This paper analyses characters selected by the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Taiwan and the character/alphabet usage in Tâi-bûn Thong-sìn BONG-pò (TTB), a Taiwanese magazine, to discuss the roles played in Taiwanese texts by Chinese characters, Roman alphabets and the switch between them, particularly their function in word distinction. The findings of the analyses show that TTB, by utilising both characters and alphabets, pursues word distinction more positively compared with MOE, and it is argued that one of the chief causes of such distinctions is the interference of meanings or images of characters in Chinese (Mandarin). It can be seen as an adaptation of Taiwanese writing to the diglossic reality, where Taiwanese co-exists with Chinese, which should be an important issue for its normalisation