Chang, Hui-Ching & Richard Holt, 2014. Language, Politics and Identity in Taiwan

The metaphor of the `common European house' appeared in political discourse in several European languages in the late 1980s. Political discourse, usually treated in a domestic single-language persp...

Metaphor in Political Discourse: The Case of the `Common European House'

This chapter intends to explain the many sources of and historical changes in Taiwanese identity (Taiwanren rendong). But first it is important to explain what the word identity means in this chapter. The term national identity is usually referred to as feelings, sentiments, and bonds that people feel for their own country, or nation. But this emphasis on sentiment could be misleading in our understanding of the problem of nationalism or nationalistic conflict as mainly a reflection of emotional or primordial conflicts—or conflicts caused by the human need for belonging. In fact, national identity arises, or emerges for reasons that are much broader than sentiment and the need for belonging; and it is always constituted with normative discourse, argued and supported with forceful moral—political claims. This is the reason for people of nationalistic thinking genuinely believing that they are the “righteous” people with a justifiable moral base. The question of nationalistic identity, therefore, becomes the question of the moral horizons of the group of individuals who are considered to be nationalistic.

Chang, Hui-Ching & Richard Holt, 2014. Language, Politics and Identity in Taiwan

References

Metaphor in Political Discourse: The Case of the `Common European House'

On the Origins and Transformation of Taiwanese National Identity

On The Origins And Transformation Of Taiwanese National Identity