CSIs). Therefore, the researcher of this thesis has investigated whether the translator of Cape No. 7 successfully applied a variety of translation strategies and prioritized the translation criteria well, to enable the target audience to receive the same message of the film as the source audience, especially when subtitling is constrained by time and space. There are two research areas which have been examined: slang and humour. The data analysis of slang scenes included Tai-yu slang and swearing, while humorous scenes were divided into three areas: puns, irony and metaphor. The research data have been analysed by means of analysis diagrams, which were trialled in a pilot study, described in Chapter Three. The pilot study lead to a new categorization based on previous researchers’ taxonomies (Aixelá, 1996; Davies, 2003; Tveit and Fong 2005, as cited in Yang, 2006), and this was applied to the analysis diagrams. According to the findings from the analysis chapters (Chapter Four & Five), the translator of Cape No. 7 preferred to use mostly the paraphrasing strategy in translating Tai-yu slang and humour, and the synonymy strategy in conveying swearing. In addition, the translator often strengthened swear words rather than toning them down in the English subtitles. However, when subtitling humorous scenes, the translator preferred to incorporate two strategies to deal with the cultural barriers when conveying the humorous effect. The compensation strategy was not used often in slang translation. In regard to the translation criteria, pragmatics and accuracy appeared to have been deemed more important by the translator than other criteria. Surprisingly functional equivalence did not seem to have been the translator’s first priority, as suggested by earlier research. Overall, this research study appeared to show that the translator of Cape No. 7 considered the paraphrase strategy to be the most efficient strategy for maintaining CSIs, and that pragmatics and accuracy were the translator’s most important criteria, which differs from the findings of previous research studies.