Intelligibility of English in Thai Street Food Menus Perceived by East Asian Tourists

Abstract

This research aims to determine the intelligibility of Thai English used by local vendors on street food menus for East Asian tourists. To achieve the primary goal, the characteristics of Thai English used in dishes on street food menus, including Moo Nam Tok (Spicy sliced pork salad), Pad Thai (Thai-style stir-fried noodles), Khao Pad (Fried rice), Som Tam (Papaya salad), and Tom Yam Kung (Hot and sour lemongrass soup with shrimps), were collected from five famous street food areas, namely, Chinatown, Old Town, Sukhumvit, Silom and Sathorn, and Saphan Lueng. The research made use of Ngampramuan’s (2016) framework that divides Thai English features into two types: grammatical features and lexico-semantic features. Then, these characteristics were applied in the survey asking 100 Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean tourists to determine the extent of the intelligibility. The findings revealed that the grammatical features had higher intelligibility mean score, while lexico-semantic features had lower intelligibility mean score. This implies that Thai English with grammatical features on street food menus are easier to understand than lexico-semantic features.