Language symbols imply power relations, and symbolic mechanisms must also occur with the extravagance of power. The official language policy, with the popularization of government administrative units or educational institutions, justifies the existing official power ,and controls the mainstream and non-mainstream positions of linguistic signs in the field. This is the typical reproduction mechanism of " symbolic power of language". Based on the concept of "symbolic power of language", this article aims to explore the relationship between Japanese writing in Taiwanese and symbolic power during Japanese-Occupied Period.
The first minister of academic affairs of Taiwan Governor ’s Office, Izawa Shuji (1851-1917), established the model of “Sinograph predominantly, supplemented by Kana”, which became the mainstream writing style in Taiwanese of the official and Japanese in Taiwan. Although Japanese in Taiwan had fully demonstrated the trend of conforming to the official writing style, in terms of word consistency, they had not progressed according to the official Kana symbol route. At this time, Kanematsu Isokuma (1867-?) attempted to draw on the experience of the Romanization system to propose a new Kana system as an alternative to the Governor ’s Office system. For Watanabe Masari/Masaru (1867-?), who advocated "orthodoxy", the reform of Kanematsu’s Kana system based on the Romanization system is an outlier "heterogeneity" product, so the two sides launched a symbolic defense of phonetic symbols. In addition, based on his writing thinking in Taiwanese, Watanabe wrote the Taiwanese novel Smiling Flower in 1903, becoming the best literary work to promote the official writing style. This kind of symbol conflict had changed since the publication of the Taiwanese-Japanese Dictionary in 1931. The Taiwanese-Japanese Dictionary combined the official "symbolic power" and "language discourse" into one, which allowed the symbolic rank of the official Kana to survive in the field and resolved the plight of the people challenge in the past.