In 1930 Huang Shih-hui promoted hsiang-t'u literature, while in 1931 Kuo Ch'iu-sheng sparked the debate over literature in colloquial Taiwanese. Such a development has its own internal logic: that is, since literature wants to represent the people that live on this piece of land, it surely follows that it would be done in Taiwanese, uniting what the mouth speaks with what the pen writes. In 1932 the magazine Nan-yin (Southern Voices) especially inaugurated the column "Discussing Literature in Taiwanese." Such members of the literature- in-Taiwanese camp as Kuo Ch'iu-sheng, Chuang Sui-hsing, Huang Shih-hui and Li Hsien-chang advocated "making writing conform to speaking," that is, making the spoken language the core element. Others like Liao Han-ch'en, Lin K'o-fu, Lai Ming-hung, and Chu Tien-jen felt that with all the various sub-dialects of the Fu-chien dialect, as well as the Hakka dialect, if everyone wrote using their own dialect, it would create confusion in literature and expression; thus they emphasized "making speaking conform to writing," so as to adapt to the Chinese-style vernacular. This stand was criticized as "sycophancy" by the literature-in-Taiwanese camp. This debate went on for almost a year, but what is worth remembering is that despite the different stances regarding language usage, both sides to the argument assumed "Taiwanese literature" as an integrated idea. At least the debate revealed that the New Literature expressed by a colonial Taiwan was neither an offshoot of Japanese literature nor some second-class form of Chinese literature. It was in these unique historical circumstances that an independent Taiwanese literature came about.

     This is an idea that had never occurred before among the Han people of Taiwan; naturally, during the Ming and Ch'ing periods there were the literary traditions of poetry and lyrics, but there was never any such notion as "Taiwanese literature." Even if Taiwan's New Literature Movement was starting during the 1920s, the idea of a Taiwanese literature was not immediately assumed, and it was only after undergoing these two critical debates in the 1930s that such an idea reached fruition.

     On the other hand, the literature of the younger generation was taking shape with the establishment in Tokyo during 1932 of the Taiwan Arts Study Group; this was the period with literary creation conducted in Japanese. The Study Group's journal Formosa made the following declaration in its inaugural issue:

     In a passive sense, we wish to collate and study artistic and literary works that have become ever weaker, so as to match such native art as popular songs and folk-tales;

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