Language and Linguistics

An Overview of Research Studies on Southwestern Tai Languages and Language Variation and Change during the Four Decades (AD 1981–2021)

Phinnarat Akharawatthanakun — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

Despite decades of research on various aspects of Southwestern Tai (SWT) within the Kra-Dai (or Tai-Kadai) language family, a comprehensive synthesis of research studies on this subject is still lacking. This article presents the fundamental statistical findings on a survey of studies on SWT languages, covering phonetics and phonology, lexical items, morphology, as well as language variation and change, from AD 1981–2021. A total of 1,076 research works were collected in both print and electronic format, sourced from various databases. The analysis revealed that most research focused on linguistic variation and change (162 items, 15.06%) and how the Southern Thai dialect has changed due to social factors. Additional studies focused on the Central Thai dialect (which includes Standard Thai), the Northeastern Thai dialect, and the Northern Thai dialect. Regarding other SWT languages, most research has focused on Black Tai. An analysis of the aspects of variation and change revealed that most research focused on the lexical level (53 items, 32.72%), followed by tones (45 items, 27.78%), studies covering phonological and lexical variation and change (34 items, 20.99%), and consonants (19 items, 11.73%). Research on vowel variation and change was rare. It is noteworthy that most studies focused on individual languages and variables. To advance understanding, comparative research is needed across multiple SWT languages, encompassing phonological and lexical variation and change, with consideration of both internal and external factors.

Linguistic Devices for Image Restoration in the Discourse of Announcements Made by the Government Official about Mass Shootings in Thailand

Nipada Phorueang, Suchitra Siripanich — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

The objective of this article is to examine linguistic devices for image restoration in the discourse of the announcements made by government officials in the “Nakhon Ratchasima shootings” and “Nong Bua Lamphu shootings” by using typology of image restoration strategies (Benoit, 1995, 1997, 2015) as the framework in the analysis. The results reveal that there are five linguistic devices used by government officials; namely, 1. denial, 2. evading responsibility, 3. reducing offensiveness, 4. corrective action, and 5. mortification. The most preferred device is “denial” which consists of many sub-tactics: simple denial, shifting the blame, and invalidating fault. However, the analysis also shows that “mortification” is the least common device occurring in the discourse. Therefore, the findings indicate that the government officials try to offset the negative image of the organization and restore its image.

Syntactic Interpretations of Raised Determiner Phrases in the Passive Voice: Perspectives of Applied Linguistics Research Articles and Travel Guidebooks

Abhinan Wongkittiporn — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

This study investigates syntactic interpretations of the raised determiner phrase (DP) in passive voice via applied linguistics research articles and travel guidebooks as written in English. The sources of data in this study were gathered from English applied linguistics research journals as indexed in the SCOPUS database (scopus.com) and the travel guidebooks were guides from the countries of France (McGill, 2021) and Spain (Keshan & Sanwalia, 2022) due to their highest numbers of tourist visits. A total number of approximately 300,000 words is made up of an entire 39 tokens, referring to sentences. The current study follows Radford’s (2009) framework to analyze the data. The results of the raised DP in passive voice in applied linguistics research articles show the same DP between given and new information at 62.50 percent due to the principle of consistency in academic writing. The results of travel guidebooks are in contrast in that the given information of the raised DP in passive voice is mostly used with the syntactic interpretation of the replacement by pronoun at 73.91 because of gender identification. The pronouns he or she, referring to the proper noun, are used as the given information. It is expected that the results in this study will be useful for learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in order to apply the raised DP in passive voice accurately.

Are we on the same page?: Comparing Comprehension of Implicatures by Chinese learners of Thai and Native Speakers of Thai

Deeana Kasa, Radarat Sripunvoraskul — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

For L2 learners, comprehension of conversational implicature is one of the most challenging tasks because learners must interpret the intended meaning based on context. If the learners infer meanings incorrectly, it might lead to misunderstandings between interlocutors. This research aims to investigate implicature comprehension in Chinese learners of Thai by comparing their comprehension with native speakers of Thai across different types of implicature. The focus of this research is the implicature caused by flouting a maxim based on Grice’s (1975) paradigm. A total of 50 Chinese learners of Thai and 30 native speakers of Thai completed a questionnaire with multiple-choice answers. The results show that Chinese learners of Thai comprehend implicated messages significantly less than native speakers of Thai. The results also revealed that comprehension of implicatures based on flouting the Relevance maxim were easy for L2 learners while comprehension of implicatures based on flouting the Quality maxim caused the most misunderstandings. It can be assumed that the distance between intended meaning and literal meaning is a crucial factor in interpreting implicature.

Research on the Effect of Overlearning Theory on the Long-term Memory of Chinese Nouns with Different Semantic Transparency among Thai University Students

Chen Yuanyuan, Nathakarn Thaveewatanaseth, Warisa Asavaratana — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

Vocabulary teaching is an essential component of teaching Chinese in Thailand. For Thai university students, teachers should pay attention to their long-term vocabulary retention after class and their learning in class. The effect of long-term vocabulary memorization has a significant effect on the students who need to take the new HSK Test. Based on the ethical review of research ethics involving humans by the Kasetsart University Research Ethics Committee, this paper investigates the effect of “overlearning theory” on the long-term memory of Chinese nouns with high semantic transparency and low semantic transparency by Using qualitative, quantitative, and experimental methods, and found that the “over-learning theory” did have a positive effect on Thai college students’ long-term memory of Chinese noun words within 3-9 weeks. Over-learning did improve students’ long-term memory of Chinese noun words to a certain extent, but it should be noted that there is a difference between words with high and low semantic transparency. The effect of “overlearning theory” on the long-term memory of nouns with high semantic transparency is slightly greater than that of words with low semantic transparency.

Phonological Dilemmas Thai Students Face in Arabic Pronunciation

Kate Asmimana, Abdulai M. Kaba — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

This study assesses the phonological difficulties Thai students face when pronouncing Arabic consonant sounds by comparing and contrasting Arabic and Thai consonant sounds, and by testing students’ pronunciation issues of Arabic sounds through error analysis (e.g., Corder, 1981; Ellis, 2008). Using a basic random selection method, thirty native Thai-speaking students (18 females, 12 males) took a pronunciation test, giving a demographic introduction in Arabic and then speaking about freedom of expression. Contrastive analysis identified twenty-three Arabic consonant sounds that are absent from Thai, and eleven consonant sounds that are synonymous between Arabic and Thai. To identify mispronounced consonant sounds, an analysis was conducted on the students’ voice recordings. Mispronunciations of some Arabic sounds were common and involved addition, omission, and transformation. The study contributes to the creation of Arabic phonetics curricula in Thai-Arabic language educational institutions.

About the Journal

กองบรรณาธิการ ภาษาและภาษาศาสตร์ — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

Editorial Team

กองบรรณาธิการ ภาษาและภาษาศาสตร์ — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

Note from Editor

Chutamanee Onsuwan — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700

Table of Content

กองบรรณาธิการ ภาษาและภาษาศาสตร์ — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0700