Complaints in Thai and English : an interlanguage pragmatic study
Carrying out the speech act of complaining in oneâs mother tongue might not require a great amount of effort. Nevertheless, it tends to be problematic when it comes to the case of second language learners. This study, therefore, explores the characteristics of the interlanguage complaints of Thai learners of English who are in different contexts of studying. The data, based on the DCT (Discourse Completion Task) questionnaires, is taken from four groups of informants: (1) native Thai speakers (2) native English speakers (3) Thai learners of English in Thailand and (4) Thai learners of English in the UK. The findings are analysed within three main aspects namely, the complaint strategies, the complaint lengths and patterns, and the complaint internal modifications. The elicited data reveals that in general the learners of English in Thailand tend to have similar complaint patterns to those of native Thai speakers. On the other hand, the complaint patterns uttered by the learners of English in the UK tend to be close to those of native English speakers. Nevertheless, it seems that neither the learners of English in Thailand, nor in the UK use downgraders properly. The insufficient use of internal modifications,
Rhurakvit, Maneenun
Linguistics
Complaints in Thai and English : an interlanguage pragmatic study. Carrying out the speech act of complaining in oneâs mother tongue might not require a great amount of effort. Nevertheless, it tends to be problematic when it comes to the case of second language learners. This study, therefore, explores the characteristics of the interlanguage complaints of Thai learners of English who are in different contexts of studying. The data, based on the DCT (Discourse Completion Task) questionnaires, is taken from four groups of informants: (1) native Thai speakers (2) native English speakers (3) Thai learners of English in Thailand and (4) Thai learners of English in the UK. The findings are analysed within three main aspects namely, the complaint strategies, the complaint lengths and patterns, and the complaint internal modifications. The elicited data reveals that in general the learners of English in Thailand tend to have similar complaint patterns to those of native Thai speakers. On the other hand, the complaint patterns uttered by the learners of English in the UK tend to be close to those of native English speakers. Nevertheless, it seems that neither the learners of English in Thailand, nor in the UK use downgraders properly. The insufficient use of internal modifications,
thai english interlanguage pragmatic study speech_act complain mother_tongue might require great amount effort nevertheless tend problematic come case second_language_learner study_therefore explore characteristic interlanguage complaint thai learner english different_context studying data base discourse_completion task questionnaires take group informant native thai speaker native_english_speaker thai learner english thailand thai learner english finding analyse within three_main aspect namely complaint strategy complaint length pattern complaint internal modification elicit data reveals general learner_english thailand tend similar complaint pattern native thai speaker hand complaint pattern utter learner_english tend close native_english_speaker nevertheless seem neither learner_english thailand use properly insufficient use internal modification