年當我確定赴美攻讀語言學博士時，我思索著要如何跟媽媽講此事
我：媽，我欲去米國讀冊吶
媽：汝是欲讀啥麼冊哪會著跑去彼遠啦
我心想「研究」「語言」(Linguistics=The study of language)對於沒機會念書的媽媽而言，大概就剩「台語」這回事了，所以我如此回應。
我：我欲去米國「學台語」。
媽：無彩錢，汝欲學台語我共你教就好，毋免走嘎彼遠啦。
當時我有點納悶但也懶得解釋，只說：橫直我欲去讀博士，別日仔會使做老師啦。
2000年我開始外文系的教職，搭上英語授課列車。花台灣納稅人的錢，以英語撰寫台灣社會語言學議題，發表在99%的台灣人讀不到可能也看不懂的國際學術期刊。
當我有機會繼續觀察更多醫師和年長病人與家屬的對話時，這樣的場景一直出現著。原本以台語和年長病人溝通的醫師，因為講華語的家屬開口了，從此三人行對話只剩華語，直到長者嘟嚷著「恁咧講啥我攏聽無啦」。更年輕的醫師則是說著卡娃伊的台語「哇係這間死人病院的醫心啦」，直到長者也說著卡娃伊的台灣國語「無阿緊啊，你講狗蟻，偶ㄟ口以啦」解除他的窘境。
就和社會上的其他弱勢族群，只會講台語的人，「他們的存在」經常就這麼被打發著或刪除了。我同時也意識到，雖然自恃台華雙聲帶，其實我的台語只剩柴米油鹽醬醋茶。
如果我都可以勉強自己用異國語言授課，難道我無法以我的母語授課？我開始思考，當年對媽媽的「懶得解釋」是語言能力問題？還是態度問題？上一輩的血汗成就了這一代的繁華，我慚愧身為語言教師（也是語言學家），我竟看輕自己的母語能力，甚至刻意忽略如此顯著的態度問題。如果台面上宣稱關切台語如我者，自己也不講台語，這些紙上的宣稱等同台語訃文。
我開始嘗試「台語授課」，為了幫助我自己，我想要接觸早已實行台語授課的前輩們，這就這一系列故事的開始。
A language proficiency problem or an attitude issue? A conversation with my mother.
Back in 1995 when it was certain I was going to the United States to pursue a PhD in linguistics, I pondered how to break this news to my mother.
Me: Mom, I’m going to study in the U.S.
Mom: What are you studying that requires you to go so far from home?
I thought to myself, linguistics…the study of language, for mom who’s never had the privilege of education, the closest thing would be the Taiwanese language.
Me: I’m going to the U.S to “learn Taiwanese”.
Mom: Good-for-nothing! If you want to learn Taiwanese I can teach you, there’s no need to go so far.
At that time part of me knew I was not telling her everything, but at the same time I could not be bothered trying to explain. So I simply replied: anyways I’m going to study PhD, it’ll allow me to be a teacher one day.
In 2000 I embarked on my journey as a professor in linguistics, and started lecturing in English. Funded by taxpayer money, I also began writing on Taiwanese linguistic issues, again in English, to be published in international academic journals that 99% of Taiwanese will never see nor likely understand.
When I had the opportunity to observe the interaction between doctors, senior patients, and their family members, the following was a common scene. Originally the doctor and the senior patient communicated in Taiwanese, but once the family members started talking the conversation turned into Mandarin; the patients complained “I got no idea what you’re saying”! Younger doctors may even utter awkwardly in Taiwanese: “I’m the doctor of this deceased hospital” (mispronunciation of private), to which senior patients respond in equally awkward Mandarin: “It OK, you talk Mandarin… I OK” in an attempt to alleviate the doctor’s predicament.
Similar to other minorities in the society, the presence of these Taiwanese-only speakers are so easily glossed over or ignored. I began to realize that the Taiwanese-Mandarin bilingualism that I was so proud wasn’t as perfect as I imagined it to be; after all, my own use of Taiwanese was limited to a conversational level in the household domain.
If I could manage to lecture in English, a foreign language to me, why could I not do so in Taiwanese, my native tongue? I started to rethink the conversation with my mother, was the “couldn’t be bothered trying to explain” a language proficiency problem? Or was it an attitude issue? I felt ashamed as an instructor of language (as well as a linguist) to have underestimated the potential of my native language, to have disregarded such a glaringly obvious attitude issue. If people like myself whose discourse and studies concern the Taiwanese language do not speak Taiwanese ourselves, then our papers are but an obituary for the language.
So I started my attempts to give lectures in Taiwanese and helped myself by contacting pioneers who did so before me. Thus begins this series of stories.
(English translation: Joe Tsai)