(De)Legitimizing Language Policing: Enregisterment and Linguistic Authority in Taiwan's Digital Public

This study investigates how ordinary Taiwanese netizens perform linguistic authority by policing others’ use of Mainland Chinese expressions in everyday online interactions not originally intended to be political and how such policing is subsequently supported, resisted, or (de)legitimized in the context of Taiwan–China relations. Three orders of enregisterment are observed: First, the historically established standard language as the baseline; second, the identification of particular linguistic features as non-local and imported from China; and third, the framing of language policing itself as an undesirable discourse practice. The study argues that enregisterment, ideological differentiation, and affective regime are central to how bottom-up language policing mediates and links distinct forms of linguistic authority. The contested nature of linguistic authority in this context is shaped by the entanglement of Taiwan and China at the linguistic, cultural, and political levels, as well as by the participatory and translocal features of the late modern digital public.