Differences Between Thai And Chinese Greeting In Teaching Chinese As A Second Language Situations

Considering the importance of greetings in Mandarin Chinese, this paper introduces and analyzes the language use and the appropriate social functions of Chinese greetings. There are six common types of Chinese greetings:greeting type, inquiry type, title type, comment type, ridicule type, and praise type. From an intercultural communication basis, this paper also introduce the origin of Chinese common greeting "??? " and "?????" as well as the origin of Thai greeting "Sa wad di". Then on the basis of cross-cultural teaching, the similarities and differences of the language used for greetings in Chinese and Thai are embodied in:the similarities and differences in national culture, just because of the different ages, the change and the influence of different gender and identities. In addition, from subjective and objective points of view, this paper analyzes the cause of these differences that include the influence of native culture and religious belief; differences in hierarchical state; differences in greeting posture; cultural differences of private matter; the constraints placed on foreign language learners by domestic learners; the limits of studying a language outside the country where it is spoken, and problems in classroom learning and problems existing in textbook and so on. To solve these problems caused by communication and cultural background barriers, when teaching Chinese to foreigners, the author recommends teaching Chinese greetings and textbook compilation. As young, new generation Thai person, the author hopes that through comparative analyzing the differences in Chinese-Thai greetings, the two countries will be able to further mutual understanding of each culture's unique way of greeting one another in order to better study and understand the traditional culture of both countries and promote the development of Chinese-Thai friendship.