臺灣的社會地理語言學及其理論

Social Geolinguistics in Taiwan and its Theories

本文主張所謂「地理語言學」應該分為「地理語言學」與「語言地理學」兩個分科，並介紹「社會地理語言學」兩個分科在台灣的的萌芽及其理論。首先回顧了臺灣的「社會地理語言學」研究，並提出8點檢討。「社會地理語言學」在臺灣誕生雖然只有十年時間，雖然只有六種作品，仍待加強之處甚多，但是充滿創意，前景可待。接著討論「社會語言地理學」的方法，並介紹作者正撰寫中的《臺灣語言地圖集》（Language Atlas of Taiwan，簡稱LAT）如何將語言社會學的元素融入其語言分類與語言區劃。最後針對2點可能的方法論上的質疑，提出辯解。「社會地理語言學」和「社會語言地理學」在臺灣是一門新興的學科，但「社會地理語言學」在日本稱為「社會言語地理學」，已經有半世紀的歷史，文獻汗牛充棟，國人必須急起直追；至於「社會語言地理學」在台灣雖然還在起步階段，也是值得努力的研究方向。

This paper not only claims that the so-called ‘geolinguistics' should be divided into two sub-branches, geolinguistics and linguistic geography, but also advocates that the factors of sociolinguistics should be involved in geolinguistics, so as to set up ‘social geolinguistics.' The study introduces this very newly-emerging research trend in Taiwan, and discusses its methodology. After reviewing the six studies of ‘social geolinguistics,' we propose eight points of criticism on methodology. Then it focuses on the methods of ‘sociolinguistic geography', and introduces how the Language Atlas of Taiwan(LAT) integrates elements of linguistic sociology into both the language categorization and regionalization. The study ends with reflections and explanations for two possible criticisms which question the validity of this new approach.