Academic Journal of Modern Philology

doi: 10.34616/ajmp.2025.28.14

ISSN 2299–7164

Vol. 28 (2025)

Special Issue

Open Access. Published by Committee for Philology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław Branch and College for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Wrocław. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Adrian Jan Zasina

Charles University, Institute of Czech and Deaf Studies

adrian.zasina@ff.cuni.cz 

ORCID: 0000-0001-9348-5833

The Representation of Taiwan in Czech Online Media Discourse between 2017 and 2020

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of Taiwan in Czech online media discourse between 2017 and 2020 using a corpus-based approach to discourse analysis. Drawing on the ONLINE1 corpus, which includes news, social media, and discussion data, the study analyses the collocational profiles of the noun Tchaj-wan (“Taiwan”) and the adjective tchajwanský (“Taiwanese”). The findings show that Tchaj-wan is predominantly associated with political and geopolitical contexts, referring to international relations, official visits, and East Asian countries, while tchajwanský collocates mainly with business and technology terms, reflecting Taiwan’s role in economic cooperation. Across media types, Taiwan is represented as both a democratic political partner and a technological ally. The study highlights a predominantly positive image of Taiwan in Czech online media discourse, which reflects the strengthening of Czech–Taiwanese relations during the period under examination.

Keywords: collocation analysis, corpus linguistics, Czech–Taiwanese relations, discourse analysis, media discourse, Taiwan

Introduction

Taiwan is a state recognised mainly by island countries and by one European state, the Holy See, where the Republic of China (ROC) maintains an embassy as of September 2025 https://www.taiwanembassy.org/). Although the ROC was recognised as a state after the Second World War and was even a member of the United Nations until 1971, its seat was then taken by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Tanaka 2022: 125). Since that time, official recognition of Taiwan has gradually declined. However, the events surrounding COVID-19, originating in China, changed the situation and encouraged many countries to deepen their relations with Taiwan. China’s actions, such as its mistreatment of Hong Kong and Xinjiang (Chen: 2023: 38), have prompted many states to shift their focus from China towards Taiwan.

Between 2017 and 2020, the Czech Republic also renewed and strengthened its interest in Taiwan. For instance, the Mayor of Prague, Zdeněk Hřib, officially visited Taipei in ٢٠١٩, and the President of the Czech Senate, Jaroslav Kubera, had planned to visit Taiwan before his death. Relations were further reinforced during the COVID-19 crisis, when Taiwan delivered medical supplies free of charge to the Czech Republic. This was followed by the official visit of the new President of the Czech Senate, Miloš Vystrčil, in September 2020. These events resonated with the general public and were widely discussed in the media.

This paper therefore seeks to examine the image of Taiwan in Czech online media between 2017 and 2020 and to comment on their typical thematic focus. For this purpose, it employs collocation analysis grounded in linguistic discourse analysis. This study addresses the following research questions:

What are the most frequent collocates of the lexemes Tchaj-wan (“Taiwan”) and tchajwanský (“Taiwanese”) in Czech online media discourse between 2017 and 2020?

How do these collocational patterns differ across the three data sources (discussions and fora, social media, and news)?

What do these differences reveal about the representation of Taiwan and the nature of Czech–Taiwanese relations during this period?

The following section briefly introduces linguistic discourse analysis and outlines several examples of studies on discourse, media, and politics. After presenting the data, the research methodology is described. The results of the collocation analysis are then presented, including a comparison of the three different data sources. This is followed by a discussion of the main findings and concluding remarks.

Discourse analysis, media, and politics

In general, discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary perspective that enables researchers to uncover how social reality is constructed and maintained through language, social behaviour, and social perspectives (Sedláková 2015: 426–428). Combining discourse analysis with a corpus-based approach is not a simple quantitative procedure; rather, it involves numerous researcher choices and clearly defined analytical methods (Baker 2023: 221). Over time, this combination has crystallised into a standalone subdiscipline known as corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS), which enables the analysis of an entire corpus rather than a single text that may reflect only a small and potentially biased part of the discourse (Gillings et al. 2023: 1). Analytical procedures may vary, and no universal guide exists for conducting discourse analysis (Sedláková 2015: 438).

In the Czech context, discourse analysis of media has been carried out, among others, by Renáta Sedláková (2015), who applies discourse analysis in the social sciences. With regard to corpus-based approaches to media, one of the first studies analyses media discourse through corpus-based representations of “Others” in relation to national minorities and immigrants in the Czech Republic (Fidler 2016). Another study examines adjectival collocations relating to minority groups (Roma, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian people) in the Czech Republic, showing that Ukrainians are more frequently represented in a positive light than the other two groups (Elmerot 2019)and a corpus analysis of adjacent words may reveal how individuals or groups of people other than the sender (writer or speaker.

More recent analyses provide insights into other social groups. For instance, Anna Strakhova (2024) investigates Facebook discussions about three synonyms for black person, confirming that neutral and negative adjectives predominate over positive ones. The analysis of comments points to numerous xenophobic discussions, often accompanied by aggressive language and dehumanization of the target group based on ethnicity. Similarly, Irene Elmerot (2025) analyses sentiments towards three groups: nationalities, occupations, and gender. From a diachronic perspective, the results show that white-collar men represent the norm, while all other groups are represented as deviations from it. Irene Elmerot (2025: 16–19) also relates country names and their inhabitants to Gross National Income (GNI), noting that positive attitudes towards particular groups increase with higher GNI levels.

The issue of Taiwan is not commonly addressed in linguistics, whereas it is a frequently discussed topic in political science. Most often, it concerns the legal status of Taiwan as an independent territorial entity (Lin et al. 2022) or its relations with China and the geopolitical dynamics in the Taiwan Strait (Tanaka 2022). However, there are also studies devoted specifically to Czech–Taiwanese relations (Ian Tsung-Yen Chen 2023; Wen-Yu Chen 2023) which are key to understanding the broader context of political events relevant to linguistic analysis.

The present study combines media and political science with linguistic discourse analysis to shed light on the image of Taiwan through collocational analysis. It does not examine the representation of a social group or an individual, but rather that of a country name and lexical items denoting its origin. The study focuses on different data sources, analysing their similarities and dissimilarities. Therefore, this analysis shares features with political discourse studies (see Galasiński, Skowronek 2001), which examine issues concerning a country and its politics. An analysis focusing on one specific country has not yet been conducted, and these issues are therefore the subject of this study.

Data

For this analysis, the ONLINE1 corpus (Cvrček, Procházka 2020) was used. ONLINE1 is a monitoring corpus designed to capture evolving Czech internet content, including journalism, discussions, fora, and social media. It covers data from June 2017 to March 2021 and, in addition to online journalism, includes material from social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter), online discussions, and fora. Texts for the corpus were supplied by Dataweps (https://www.dataweps.com/).

The reason for using the ONLINE1 corpus was to capture a period rich in developments relating to Czech–Taiwanese relations. Another motivation was the availability of social media data, which are included only in this release. Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) function differently from journalistic texts in terms of information dissemination; the most frequently reshared posts usually indicate greater public interest in a topic. Because Instagram data are available only up to December 2020, the present study is limited to the years 2017–2020.

The corpus contains more than seven billion tokens, summarised in Table 1, which presents both absolute and relative frequencies expressed as numbers of tokens (a token being a string of characters separated by spaces) for each year and each media source. Within individual media types, absolute frequencies vary considerably; therefore, relative frequency expressed in instances per million (i.p.m.) is also included to allow for comparisons across groups of differing absolute sizes.

Table 1. ONLINE1 corpus structure by years.

Year 

Frequency 

Media source 

Total 

Discussions 

Facebook 

Fora 

Instagram 

News 

Twitter 

2017 

absolute 

212,374,784 

631,737,259 

166,483,383 

34,711,842 

313,649,929 

248,646,999 

1,607,604,196 

i.p.m. 

132,106.39 

392,968.16 

103,559.93 

21,592.28 

195,103.95 

154,669.29 

1,000,000 

2018 

absolute 

237,738,511 

277,594,211 

169,801,930 

123,094,426 

470,612,538 

277,229,494 

1,556,071,110 

i.p.m. 

152,781.26 

178,394.30 

109,122.22 

79,105.91 

302,436.40 

178,159.91 

1,000,000 

2019 

absolute 

170,184,084 

264,799,566 

111,245,663 

233,080,049 

477,988,531 

317,443,283 

1,574,741,176 

i.p.m. 

108,071.15 

168,154.34 

70,643.78 

148,011.66 

303,534.66 

201,584.42 

1,000,000 

2020 

absolute 

270,528,478 

635,927,253 

96,860,871 

50,246,753 

460,970,713 

463,678,300 

1,978,212,368 

i.p.m. 

136,754.01 

321,465.61 

48,963.84 

25,400.08 

233,023.88 

234,392.58 

1,000,000 

20211 

absolute 

60,485,450 

506,887 

20,028,504 

0 

109,177,764 

145,885,060 

336,083,665 

i.p.m. 

179,971.41 

1,508.22 

59,593.80 

0.00 

324,852.93 

434,073.64 

1,000,000 

TOTAL  

absolute 

951,311,307 

1,810,565,176 

564,420,351 

441,133,070 

1,832,399,475 

1,452,883,136 

7,052,712,515 

This study examines two Czech lexemes: the noun Tchaj-wan “Taiwan” and the adjective tchajwanský “Taiwanese,” along with all existing spelling variants of both lexemes (Tchaj-wan, Taiwan, Tchajwan, Tchai-wan, Tajvan and tchaj-wanský, tchajwanský, taj-wanský, tajwanský, tajvanský, thaj-wanský, thajwanský, thajvanský, thai-wanský, thaiwanský, thaivanský, tai-vanský), taking into account possible variation in upper- and lower-case spelling. Other names for Taiwan, such as Republic of China (ROC) or Formosa, are not examined due to their low frequency.

Searches were carried out using the KonText interface (Machálek 2020) at https://www.korpus.cz. A total of 105,830 hits for Tchaj-wan and 17,284 for tchajwanský were obtained2.

Methodology

In the first step, the top 100 collocation candidates for each analysed lexeme were identified. The KonText tool was used to extract collocation candidates based on the LogDice3 measure; candidates were searched for by lemma4 rather than by word form. Collocates were identified within a span of two words to the left and two words to the right, ensuring the extraction of the most relevant collocates of the lexemes under examination. The minimum collocate frequency in the corpus, as well as the minimum frequency within the span, was set at three occurrences.

Afterwards, the collocates were divided into part-of-speech (POS) groups and categorised into semantic categories. For categorisation, only autosemantic words (nouns, adjectives, and verbs) were considered. Some collocation candidates received high LogDice scores due to their frequent repetition on social media, which may have biased the results. While some of these were connected with frequently discussed topics (e.g. plicní “lung,” referring to lung ventilators donated by Taiwan during the COVID-19 outbreak), others were, for example, Twitter account names (e.g. @ZdenekHrib) repeatedly reposted with the same message. However, reposting is typical behaviour on social media; therefore, for clarity, these collocates are retained in Tables 1 and 2 and are marked in grey. Collocates assigned to more than one category are shown in italics.

Collocation candidates were assigned to seven categories based on their predominant context: business, cooperation, geolocation, politics, statehood, sport, and reporting. The business-related category includes business events, company names, or their products (e.g. TSMC, polovodič “semiconductor”). The cooperation category covers Czech–Taiwanese relations, mostly concerning Taiwanese assistance during the COVID-19 outbreak (e.g. dar “gift,” poděkovat “to thank”). The geolocation category comprises geographical terms and neighbouring countries, mainly in Southeast and East Asia (e.g. průliv “strait,” Japonsko “Japan”). The politics category includes political events, politicians’ names, and actions (e.g. delegace “delegation,” návštěva “visit”). The statehood category concerns the question of Taiwan’s existence as a country (e.g. samostatnost “autonomy,” vlajka “flag”). The sport category includes sporting events and athletes’ names (e.g. Šu-wej “Su-wei,” spoluhráčka “teammate”). The final category, reporting, covers reports on events concerning culture, travel, news, and related topics (e.g. výlet “trip,” oolong “oolong tea”).

Table 2 represents lemmas collocating with the lexeme Tchaj-wan across all seven semantic categories. The largest categories are politics and geolocation. These include the most prominent topics appearing during the years 2017–2020, such as visits by Czech representatives to Taiwan, the expulsion of a Taiwanese representative from a meeting at the Czech Ministry, President Tsai, tensions between China and Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, the (non-)recognition of Taiwan as part of China, and Southeast and East Asian countries in the context of the economy and the COVID-19 situation.

Table 2. Semantic categories of lemmas collocating with the lexeme Tchaj-wan.

Semantic category

Collocates

business

Nouns

delegace “delegation,” Semiconductor, Manufacturing, mise “mission,” součástka “component,” vztah “relation.”

Verbs

obchodovat “to trade,” investovat „to invest.”

cooperation

Nouns

dar “gift,” Satanasi5, poděkování “thanks,” pomůcka “equipment,” ventilátor “ventilator.”

Adjectives

nezištný6 “disinterested,” bezplatný “free,” slíbený “promised,” ochranný “protective,” plicní “lung,” poskytnutý “provided”.

Verbs

ne/poděkovat7 “not/to thank,” darovat “to donate.”

geolocation

Nouns

Tibet, Hongkong “Hong Kong,” Korea, Singapur “Singapore,” Čína “China,” Macao, Japonsko “Japan,” ČLR “PRC,” Vietnam, Taiwan, ostrov “island,” Tchaj-pej “Taipei,” Tchaj-wan “Taiwan,” Filipíny “Philippines,” Peking “Beijing,” Taipei, Thajsko “Thailand,” Malajsie “Malaysia.”

Adjectives

pevninský “mainland,” nedílný “integral,” jižní “south,” čínský “Chinese,” ostrovní “island.”

politics

Nouns

Vystrčil “Miloš Vstrčil,” @Vystrcil, Kubera “Jaroslav Kubera,” delegace “delegation,” návštěva “visit,” cesta “journey,” činitel “official,” prezidentka “(female) president,” senát “senate,” @SenatCZ, zástupce “representative,” @ZdenekHrib, @PavelFischer, odmítnutí “rejection,” mise “mission,” @Telicka, výlet “trip,” @KantorLumir, vztah “relation,” @andpolescuk, vykázání “expulsion. ”

Adjectives

Vystrčilův “Vystrčil’s,” doněcký “Donetsk,” klukovský “boyish,” demokratický “democratic. ”

Verbs

navštívit “to visit,” letět “to fly,” jet “to go,” přirovnávat “to compare,” vystrčit8 “ to push out,” obdržet “to receive,” vypravit [se] “to go. ”

statehood

Nouns

nezávislost “independence,” samostatnost “autonomy,” uznání “recognition,” provincie “province.”

Adjectives

samostatný “independent.”

Verbs

ne/uznávat9 “not/to recognise,” ne/uznat “not/to recognise,” považovat “to consider.”

sport

Nouns

Šu-wej “Hsieh Su-wei,” Hsieh “Hsieh Su-wei.”

reporting

Nouns

cesta “journey,” návštěva “visit,” soutěž10 “competition,” výlet “trip,” zemětřesení “earthquake,” odlet “departure,” WHO, impérium “empire.”

Adjectives

antivirový “antiviral.”

Verbs

navštívit “to visit,” letět “to fly,” syntetizovat “to synthesise,” jet “to go,” odletět “to fly away.”

Table 3 presents lemmas collocating with the lexeme tchajwanský across all seven semantic categories. The largest categories are politics and business. In addition to the political events already mentioned in connection with Tchaj-wan, the politics category also includes the launch of a direct China Airlines flight between Prague and Taipei, the re-election of Taiwan’s president, and military manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait. In the business category, the emphasis is on Taiwanese companies, particularly those involved in IT technologies and the semiconductor industry, as well as their investments.

Table 3. Semantic categories of lemmas collocating with the lexeme tchajwanský.

Semantic category

Collocates

business

Nouns

Foxconn, TSMC, Foxconn, Airlines, HTC, Asus, Chino11, DigiTimes, CviLux, MediaTek, Bioorganic, přepravce “carrier,” investor, výrobce “producer,” Wistron, Computex, polovodič “semiconductor,” SafeDX, Economic, investice “investment,” Kymco, Chieftec, Sym, mise “mission,” NCC, Giant, zástupce “representative,” Acer.

Verbs

ozývat [se] “to contact.”

cooperation

Nouns

Autoland, technolog,12 ventilátor “ventilator,” dar “gift,” bohemista “student of Czech studies,” převzetí “takeover,” protějšek “counterpart.”

Verbs

přednést “to present.”

geolocation

Nouns

Tchaj-pej “Taipei,” průliv “strait,” úžina “strait,” metropole “metropolis,” Taiwan[ský]13 “Taiwanese,” Kao-siung “Kaohsiung,” Taipei, Šanghaj “Shanghai.”

politics

Nouns

Cchaj “Tsai Ing-wen,” prezidentka “(female) president,” vykázání “expulsion,” aerolinka ‘airline,” Chung-I “Wang Chung-yi,” Jou “Jou Si-kun,” @EvaSelepova, Chino, aerolinie “airline,” Tsai “Tsai Ing-wen,” oblak “cloud,” zásilka “shipment,” diplomat, Vystrčil “Miloš Vystrčil,” recepce “reception,” Kennedy, delegace “delegation,” špión “spy,” Vystrčilův “Vystrčil’s,” zákonodárce “legislator,” parlament “parliament,” diplomacie “diplomacy,” mise “mission,” Joanne “Joanne Ou,” čínština “Chinese,” telefonát “phone call,” velvyslanec “ambassador,” špion “spy,” zastoupení “representation,” @KantorLumir, uvěznění “imprisonment,” @SenatCZ, zástupce “representative,” protějšek “counterpart,” velvyslanectví “embassy.”

Adjectives

pokrokový “progressive,” znovuzvolený “re-elected,” vzdušný “air.”

Verbs

proplout “to pass through,” ne/blahopřát14 “not/to congratulate,” přivítat “to welcome,” prášit “to dust,” vykázat “to expel.”

statehood

Nouns

vlajka “flag,” separatismus “separatism.”

Adjectives

tibetský “Tibetan.”

sport

Nouns

Sie “Hsieh Su-wei,” spoluhráčka “(female) teammate,” Čchan “Chan Yung-jan,” parťačka “(female) partner,” CPBL “Chinese Professional Baseball League,” partnerka “(female) partner,” Strýcová “Barbora Strýcová,” tenistka “(female) tennis player.”

reporting

Nouns

aerolinka “airline,” aerolinie “airline,” podporovatelka “(female) supporter,” oolong “oolong tea,” skauting “scouting,” Zantovsky “Michael Žantovský.”

The noticeable difference between the collocates of the noun Tchaj-wan and the adjective tchajwanský lies in the business semantic category, where the collocates with the adjective focus more on Taiwanese companies and their investments, than on expressing a general business context as in the collocates of the noun. In terms of cooperation, besides references to support during the pandemic, cooperation with Taiwanese students of Czech studies also appears among the collocates of the adjective. The geolocation category emphasises regional situations and tensions between China and Taiwan among the noun collocates, whereas the adjective collocates place greater emphasis on Taiwanese geography in a more localised sense. Taiwanese statehood is discussed more in terms of independence among the noun collocates, while the adjective collocates underline negative connotations associated with separatism. For a more detailed examination, this categorisation is further applied in the analytical section, where it is explained in greater depth.

The ONLINE1 corpus includes distinctly different data sources, i.e. internet news, Facebook posts, Twitter posts, Instagram posts, web discussions, and fora. To better understand the influence of data source on collocation profiles, these were divided into three groups: (1) discussions and fora (hereinafter DIS), (2) social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter; hereinafter SOC), and (3) internet news (hereinafter NEWS).

The 50 most frequent collocation candidates were extracted for each group using the same procedure as for the top 100 collocates: selection based on the LogDice measure, the same minimum collocate frequency, and the same minimum span frequency of three occurrences. The calculation was again carried out by lemma, and collocates were identified within a span of two words to the left and two words to the right. Only autosemantic words (nouns, adjectives, and verbs) were taken into account.

As a result, 48 collocates were obtained for DIS, 48 for SOC, and 47 for NEWS for the lexeme Tchaj-wan after excluding other POS, and 50 collocates respectively for DIS, SOC, and NEWS for the lexeme tchajwanský. These collocates were then subjected to further analysis.

The following section discusses the comparison between the three groups, highlighting their similarities and differences in terms of the most frequent collocates. Each subsection also provides an in-depth analysis of the collocates in relation to the semantic categories, while commenting on events that may have influenced their occurrence.

Comparison of three different data sources

The comparison of the three groups, DIS, SOC, and NEWS, reveals both similarities and differences in terms of data sources. Tables 4 and 5 present the most frequent collocates for each group. Collocates with more than half of their occurrences resulting from reposting are marked in grey. However, these may differ from those highlighted in the previous section or across the three groups, as they are not always repeated in all of them. Collocates that are underlined represent lemmas appearing among the most frequent collocates in all three groups.

The lexeme Tchaj-wan has ten collocates that appear across all data sources (see Table 4): Vystrčil, Tibet, Singapur, Hongkong, Vystrčilův, Korea, delegace, Kubera, Čína, and návštěva. These fall into three semantic categories: geolocation, politics, and reporting. Half of them concern geolocation, referring to Southeast and East Asian countries and the so-called Asian Tigers, or highlighting economic and technological development. Singapore and South Korea also appear in a positive context, particularly in relation to their successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Taiwan, Tibet, and Hongkong are mostly discussed in terms of their international recognition as independent states. These countries frequently appear alongside China within the framework of the One China Policy, where commentary often addresses international economic relations and potential conflicts regarding declarations of independence.

Five collocates, Vystrčil, Vystrčilův, delegace, Kubera, and návštěva, belong to the semantic category of politics. The most frequent contexts relate to the visit of the President of the Czech Senate, Miloš Vystrčil, to Taiwan in September 2020. This visit was widely discussed in the media before, during, and after the event, in all data sources. A similarly prominent topic was Jaroslav Kubera, the former President of the Czech Senate, who had planned to visit Taiwan but passed away in January 2020 before the visit could take place. The lexeme návštěva also falls into the category of reporting. Beyond its political meaning, it appears in the context of travel to Taiwan, often in reports on Taiwanese customs and notable sightseeing opportunities.

The discussed topics can be considered independent of the data source, as they occur across all three groups and fall into three semantic categories: geolocation, politics, and reporting. Some lemmas included in the data were reposted multiple times, which led to their duplication and, consequently, to higher frequency and collocation scores. Nevertheless, these lemmas were retained in the analysis, given the nature of online data, which are often shared or re-shared by users when there is increased interest in a topic. To account for issues associated with such duplication, these lexemes are marked and commented on separately.

As might be expected, the greatest duplication occurs within the SOC group, where re-sharing behaviour is most prevalent (16 lemmas). However, the DIS and NEWS groups also contain duplicated lemmas (10 in DIS and 5 in NEWS). Since these duplicated lemmas are not shared across all three groups, they are discussed in detail within the respective subsections for each group.

Table 4. Comparison of data sources based on the most frequent lemmas collocating with the lexeme Tchaj-wan.

DIS  

SOC  

NEWS  

No 

lemma 

Freq 

logDice 

lemma 

Freq 

logDice 

lemma 

Freq 

logDice 

1. 

Satanasi 

227 

8.51 

Vystrčil 

2 562 

9.26 

Šu-wej 

416 

8.74 

2. 

syntetizovat 

217 

8.43 

Vystrcil 

963 

8.39 

Vystrčil 

888 

8.11 

3. 

antivirový 

217 

7.90 

ne/poděkovat 

1 581 

7.36 

Tibet 

281 

7.27 

4. 

činitel 

487 

7.19 

nezištný 

319 

7.12 

Macao 

141 

7.03 

5. 

Vystrčil 

327 

6.84 

Tibet 

375 

7.07 

nezávislost 

553 

6.93 

6. 

slíbený 

174 

6.76 

delegace 

473 

7.05 

Hongkong 

295 

6.82 

7. 

Tibet 

136 

6.54 

Kubera 

519 

6.91 

Tchaj-pej 

111 

6.75 

8. 

součástka 

118 

6.20 

doněcký 

282 

6.90 

Semiconductor 

104 

6.70 

9. 

ČLR 

65 

5.64 

SenatCZ 

258 

6.75 

Kubera 

334 

6.64 

10. 

zakročit 

61 

5.49 

návštěva 

2 106 

6.58 

delegace 

255 

6.62 

11. 

Singapur 

70 

5.44 

prezidentka 

329 

6.38 

Manufacturing 

92 

6.56 

12. 

Taiwan 

57 

5.34 

klukovský 

165 

6.36 

Singapur 

166 

6.40 

13. 

Honkong 

24 

5.27 

Vystrčilův 

166 

6.36 

Hsieh 

76 

6.31 

14. 

uznávat 

171 

5.10 

ZdenekHrib 

296 

6.36 

Filipíny 

112 

6.31 

15. 

Hongkong 

73 

5.02 

dar 

724 

6.30 

Jüng-žan 

66 

6.15 

16. 

dar 

238 

4.92 

cesta 

5 531 

6.09 

čína 

420 

6.14 

17. 

Vystrčilův 

21 

4.92 

bezplatný 

299 

6.06 

Vystrčilův 

69 

6.04 

18. 

Hong 

27 

4.85 

přirovnávat 

175 

6.05 

pevninský 

81 

5.86 

19. 

Formosa 

16 

4.78 

Hongkong 

235 

6.04 

Vietnam 

181 

5.86 

20. 

Korea 

163 

4.75 

Macao 

129 

5.98 

Korea 

370 

5.85 

21. 

vystrčit 

35 

4.74 

poděkování 

288 

5.93 

Malajsie 

80 

5.83 

22. 

samostatnost 

45 

4.72 

PavelFischer 

175 

5.91 

Yung-jan 

45 

5.60 

23. 

delegace 

58 

4.70 

darovat 

432 

5.81 

uznávat 

259 

5.60 

24. 

Kuberová 

17 

4.64 

letět 

659 

5.78 

návštěva 

1019 

5.59 

25. 

Kubera 

74 

4.63 

Singapur 

154 

5.72 

Peking 

175 

5.56 

26. 

čína 

139 

4.63 

ne/uznávat 

328 

5.70 

Cooperative 

43 

5.54 

27. 

virus 

221 

4.62 

senát 

844 

5.66 

neoddělitelný 

48 

5.53 

28. 

luskoun 

16 

4.49 

vystrčit 

125 

5.57 

Thajsko 

107 

5.53 

29. 

obchodovat 

61 

4.44 

Taiwan 

126 

5.53 

Japonsko 

264 

5.49 

30. 

Vietnam 

56 

4.35 

Korea 

338 

5.52 

ČLR 

73 

5.46 

31. 

Čína 

673 

4.31 

KantorLumir 

85 

5.48 

Chuang 

38 

5.35 

32. 

provincie 

56 

4.30 

soutez 

98 

5.47 

ostrovní 

57 

5.28 

33. 

Tchaj-wan 

53 

4.26 

odmítnutí 

146 

5.47 

plicní 

118 

5.27 

34. 

zoranžovět 

11 

4.26 

ochranný 

467 

5.44 

univerziáda 

37 

5.26 

35. 

nedílný 

26 

4.25 

ČLR 

108 

5.37 

darovat 

256 

5.25 

36. 

Čankajšek 

11 

4.22 

Čína 

1 399 

5.31 

Taipei 

35 

5.18 

37. 

Filipíny 

19 

4.16 

Telicka 

135 

5.28 

navštívit 

512 

5.17 

38. 

tibet 

12 

4.15 

andpolescuk 

105 

5.21 

Čao-cchun 

33 

5.17 

39. 

pevninský 

18 

4.12 

navštívit 

536 

5.14 

ventilátor 

122 

5.15 

40. 

uznání 

49 

4.10 

Taipei 

68 

5.14 

Indonésie 

56 

5.00 

41. 

pomůcka 

117 

4.07 

zástupce 

804 

5.13 

zástupce 

699 

4.99 

42. 

návštěva 

348 

4.07 

poskytnutý 

99 

5.12 

cesta 

2 497 

4.96 

43. 

Japonsko 

88 

3.99 

vypravit 

121 

5.08 

Čína 

1 044 

4.93 

44. 

samostatný 

114 

3.99 

impérium 

103 

5.06 

tchajwanský 

43 

4.93 

45. 

ROC 

9 

3.98 

představující 

71 

5.05 

prezidentka 

89 

4.90 

46. 

čina 

14 

3.96 

sinopsiscz 

69 

5.02 

Tchaj-wan 

90 

4.85 

47. 

uznat 

137 

3.93 

obdržet 

254 

4.98 

samostatnost 

59 

4.84 

48. 

ostrov 

144 

3.89 

ne/uznat 

325 

4.97 

Eleven collocates are shared across the three groups for the lexeme tchajwanský (see Table 5), i.e. Foxconn, Autoland, Cchaj, úžina, TSCM, Tchaj-pej, Chino (in fact China), průliv, prezidentka, and tibetský. They belong to four semantic categories: business, cooperation, geolocation, and politics. The business category includes Taiwanese company names such as Foxconn, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), China Airlines, and China Times. These appear in Czech media in the context of the semiconductor industry, technological development, and corporate investment and turnover. China Airlines is mentioned in relation to the planned opening of a branch office in Prague. One company name, Autoland Technology, appears in the cooperation category. It is associated with assistance provided to the Czech Republic during the pandemic, as Autoland Technology delivered respirators free of charge as part of mutual cooperation.

Four collocates, úžina, Tchaj-pej, průliv, and tibetský, fall into the geolocation category. The lexeme Tchaj-pej most often appears as a reference to the capital of Taiwan in general, and more specifically in the context of the partnership agreement between the City of Prague and Taipei City. Úžina and průliv refer to the Taiwan Strait, which has been a source of tension between China and Taiwan since the end of the Chinese Civil War (Tanaka 2022: 122). This is largely due to Chinese manoeuvres in the strait as a show of force, which are countered by American manoeuvres in support of Taiwan’s autonomy. The Taiwan Strait also appears in the context of meteorological conditions related to the typhoons that frequently pass through the area.

The lexeme tibetský mostly relates to the Tibetan and Taiwanese flags that were hung in windows opposite the hotel where the Chinese president stayed in Prague in 2016. This incident attracted media attention in connection with the unlawful police intervention and the removal of the flags. It was a manifestation of support for Tibetan and Taiwanese independence, demonstrating the solidarity of many Czech citizens with Taiwan and Tibet. Ultimately, the court ruled that the police intervention had been unjustified.

The last category, politics, includes the collocates Cchaj, Chino (in fact China), prezidentka, and proplout. The collocates Cchaj and prezidentka refer to former Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, a representative of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). She appeared in the Czech media in several contexts, the most prominent being the deterioration of relations between Beijing and Taipei following her election in 2016. She openly rejected rapprochement with mainland China. She also held talks with Czech representatives (Zdeněk Hřib, Miloš Vystrčil), which received extensive media coverage. Her congratulatory message to Donald Trump after his election was likewise reported, often in connection with a perceived weakening of relations with China. The collocate Chino is linked to China Airlines, which was used by Czech delegates travelling to Taiwan. The collocate proplout refers to manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait, as discussed in the paragraph above.

The topics falling into the four semantic categories (business, cooperation, geolocation, and politics) can, as with the lexeme Tchaj-wan, be regarded as independent of the data source.

Lemmas exhibiting duplication occur more frequently with the lexeme tchajwanský than with Tchaj-wan. The SOC group contains most of these lemmas, with twice as many as in the Tchaj-wan group (31 lemmas). The NEWS and DIS groups contain 14 and 9 duplicated lemmas respectively. Within SOC, two lemmas are shared with the other groups but display a high number of duplicates only in SOC. Thus, lemmas showing duplication differ considerably across the groups.

Table 5. Comparison of data sources based on the most frequent lemmas collocating with the lexeme tchajwanský.

DIS

SOC

NEWS

lemma

Freq

logDice

lemma

Freq

logDice

lemma

Freq

logDice

Foxconn

119

11.42

Autoland

284

10.08

Cchaj

283

9.96

Foxconn

28

6.98

Cchaj

132

8.89

Sie

274

9.47

Autoland

6

6.62

vykázání

186

8.70

Tchaj-pej

182

8.97

Cchaj

6

6.29

Foxconn

109

8.01

TSMC

175

8.79

úžina

9

5.77

prezidentka

571

7.95

Foxconn

180

8.71

skůtry

3

5.63

Airlines

163

7.69

průliv

253

8.45

grošík

3

5.51

technolog

154

7.59

spoluhráčka

96

8.03

reexport

4

5.47

Chung-I

40

7.34

Čchan

64

7.93

čínština

10

5.24

EvaSelepova

42

7.29

prezidentka

491

7.73

TSMC

7

5.21

CPBL

35

7.11

HTC

121

7.27

Vystrčilův

5

4.84

Tchaj-pej

43

6.91

úžina

55

7.20

ZF

3

4.78

průliv

83

6.85

Autoland

32

6.90

Tchaj-pej

4

4.68

Bioorganic

25

6.70

DigiTimes

30

6.83

virolog

11

4.55

ozývat

197

6.56

CviLux

28

6.82

Chino

7

4.27

znovuzvolený

27

6.56

parťačka

57

6.64

průliv

9

4.12

podporovatelka

28

6.50

proplout

41

6.57

prezidentka

32

3.93

aerolinka

124

6.47

MediaTek

27

6.46

proplout

3

3.75

TSMC

32

6.36

Asus

88

6.31

anabáze

3

3.67

oolong

20

6.33

Jou

33

6.25

Vyskoč

3

3.60

ventilátor

201

6.18

SafeDX

16

5.99

trpaslík

15

3.42

přepravce

39

5.91

Wistron

16

5.98

Airlines

6

3.35

aerolinie

30

5.89

partnerka

194

5.94

tibetský

8

3.20

pokrokový

68

5.88

Kao-siung

15

5.91

Asus

8

3.15

oblak

73

5.85

Chino

33

5.86

skřet

4

3.09

Jou

24

5.82

Economic

18

5.81

aerolinka

9

2.91

Zantovsky

14

5.76

Strýcová

58

5.78

Vystrčil

16

2.78

Tsai

13

5.68

Kymco

15

5.77

AZ

6

2.76

zásilka

169

5.65

Computex

15

5.76

kašpárek

4

2.72

skauting

28

5.64

bohemista

15

5.67

hongkongský

3

2.62

KantorLumir

12

5.51

aerolinka

70

5.64

čivava

4

2.56

ne/blahopřát

114

5.43

Chieftec

12

5.59

korejský

10

2.49

přivítat

173

5.42

NCC

12

5.58

KS

4

2.46

Sie

16

5.40

Chung-I

12

5.56

inaugurace

4

2.41

úžina

15

5.36

Joanne

13

5.47

delegace

8

2.22

Chino

23

5.35

Tsai

11

5.40

investice

57

2.12

dar

278

5.21

Sym

11

5.33

diplomat

12

2.03

Li-lin

9

5.20

aerolinie

20

5.29

Taiwan

3

1.76

Kennedy

31

5.14

vykázání

17

5.23

loterie

4

1.70

investor

262

5.10

polovodič

13

5.22

firma

236

1.59

uvěznění

16

5.09

recepce

53

5.21

protějšek

4

1.48

oolonzích

8

5.05

Giant

13

5.12

pozvání

8

1.40

přednést

33

5.05

Hingisová

10

5.12

přepis

3

1.23

tibetský

35

5.03

tenistka

65

5.03

investor

17

1.20

Lien

8

5.00

separatismus

11

5.02

sportovec

14

1.13

Taipei

9

4.96

metropole

125

5.02

provincie

5

1.10

prášit

22

4.94

Jüng-tchem

8

5.01

národnost

4

1.06

SenatCZ

22

4.86

PTT

8

4.99

vlajka

11

0.84

oolongy

7

4.85

tibetský

34

4.98

velvyslanec

7

0.81

wang

12

4.83

excellence

14

4.92

elektronika

4

0.69

proplout

12

4.82

36letý

10

4.90

This section has provided a general description of the lemmas included in Tables 4 and 5 and has commented primarily on the similarities between the individual data sources. The differences are discussed in the following three subsections, which focus on the typical collocates for the DIS, SOC, and NEWS groups.

Discussion and forum group

The DIS group contains fora and discussions beneath online press articles. It represents a dynamic mode of communication that occurs multidirectionally between participants (see Cvrček et al. 2021: 358–359). Consequently, this group typically reflects people’s opinions on individual events. Most collocates appear in topics related to politics, geolocation, and business (see Table 6).

Table 6. Semantic categories of lemmas collocating with the lexemes Tchaj-wan and tchajwanský within the DIS group.

Semantic category

Collocates

Tchaj-wan

tchajwanský

business

Nouns

součástka “component,” delegace “delegation.”

Foxconn, Foxconn, skůtry15 “scooters,” reexport, TSMC, ZF, Airlines, Asus, AZ, investice “investment,” firma “company,” investor, elektronika “electronics.”

Verbs

obchodovat “to trade.”

cooperation

Nouns

dar “gift,” Satanasi.

Autoland.

Adjectives

slíbený “promised.”

geolocation

Nouns

Tibet (also tibet), Singapur “Singapore,” ČLR “PRC,” Taiwan, Hongkong (also Hong Kong), Formosa, Korea, Vietnam, Čína “China” (also čína, čina), Tchaj-wan “Taiwan,” Filipíny “Philippines,” Japonsko “Japan,” ROC, ostrov “island.”

úžina “strait,” Tchaj-pej “Taipei,” průliv “strait,” tibetský “Tibetan,” hongkongský “Hongkongese,” korejský “Korean,” Taiwan.

Adjectives

pevninský “mainland,” nedílný “integral.”

politics

Nouns

činitel “official,” Vystrčil “Miloš Vystrčil,” delegace “delegation,” Kuberová “Věra Kuberová,” Kubera “Jaroslav Kubera,” Čankajšek “Chiang Kai-shek,” návštěva “visit.”

Cchaj “Tsai Ing-wen,” grošík “penny,” čínština “Chinese,” Chino “China Airlines,” prezidentka “(female) president,” anabáze “anabasis,” Vyskoč “Pepek Vyskoč,” trpaslík “dwarf,” skřet “goblin,” aerolinka “airline,” Vystrčil “Miloš Vystrčil,” kašpárek “clown,” čivava “chihuahua,” KS “Comunist Party,” inagurace “inauguration,” delegace “delegation,” diplomat, protějšek “counterpart,” pozvání “invitation,” velvyslanec “ambassador.”

Adjectives

Vystrčilův “Vystrčil’s.”

Vystrčilův “Vystrčil’s.”

Verbs

vystrčit16 “to push out.”

proplout “to pass through.”

statehood

Nouns

provincie “province,” samostatnost “autonomy,” uznání “recognition.”

národnost “nationality,” vlajka “flag,” provincie “province”

Adjectives

samostatný “independent.”

Verbs

ne/uznat “to recognise.”

sport

Nouns

sportovec “sportsman”

reporting

Nouns

virus, luskoun “pangolin,” pomůčka “equipment.”

virolog “virologist,” loterie “lottery,” přepis “transcription.”

Adjectives

antivirový “antiviral.”

Verbs

syntetizovat “to synthesise,” zakročit “to intervene,” zoranžovět “to turn into orange.”

This section focuses on collocates that are typical of the DIS group. In the business category, collocates for the lexeme tchajwanský occur more frequently than those for Tchaj-wan. Taiwanese investments in the Czech Republic are discussed in comparison with Chinese investments (collocates: reexport, investice, firma, investor, součástka, obchodovat), which, according to the commentaries,17 surpass Chinese investment levels. The commentaries also refer to Taiwanese company names and their technologies (collocates: Asus, elektronika, AZ, ZF, skútry). A discussion concerning China Airlines (collocate: Airlines) notes that the company is of Taiwanese origin and appears in the context of Vystrčil’s delegation to Taiwan (collocate: delegace).

All collocates within the cooperation category relate to a single event: Taiwan’s assistance during the pandemic through the supply of ventilators (dar, slíbený). The company Autoland Technology produced the ventilators intended for the Czech Republic. The nickname Santasi appears as a duplicate in identical messages commenting on free Taiwanese assistance, in contrast to China, which did not provide anything free of charge.18

The geolocation category includes a list of Southeast and East Asian countries (collocates: Vietnam, Filipíny, Japonsko), referring either to events in the region or to countries (collocates: Taiwan, Vietnam, Japonsko) cited as examples of successful pandemic management. Other collocates (ČLR, ROC, pevninský, ostrov, nedílný) concern Taiwan–China relations, particularly Taiwan’s status as a state and Taiwanese national identity. The country name Taiwan is also discussed in the context of Czech spelling, as it appears in two forms: Tchaj-wan and Taiwan. The former is typically used in official references to the Republic of China. The collocate Formosa appears both in its historical sense and as another designation for the island. The adjectives hongkongský and korejský indicate origin from those respective countries.

Within the semantic category of politics, many collocates refer to Vystrčil. His pejorative portrayal is evident in online discussions, where he is compared to various fictional characters (collocates: Vyskoč, trpaslík, skřet, kašpárek, čivava) or mocked for his supposed greed for Taiwanese money (collocate: grošík). Further comments relate to his delegation to Taiwan and his pro-Taiwan stance. As an act of sympathy and support for democracy, he declared the sentence “I am Taiwanese” in Chinese during his official speech in Taiwan (collocates: Vystrčil, Vystrčilův, Kuberová, delegace, čínština, anabáze).

Another political issue concerns the expulsion of the Taiwanese ambassador from a meeting at the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade, as well as discussions about the removal of a Taiwanese diplomat during the Prague mayor’s New Year gathering (collocates: diplomat, velvyslanec, inaugurace). The next group of collocates (činitel, protějšek, pozvání) refers to international relations and tensions between China and the Czech Republic arising from the official state visit to Taiwan. There are also comments about the Communist Party (collocate: KS) operating in Taiwan, which seeks to unify China, and historical references to the state leader Chiang Kai-shek, who fled to Taiwan (collocate: Čankajšek). The collocate proplout appears in the context of an American flotilla passing through the Taiwan Strait.

Many discussions on Taiwan’s statehood included collocates such as provincie, samostatnost, uznání, národnost, vlajka, ne/uznat. Contributors express their views on whether Taiwan should be recognised and what such recognition might imply for the future. The sport category is represented by a single collocate, sportovec, which also appears as a duplicate. It refers to comments on Taiwan’s participation in the Olympic Games, where it competes as Chinese Taipei. The final category, reporting, mostly concerns the pandemic, with discussions on vaccination, viruses, medical equipment, and related topics (collocates: virus, pomůcka, virolog, antivirový, syntetizovat, zakročit). Other themes include animals donated to Prague Zoo (luskoun), Taiwanese cultural items such as the invoice lottery (loterie), and the transcription of Chinese names (přepis).

Social media group

The SOC group consists of data from social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and the former Twitter. These data are dynamic, and the resharing of information is common. Consequently, this group contains the highest number of lemmas showing duplication. Most lemmas fall within the semantic categories of politics, reporting, and geolocation (see Table 7). There are no examples from the business or sport categories for the lexeme Tchaj-wan, and, conversely, no examples from the statehood category for the lexeme tchajwanský.

Table 7. Semantic categories of lemmas collocating with the lexemes Tchaj-wan and tchajwanský within the SOC group.

Semantic category

Collocates

Tchaj-wan

tchajwanský

business

Nouns

Foxconn, Airlines, Bioorganic, TSMC, přepravce “carrier,” Chino “China Airlines,” investor.

Verbs

ozývat [se] “to contact.”

cooperation

Nouns

poděkování “thanks,” @sinopsiscz, dar “gift.”

Autoland, technolog, ventilátor “ventilator,” dar “gift,” Li-lin “Li-Lin Kuo.”

Adjectives

nezištný “disinterested,” bezplatný “free,” ochranný “protective,” poskytnutý “provided.”

Verbs

ne/poděkovat “not/to thank,” darovat “to donate,” obdržet “to obtain.”

přednést “to present.”

geolocation

Nouns

Tibet, Hongkong “Hong Kong,” Macao, Singapur “Singapore,” Taiwan, Korea, ČLR “PRC,” Čína “China,” Taipei.

Tchaj-pej “Taipei,” průliv “strait,” úžina “strait,” tibetský “Tibetan,” Taipei.

politics

Nouns

Vystrčil “Miloš Vystrčil,” @Vystrcil, delegace “delegation,” Kubera “Jaroslav Kubera,” @SenatCZ, návštěva “visit,” prezidentka “(female) president,” @ZdenekHrib, cesta “journey,” @PavelFischer, senát “senate,” @KantorLumir, @Telicka, @andpolescuk, zástupce “representative.”

Cchaj “Tsai Ing-wen,” vykázání “expulsion,” prezidentka “(female) president,” Chung-I “Wang Chung-yi,” @EvaSelepova, areolinka “airline,” aerolinie “airline,” pokorokový “progressive,” oblak “cloud,” Jou “Jou Si-kun,” Tsai “Tsai Ing-wen,” zásilka “shipment,” @KantorLumir, ne/blahopřát “not/to congratulate,” Kennedy “John Kennedy,” uvěznění “imprisonment,” Lien “Lien Chan,” @SenatCZ, wang “Wang Mei-hua.”

Adjectives

doněcký “Donetsk,” klukovský “boyish,” Vystrčilův “Vystrčil’s,” odmítnutí “rejection.”

znovuzvolený “re-elected.”

Verbs

přirovnávat “to compare,” letět “to fly,” vystrčit “to push out,” navštívit “to visit,” vypravit [se] “to go,” obdržet “to obtain.”

přivítat “to welcome,” prášit “to dust,” proplout “to pass through.”

statehood

Verbs

ne/uznávat‘not/to recognise,” ne/uznat ‘not/to recognise.”

sport

Nouns

CPBL “Chinese Professional Baseball League,” Sie “Hsieh Su-wei.”

reporting

Nouns

návětěva “visit,” cesta “journey,” letět “to fly,” soutěž19 “competition,” impérium “empire.”

podporovatelka, areolinka “airline,” oolong “oolong tea,” oolonzích “oolong teas.”

Adjectives

představující “presenting.”

aerolinie ‘“airline,” Zantovsky, sakuting, Chino “China Airlines,” oolongy “oolong teas.”

Verbs

navštívit “to visit.”

The business semantic category is primarily associated with the lexeme tchajwanský, where company names appear in relation to their products and investments (collocates: Foxconn, Airlines, Bioorganic, TSMC). There are also comments referring to China Airlines and Vystrčil’s delegation to Taiwan, but China Airlines likewise appears in discussions about direct flights between Prague and Taipei. The collocates investor and ozývat show a high number of duplicates; they relate to Taiwanese investment in the Czech Republic and to a single reposted tweet containing information about a business activity.20

As in the previous subsection, all collocates within the cooperation category relate to Taiwan’s support through the delivery of ventilators during the pandemic. The popularity of Z. Hřib’s tweet about the Taiwanese donation21 is particularly notable. Other reposted social media content concerns the businessman Li-Lin Kuo, who donated respirators. The geolocation category, in addition to topics similar to those in the DIS group, includes information about the pandemic situation in Asian countries (collocates: Macao, Singapur, Korea) and expressions of praise for Taiwan’s management of the coronavirus crisis. Taiwan also appears in discussions about its legal status as a country, while Tchaj-pej occurs in references to the capital, the Taipei 101 tower, the zoo, or simply as part of an address.

The topics within the politics category overlap with those discussed above. However, no pejorative expressions about Vystrčil appear here. Based on the reposted collocates, it seems that the most prominent topics on social media concerned the official Czech visit to Taiwan and the expulsion of a Taiwanese representative from a meeting at the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade. Attention was also given to the re-election of President Tsai. The question of Taiwan’s statehood was associated with only two verbal collocates (ne/uznávat “to recognise,” ne/uznat “to recognise”), which appeared both with and without negation, but only in combination with the noun Tchaj-wan. This indicates that public opinion is divided regarding the recognition of Taiwan.

The lexeme tchajwanský relates to two sporting events. The first concerns a baseball team in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) and its results. The second relates to the tennis match between Barbora Strýcová and Sie Šu-wej. The reporting category includes information about tourism (collocates: návštěva, cesta, letět, navštívit, aerolinka), where tips and comments on travelling to Taiwan can be found. Taiwanese culture (collocates: oolong, oolonzích, oolongy) is represented by Taiwan’s national tea, described as a high-quality product. The newspaper Deník organised a contest to win a trip to Taiwan, which contributed to the frequency of the collocate soutěž, appearing as a hashtag.

News

The NEWS group covers internet news sources, including, for instance, mainstream, tabloid, analytical–investigative, and anti-system media. Compared with the SOC group, it contains fewer collocates showing duplication and is less expressive than those in the DIS group found in discussions and forum comments. In comparison with both of the other groups, it includes more collocates related to sport, while business, geolocation, and politics are also important (see Table 8).

Table 8. Semantic categories of lemmas collocating with the lexemes Tchaj-wan and tchajwanský within NEWS group.

Semantic category

Collocates

Tchaj-wan

tchajwanský

business

Nouns

Semiconductor, delegace “delegation,” Manufacturing, Cooperative.

TSMC, Foxconn, HTC, DigiTimes, CviLux, MediaTek, Asus, SafeDX, Wistron, Chino “China Airlines,” Economic, Kymco, Computex, Chieftec, NCC, SYM, polovodič “semiconductor,” Giant, PTT, excellence “excellence.”

cooperation

Nouns

ventilátor “ventilator.”

Autoland.

Adjectives

plicní “lung.”

Verbs

darovat “to donate.”

geolocation

Nouns

Tibet, Macao,

Hongkong “Hong Kong,” Tchaj-pej “Taipei,” Singapur “Singapore,” Filipíny “Philippines,” Čína (also čína) “China,” Vietnam, Korea, Malajsie “Malaysia,” Peking “Beijing,” Thajsko “Thailand,” Japonsko “Japan,” ČLR “PRC,” ostrovní “island,” Taipei, Indonésie “Indonesia,” tchajwanský “Taiwanese,” Tchaj-wan “Taiwan.”

Tchaj-pej “Taipei,” průliv “strait,” úžina “strait,” Kao-siung “Kaohsiung,” metropole “metropolis,” tibetský “Tibetan.”

Adjectives

pevninský “mainland.”

politics

Nouns

Vystrčil “Miloš Vystrčil,” Kubera “Jaroslav Kubera,” delegace “delegation,” návštěva ‘visit,” Cooperative, zástupce “representative,” cesta “journey,” prezidentka “(female) president.”

Cchaj “Tsai Ing-wen,” prezidentka “(female) president,” Jou “Jou Si-kun,” Chino “China Airlines,” areolinka “airline,” Chung-I “Wang Chung-yi,” Joanne “Joanne Ou,” Tsai “Tsai Ing-wen,” aerolinie “airline,” vykázání “expulsion,” recepce “reception,” Jüng-tchem “Lee Yung-te.”

Adjectives

Vystrčilův “Vystrčil’s.”

Verbs

navštívit “to visit.”

proplout “to pass through.”

statehood

Nouns

nezávislost “independence,” samostatnost “autonomy.”

separtismus “separatism.”

Adjectives

neoddělitelný “inseparable.”

Verbs

ne/uznávat “not/to recognise.”

sport

Nouns

Šu-wej “Hsieh Su-wei,” Hsieh “Hsieh Su-wei,” Jüng-žan (also Yung-jan) “Latisha Chan,” Chuang22 “Yu-Ting Huang,” univerziáda “Universiade,” Čao-cchun “Cheng Chao-tsun.”

Sie “Hsieh Su-wei,” spoluhráčka ‘(female) teammate,” Čchan “Chan Yung-jan,” parťačka “(female) partner,” partnerka “(female) partner,” Strýcová “Barbora Strýcová,” Hingisová “Martina Hingis,” tenistka “(female) tennis player.”

reporting

Nouns

návštěva “visit,” Chuang “Chia-Chun Chuang,” cesta “journey.”

bohemista “student of Czech studies,” areolinka “airline,” aerolinie ‘airline.”

Adjectives

36letý “36-year-old.”

Verbs

navštívit “to visit.”

Business-related topics concern high-tech companies involved in the semiconductor industry (collocates: Semiconductor, Manufacturing, TSMC, HTC, MediaTek, polovodič), electronic components (Foxconn), automobiles (Kymco, SYM23), computer hardware (Asus, Wistron), and other companies (Cooperative,24 Cvilux, Chino,25 Chieftec, Giant (Bicycles), NCC26) and portals (DigiTimes, Economic (Daily), PTT) of Taiwanese origin. The media most often report on companies’ new products, sales growth, or innovations in technology and production. News items also cover the Taiwanese Computex trade fair (collocate: Computex). The duplicates of the collocate exelence relate to the Taiwanese Excellence Gold Awards.

The cooperation semantic category, as in the two previous groups, concerns Taiwan’s support in supplying ventilators to the Czech Republic. In terms of the geolocation category, besides a list of Southeast Asian countries and references to COVID-19, some collocates appear in the context of China’s territorial claims in various parts of the South China Sea (collocates: Filipíny, Vietnam, Malajsie, Indonésie). The topic of tension between China and Taiwan is also present, with China regarding Taiwan as an integral part of its territory and accusing it of being a rebel province (collocates: Čína, Peking, ostrovní).

The official visits of Czech delegates to Taiwan and the expulsion of the Taiwanese ambassador from a meeting are the most prominent topics within the politics semantic category. In addition to the previous groups, a meeting between Miloš Vystrčil and representatives of the Taiwan Cooperative Bank is mentioned, concerning the establishment of a Taiwanese branch in the Czech Republic (collocate: Cooperative). The statehood category includes collocates relating to Taiwan’s independence (nezávislost, samostatnost) and questions regarding its sovereignty (neoddělitelný, ne/uznávat). The duplicates of the collocate separatismus reflect Taiwanese tendencies framed as a threat of separatism.

In contrast to the two previous groups, the NEWS group comments much more extensively on sport. The focus is mainly on tennis matches and their players (e.g. Hsieh, Yung-jan, Chuang, Strýcová, tenistka). There is also information about the World Universiade held in Taiwan in 2017 (collocate: univerziáda). In addition to information about tourist visits to Taiwan or the Taiwanese China Airlines, reports include visits by Miloš Vystrčil or Václav Havel to Taiwanese students of Czech at National Chengchi University (collocate: bohemista). Furthermore, an incident involving a Taiwanese traveller who lost her life in the mountains appears as a duplicate (collocate: 36letý).

Discussion and concluding remarks

This study has sought to examine how Taiwan is represented in the Czech online media captured in the ONLINE1 corpus during the period 2017–2020, and to identify the most common topics associated with frequent collocations. The results indicate that the prevailing themes in this period were: visits of Czech delegates to Taiwan; Taiwanese assistance during the COVID-19 crisis; and questions concerning relations between China and Taiwan, particularly in relation to Taiwan’s statehood. The comparison between the three data groups – discussions and fora, social media, and news – reveals topics that can be considered either data-source-independent or data-source-dependent. Data-source-independent topics include:

Southeast and East Asian countries and their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic,

international recognition of Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong as independent states,

discussions concerning the One China Policy,

the visit of the President of the Czech Senate to Taiwan,

travel-related and cultural information about Taiwan,

Taiwanese companies in the context of the high-tech industry and technological development,

Taiwan’s support provided to the Czech Republic during the pandemic,

the Taiwan Strait as a strategic location,

the display of Tibetan and Taiwanese flags opposite the Chinese president’s hotel in Prague,

the visibility of former Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen,

China Airlines’ business presence and the introduction of a new flight connection with Prague.

A comparison between the noun and adjective under examination also indicates a stronger emphasis on business within the collocates of the adjective, and a stronger emphasis on geolocation within the collocates of the noun. Both the noun and the adjective emphasises political issues.

The differences between the three groups show that the discussion-and-fora group is characterised by more opinion-driven expressions of people’s views (for example, pejorative descriptions of Miloš Vystrčil). The social media group, by contrast, relies heavily on reposted content, which signals heightened public interest in single, high-profile topics (e.g. the official Czech visit to Taiwan). The news group is comparatively balanced, with varying levels of expressivity and duplication across topics such as sport, business, geolocation, and politics.

The collocation analysis has shown that the most frequent collocates of the noun Tchaj-wan (“Taiwan”) are primarily associated with political events, international relations, and geolocation terms, including references to Czech political representatives (Miloš Vystrčil, Jaroslav Kubera), visits and delegations, and East Asian countries (China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea). This suggests that the noun is most often used in contexts that frame Taiwan as a political and geopolitical actor situated within broader international and regional debates.

In contrast, the adjective tchajwanský (“Taiwanese”) frequently co-occurs with company names and economic terminology (e.g. TSMC, Foxconn, MediaTek, investice “investment”), reinforcing Taiwan’s image as a technologically advanced and economically significant partner. This indicates that while Tchaj-wan evokes primarily political and diplomatic dimensions, tchajwanský reflects economic cooperation and technological development.

Taken together, these findings show that Czech online media between 2017 and 2020 portrayed Taiwan through two complementary lenses: as a democratic political partner and as a technological and economic ally. The representation is predominantly positive, emphasising cooperation, shared democratic values, and mutual benefit. This framing corresponds to the gradual strengthening of Czech–Taiwanese relations during the period in question, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and high-level political visits.

The results indicate that the relationship between the Czech Republic and Taiwan is reciprocal, leading to deepened cooperation between 2017 and 2020, a trend that aligns with findings from other, mainly political science, studies (I. T.-Y. Chen 2023; W.-Y. Chen 2023). Nevertheless, the Czech Republic proceeds cautiously, balancing its political relations with both China and Taiwan, despite belonging to a group of countries less dependent on China (Chen 2023: 51). The pandemic demonstrated a further shift of Taiwan towards the Czech Republic. At the same time, Taiwan increasingly appears in Czech media not only as a political partner but also as a technological and economic collaborator, a representation that supports Taiwan’s efforts to strengthen its position in the global high-tech supply chain (Chen 2023: 55).

Several limitations should be acknowledged. The study is confined to a specific time period (2017–2020) and focuses exclusively on the Czech language and media environment. Although it includes various online sources, it does not analyse user-generated content in depth, such as reader comments or reposting behaviour, which could provide additional insight into public sentiment. Moreover, as the study sought to identify the most frequent collocations relating to Taiwan, less frequent topics may not have been captured.

Future research could extend this analysis in several directions. A longitudinal approach covering a longer timespan would help identify both stable themes and occasional, time-specific topics. An updated investigation of the representation of Taiwan in Czech online media could reveal whether ties between the Czech Republic and Taiwan continue to deepen and whether Taiwanese visibility in Czech digital discourse has increased. Comparative studies involving other Central or Eastern European countries could also determine whether similar patterns can be observed elsewhere.

Acknowledgements

This paper was written as part of the Supply Chain Resilience Center project between Charles University and National Chengchi University.

References

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1 Data are provided till March 2021. 

2 For comparison, the lexeme Hongkong “Hong Kong” appeared only 17,717 times.

3 LogDice is an example of an association measure used to identify collocations (http://wiki.korpus.cz/doku.php?id=en:manualy:kontext:kolokace&rev=1533545959). Accessed 22.09.2025).

4 A lemma is the canonical form representing all word forms of a given lexeme. For instance, jet, jede, jel, jedou are word forms of the lemma jít “to go.”

5 A nickname appearing in the discussion section.

6 The collocation tool produced the lemma zištný, which occurred only in negated contexts. Therefore, the negated form is included in the table.

7 The collocate poděkovat appeared in the data both with and without negation. To indicate this, a slash with the negation prefix is used.

8 This collocate is mostly used as a noun referring to Miloš Vystrčil. However, a few examples show wordplay, where it is used as a verb but retains the meaning referring to Miloš Vystrčil.

9 The collocates uznávat and uznat appeared in the data both with and without negation. To indicate this, a slash with the negation prefix is used.

10 In the data, it appears as a hashtag without Czech diacritics.

11 In fact, it is part of the company name China Airlines. The word China was automatically lemmatised as Chino.

12 In fact, this refers to the company name Autoland Technology Co., Ltd.

13 This is an error in automatic lemmatisation, as the item functions as an adjective in context.

14 The collocate blahopřát appeared in the data both with and without negation. To indicate this, a slash with the negation prefix is used.

15 The lemma is written in a non-standard spelling; the correct form should be skútr.

16 This collocate is mostly used as a noun referring to Miloš Vystrčil. However, a few examples show wordplay, where it is used as a verb but retains the meaning referring to Miloš Vystrčil.

17 Corpus excerpt example: “(…) tchajwanské investice u nás do konce r. 2017 činily 5,7 miliardy Kč, zatím co ty čínské byly jen 410 miliónů Kč = 14 krát méně!” (Taiwanese investments in our country by the end of 2017 amounted to 5.7 billion CZK, while Chinese investments were only 410 million CZK = 14 times less!). https://www.korpus.cz/kontext/view?q=~investments. Accessed 19.09.2025.

18 Corpus excerpt example: “Tchai-wan nám poslal “jen” 25 ventilátorů, ale Čína, které lezeme do zadku, zadarmo ani prd” (Taiwan sent us “only” 25 ventilators, but China, up whose arse we are crawling, does not give a damn for free). https://www.korpus.cz/kontext/view?q=~Santas. Accessed 19.09.2025.

19 In the data, it appears as a hashtag without Czech diacritics.

20 @jirkkus: “Už včera se mi začali ozývat první tchajwanští investoři, kteří mají zájem o české nanotechnologie” (Yesterday, the first Taiwanese investors began contacting me; they are interested in Czech nanotechnologies); https://x.com/jirkakus/status/1302287296973148164/. Accessed 20.09.2025.

21 @zdenekhrib: “Plicní ventilátory z tchaj-wanského daru budou zachraňovat lidské životy v nemocnicích v Praze!” (Lung ventilators from a Taiwanese donation will save lives in hospitals in Prague); https://x.com/ZdenekHrib/status/1247877661604679681/. Accessed 20.09.2025.

22 This collocate appears only once and was included in the data due to the identical spelling of the sportswoman’s name Chia-Chun Chuang.

23 Sanyang Motor.

24 Taiwan Cooperative Bank (TCB).

25 China Airlines.

26 National Communications Commission (NCC).

Received:

01.07.2025

Reviewed:

07.08.2025

Accepted:

24.09.2025