Taking the discourse on health insurance policy for mainland students as an
example, this paper aims to discuss the categories and images of mainland
students through critical discourse analysis. The data analyzed in the paper shows
that users of PTT categorize mainland students as “paid or unpaid mainland
students”, “mainland students as young temporary residents”, “mainland
students that are not Taiwanese”, and “mainland students that are Chinese”. This
categorization reflects the complicated Cross-Strait relations as well as the question
of "the other" in Taiwan.