Discourse and Identity in Cross-Strait (Taiwanese-Chinese) CMC Boards

The discursive co-construction of Chinese identity has been relatively neglected to date, and within this area, the
issue of identity in online contexts is even more neglected, in spite of its obvious importance. The aim of this
presentation is to begin to address this knowledge gap by reporting on ongoing research on the use of Sino-
Taiwanese internet language, and Chinese and Taiwanese identity formation in an online, CMC context. We will
analyse, in particular, online discourse on the possible union of Taiwan with China. As it will be argued,
language use in this highly sensitive context is noteworthy because mainland Chinese and Taiwanese CMC
participants apply different positive and negative identity forming practices (Bucholtz, 1999). As different
discursive patterns can be distinguished, we argue that culture-specific, and thus Taiwanese and Chinese online
discourse salient to identity concerns, is occasioned in this case through the intersection of micro, interactional
concerns with macro, sociohistorical discourses.