A Student Of The Recognition Of Chinese Loanwords In Thai Language And Language Attitudes Of Thai People

Loan words (borrowed words) are products of culture contact. China and Thailand are close to each other. As result, there are many load words borrowed from Chinese in Thai language. This research is to present how well Thai people can differentiate loan words borrowed from Chinese and their attitude towards those loan words by using questionnaire and doing interview.This research is divided into two parts. The first part is to test how well Thai with different language background can differentiate Chinese loan words by using questionnaire. Research subjects are divided into three groups:native Thais without any Chinese background, Thai Chinese with Chinese background and Thai Chinese learners with Mandarin background. Questionnaire is composed of three small parts: personal basic information, test for differentiating loan words from Chinese and understanding of loan words. The second small part is to test whether research subjects can tell loan words from non-loan words by using literal-translating loan words, meaning-translating loan words and half literal half meaning translating loan words. The third small part is to test the Thais’understanding of the original meaning and transferred meaning of loan words. The second part is to test the attitude of Thai Chinese learners with different culture background towards loan words from Chinese by doing interview. The attitude here means likes and dislikes of loan words, understanding of their value and their influence on their Chinese learning. All together there are6interviewees,3Chinese Thais and3native Thais. This research also interviewed4Chinese volunteer teachers to Thailand, in order to understand the influence of loan words on their Thai learning. Here are the results of this research:1) The correctness for Thais to differentiate three kinds of loan words is different. And the standard of mixture of those three kinds of loan words is also different from each other. The correctness rate and level of mixture is in the following sequence:meaning-translating loan words, half literal half meaning loan words and literal-translating words, among which meaning-translating loan words are completely mixed into Thai language and they can’t be noticed by Thais.2) There is difference between Chinese loan words from Thai loan words on pronunciation and writing and the correctness rate of differentiating is also different between this two type of loan words. Thai people can more easily differentiate Chinese loan words than Thai loan words, which shows that Thai loan words are more mixed into Thai language on the aspect of pronunciation. So Thai loan words are more easily to tell.3) Culture plays a critical role in differentiating Chinese loan words. There is no big difference among three groups of research subjects in differentiating Chinese loan words, except for a few meaning translating loan words with higher correctness among the group of Thai Chinese with Chinese dialects background. Furthermore, in the test of the meaning differentiating, Thais can most easily tell the transferred meaning, followed by original meaning, but few people can tell both meanings. Thai Chinese do a better job in telling the original meaning than Thai natives. It could be because of the culture.4) Thais with different cultural background show different attitude towards Chinese loan words. Thai Chinese are mostly show a neutral or positive attitude and think loan words increase the diversity of Thai language. However, native Thais think the appearance of large number of Chinese loan words can affect the Thai language itself. Most Thais prefer literal-translating words and hope more loan words can be borrowed in the way of half literal half meaning translating. Thus can keep the characters of Thai language and its culture.5) Loan words from Chinese cast a certain impact on both Thai and Chinese teaching. It is better to use some loan words in teaching, according to different learners.The former research on Chinese loan words focuses on language itself, such as on its origin, its structure and its categories. This research is based on the former researches, but focuses on the language users and discusses how Thais can differentiate loan words and their attitude, which could be also inspirational to Chinese and Thai teaching. Moreover, this research creatively raises the ideas of Chinese loan words and Thai loan words (in Thai) according to their pronunciation, which is a breakthrough.