The paper addresses two issues in documenting Paiwan phonology and presents empirical analyses of this indigenous language. The empirical analyses of segments support the argument that acoustic variables play a part in the documentation of stop consonants. The variation of VOTs should be taken into account in the documentation of phonemes. Accent in second person pronouns and address forms represents not only the linguistic features of the language but also the cognitive space of the Paiwan speakers. Empirical studies are needed to verify the phonetic variation and phonological representations in a speech community with varieties. The documentation of Paiwan phonology cannot be accomplished without the examination of variations among the dialects.