Abstract
Under the Japanese ruling, Taiwanese people were in a transitional period between a traditional and a modern societies.. The National Language Policy (kokugo seisaku) carried out by the Japanese Authority, and the trendy Mandarin vernacular writing from then so-called “Fatherland”, both caused that quite a lot of Taiwanese literature works were written in Japanese and Mandarin vernacular in the Japanese colonial period. However, most of the inhabitants in Taiwan in that time still lived in a “Taiwanese speaking” environment, that’s why there were also many works written in Taiwanese, which including classic Chinese poems, koa-á-chheh (songbooks of Taiwanese Opera), folk rhymes, essays, fictions and scripts of theatres. The thesis, The Research on Fictions Written in Taiwanese During the Japanese Ruling Period, discusses how the accomplishment of Taiwanese written fictions belonging to all classes of Taiwanese people were achieved, though there were different kinds of difficulties including the lack of standardized Taiwanese writing. Compared with poetry and prose, Taiwanese written fictions are good vehicles to contain the abundant, real-life and vivid utterances spoken in that time. Through the complexity of the age, broadened facets of history involved in these works, we are able to find historical views not alike the ones in the discussions of Taiwanese literatures so far. The excavations of the said works include POJ-employed and Han-characters-employed fictions. Works in POJ comprise the novelettes gazetted in Kàu-hōe Kong-pò (Taiwan Prefectural City Church News) in 1910s and novels authored by Loa Jin-seng (賴仁聲）and TeN Khe-phoan（鄭溪泮）that were published in 1920s. The Han character written ones are formed by fictions written by Chhoa Chhiu-tong（蔡秋桐）, IuN Kui（楊逵） and Loa Ho（賴和）during the course of New Literature Movement. Also the traditional fictions by Khou PiaN-teng (許丙丁）and TeN Khun-ngou（鄭坤五）written in less-classic Chinese were published in succession in 1930s and 1940s. Given a few authors and texts, still we can see humanity of religionists, the vision of hoi polloi, the intervention of Occidental civilization, the shift of identity of the intellectuals, the practice of nationalism and socialism per writing, and even the re-construction of regional/local myths and collective historical memory. The different writing systems of fictions in Taiwanese during the Japanese ruling with dissimilar values have produced multidimensional and enriched viewpoints of writing. By researching on these texts and with long-term historical significance, the literature in Taiwanese has left two writing traditions before World War II. One of them is the POJ tradition budding from the mission of the Occidental Christianity, and the other is Han character tradition of the Han culture (mainly the Confucianism). Developing respectively with some spreading and cooperation, the “two traditions”, both with limited influence in their time, were officially integrated during the early years after the War, and have brought out incredible phenomena and powers. The cumulative achievements of the current Han-Roman mixture writing (writing with Han characters and Romanized mixedly) affected Hakka literature and aboriginal literature to adopt Han-Roman mixture too. Both of them have difficulty to express exact pronunciation and denotation in pure Han character writing as well. The trend augurs a bright and symphonic future of the multi-lingual Taiwanese literature. The Research on Fictions Written in Taiwanese During the Japanese Ruling Period explains the texts with the most conventional analytical methods. The researcher hopes to lay a historical foundation of thoughts in the research of the Taiwanese written literature, and provide newer references of values and aesthetic judgement.