| Abstract: | 本文旨在探討反映客家族群意象之象徵符碼「硬頸」在台灣報紙媒體上之語意再現及使用範疇之延伸，分析其為何及如何演變。語料來自台灣四大報紙資料庫《聯合知識庫》、《知識贏家》、《自由新聞網》、《蘋果日報》之新聞文本，藉由語境擷取工具找出「硬頸」語料（共3,265筆），進而分析年代及主題「硬頸」出現頻率。結果發現「硬頸」在台灣歷史社會文化脈絡下，由負面義翻轉成正面義成為指涉客家刻板印象之象徵符碼，指涉與客家概念相關的人事物，經報紙媒介之傳播再現及延伸使用範疇而成為媒體話語之「象似指涉」，藉助指涉擴充、轉喻與隱喻的機制，創新符號涵義並擴充使用範疇，從代表客家人性格之用法，擴充到非客家人及非人物之抽象指涉，並表達情感及態度。本研究之研究方法展示運用數位資料與數位科技進行新聞文本之語言學分析，結果凸顯語言符號的傳播及創新，媒體框架如何在歷史社會文化脈絡下形塑語言使用之演變及範疇之擴充，呈現媒體話語之語言使用與社會密不可分之關係。
This study investigates the innovative development of a symbolic code ngang giang (“stiff neck”) into an iconographic reference, profiling its meaning representation and diffusion in media discourse. Employing text-analysis tools, the study retrieves 3,265 tokens from the four major newspapers in Taiwan, Knowledge Management Winner, Udndata, Liberty Times Net, and Apple Daily. The data are analyzed regarding their longitudinal distribution, theme distribution, and cross distribution across four dimensions. The main findings are as follows. First, the meaning of ngang giang, which used to have a negative connotation, has turned into a symbolic code with a positive connotation due to a historical event contingent on the socio-political development in Taiwan. Even since, denoting Hakka character as perseverance, it has become a Hakka symbolic code stereotypically employed to depict Hakka-related matters—whether human and non-human—strongly indicating an ideological effect in media discourse toward Hakka groups. Its frequency highly correlates with major political events in Taiwan, with high peaks occurring 2 or 3 years before presidential elections. Second, its semiotic innovation continues to develop, extending from a prototypical Hakka frame to a Hakka non-human frame, a non-Hakka frame, and on to a non-Hakka nonhuman frame through mechanisms of denotational extensions, metonymy, and metaphor. With new ways of representing various themes ranging from international affairs, publicities in entertainment or sports, and technology to stock and money currency, ngangiang emerges as an iconographic reference representing a simplistic image with familiar judgment and values and carrying linguistic, semantic, affective, and pragmatic forces of the discourse situation reported in the news. This study demonstrates research integrating computational and corpus methods for linguistic analysis of news discourse. The findings profile the importance of placing semiotic innovation in its social, cultural, political, and historical contexts, highlighting the intertwining complexities between media discourse, communication, and society. |
