Personal Referents in Lilit Phralaw : A Sociolinguistic Study

Abstract

This study aims to investigate patterns of personal referents and their uses on the basis of relationships among the first person (speaker), the second person (listener) and the third person, mentioned in a Thai literary work entitled Lilit Phralaw. The results show two personal referent patterns: pronouns and non-pronoun words, both simple and compound. The uses of pronouns vary in accordance with social relationships : higher, same and lower.