Developing a Hlaalua Learners Guide:

In Search of an Auxiliary Remedy for Hlaalua Revitalization

(Exegesis)

and

A Hlaalua Learners Guide

(Creative component)

Li-Chen Yeh

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of General & Applied Linguistics (Advanced)

in the College of Arts & Social Science,

The Australian National University

October 2015

i

For Hlaalua people,

and people whose languages have gone silent.

May their words and traditions always be remembered.

ii

Declaration

I hereby declare that, except where it is otherwise acknowledged in the text,

this thesis represents my own original work.

All versions of the submitted thesis (regardless of submission type) are

identical.

October 2015

Li-Chen Yeh

iii

Acknowledgements

In full gratitude I wish to give special appreciation to several people who

inspired and assisted me at every point to complete this research.

I would first like to thank Jane Simpson for her supervision of my study.

Without her guidance, encouragement and ongoing support, this thesis would

not have been possible.

I would like to thank Ela Majocha for her intellectual and emotional support in

my thesis writing. With constant encouragement, she accompanied me to the

end of this endurance race.

I am grateful to Victoria Rau who kindly shared her insights in the field of

developing pedagogical materials for Austronesian languages, and Ying-Jer

Chiu who shared the latest information about the Hlaalua revitalization.

I am also indebted to Yi-Li Yeh and Wen-Chi Lin. Their assistance in collecting

written materials on Hlaalua is greatly appreciated.

Lastly, I would like to thank my parents and Yin-Jun Liao. They always stand

by me with their best wishes.

iv

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... iii

List of Figures ................................................................................................. vii

List of Tables .................................................................................................. viii

List of Maps ....................................................................................................... x

List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................ xi

Abstract .......................................................................................................... xiii

Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................... 1

1.1 Scope of this Thesis ............................................................................ 1

1.2 The Hlaalua Language ....................................................................... 2

1.2.1 The Position of Hlaalua among Formosan Languages .................. 2

1.3 The Hlaalua People and the Language Shift ...................................... 4

1.3.1 The Hlaalua People ........................................................................ 4

1.3.2 The Hlaalua Territory ..................................................................... 5

1.3.3 Language Shift: Territorial, Demographic and Governance Factors

7

1.3.4 Language Shift: Economic and Social Factors ............................... 9

Chapter 2. Hlaalua Language and the Ecology ...................................... 12

2.1 The Current Language Ecology ........................................................ 12

2.1.1 The General Language Ecology of Taiwan ................................... 13

2.2 Language Revitalization.................................................................... 21

2.2.1 Aboriginal Languages Revitalization ............................................ 21

2.2.2 Hlaalua Language Revitalization ................................................. 21

2.2.3 The Proficiency Tests of Aboriginal Languages ........................... 22

2.3 Implications for Compiling a Hlaalua Learners Guide .................. 24

v

2.3.1 Materials for Self-learning ............................................................ 24

2.3.2 Adult Learners ............................................................................... 25

2.3.3 Multilingual Resources ................................................................. 25

2.3.4 Learning the Orthography ............................................................. 26

Chapter 3. A Review of the Language Education.................................... 28

3.1 An Overview of the Language Education in Taiwan ........................ 28

3.1.1 Mandarin Education ...................................................................... 28

3.1.2 English Education ......................................................................... 31

3.1.3 Aboriginal Languages Education .................................................. 34

3.2 Implications for Compiling a Hlaalua Learners Guide .................. 37

3.2.1 Metalanguages............................................................................... 37

3.2.2 Experience of Learning English .................................................... 38

3.2.3 Specific Properties of the Target Readers ..................................... 39

Chapter 4. A Discussion about Grammar Types ..................................... 40

4.1 Types of Grammar Books ................................................................. 40

4.1.1 Reference Grammar ...................................................................... 40

4.1.2 Pedagogical Grammar ................................................................... 41

4.1.3 Community Grammars .................................................................. 43

4.2 Integration ......................................................................................... 43

4.3 Implications for Compiling a Hlaalua Learners Guide .................. 44

Chapter 5. A Discussion of Pedagogical Materials .................................. 48

5.1 Rationales behind the Referencing of Existing Materials ................. 48

5.1.1 Comparison of Hlaalua and English Textbooks ........................... 48

5.1.2 Comparison of Textbooks and Non-textbook Materials ............... 49

5.2 The Presentation of Sounds and the Spelling System ....................... 51

5.2.1 Comparison of Textbooks ............................................................. 51

5.2.2 Pedagogical Materials for Self-learning........................................ 54

5.2.3 Contrastive Analyses of Sounds: Hlaalua versus Mandarin ........ 58

5.2.4 Implications for a Chapter on Sounds and the Spelling System ... 61

5.3 The Organization of Contents in Learning Materials ....................... 63

vi

5.3.1 Comparisons of Content and Theme Order .................................. 63

5.3.2 Discussions on the Grammar Topic Arrangement......................... 79

Chapter 6. Concluding Remarks .............................................................. 85

6.1 The Development of the Hlaalua Learners Guide .......................... 85

6.2 Limitations & Implications for Future Studies ................................. 87

6.2.1 Limitations of Leaners Guide Chapter 1 ...................................... 87

6.2.2 Limitations of Learners Guide: Chapter 2 ................................... 89

6.2.3 Limitations of Chapters on Grammatical Topics .......................... 90

6.2.4 Other Limitations .......................................................................... 91

6.3 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 93

References ........................................................................................................ 94

Appendix A .................................................................................................... 101

vii

List of Figures

Figure 1: The genetic subgrouping of Formosan languages ............................... 3

Figure 2: The 2010 census of language use at home ......................................... 13

Figure 3: Socioeconomic values of languages in Taiwan ................................. 14

Figure 4: Hlaalua peoples language use ......................................................... 19

Figure 5: Target users of the Hlaalua Learners Guide .................................... 39

Figure 6: An integration of different types of grammars .................................. 44

Figure 7: A flow chart of the development of Hlaalua Learners Guide ......... 85

Figure 8: A spectrogram with pitch and intensity of almhl ......................... 88

viii

List of Tables

Table 1: The graded vitality of Taiwanese Austronesian language ................... 18

Table 2: The report of general proficiency test of Hlaalua .............................. 23

Table 3: The course curriculum Mandarin education ........................................ 29

Table 4: The Bopomofo symbol ........................................................................ 31

Table 5: The course curriculum of