A fact-finding survey of second-person term usage in Thai and related issues in Thai education programs

Sunisa WITTAYAPANYANON (SAITO)

This paper is intended to present the results of a survey and analysis of second-person terms in Thai and to study related issues in Thai education programs. Personal expression is integral for smooth communication in Thai because of the language’s inherent diversity. This survey was developed to address the potential discrepancy between these terms’ actual usage and their coverage in Thai education programs. The results indicate that the relative age between the speaker and the interlocutor are the predominant factors determining second-person term use, and kin terms are most often used with elder and younger interlocutors. On the other hand, second-person terms for coeval interlocutors are more diversified, indicating intimacy between conversational parties, etc. It may be necessary for learning materials to review the explanations of some second-person terms and develop more efficient methods to teach learners the basic rules of determining proper second-person term use, especially in the early stages of learning, because of its complexity. The selection of person terms appropriate for teaching Thai-as-a-second-language learners and development of learning materials to assist learners in understanding person terms properly are needed to address the educational difficulty of person term use in Thai.