Abstract
This chapter explores some of the glocalization practices of Thai English , an emergent variety of English within the expanding circle of Englishes, as a lingua franca in Thailand . Implementing the initial stages of a nexus analysis, this paper explores some perceptions that Thai speakers of English have of this variety and, in so doing, explores some of the identities and attitudes that Thai speakers have of Thai English. In order to illustrate how this variety is used, the linguistic landscape of Thai tourism is examined to denote instances of use as well as the identities and subject positions (Davies & Harré, 1990) which are reflected in the linguistic landscape. This analysis serves as an initial step in analyzing the nexus of practice that makes up Thai English, arguing that Thai English is a spoken variety that is relative to the number of subject positions that speakers take up to it.
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Notes
- 1.
For example the word for ‘computer’ as designated by the Thai Royal academy is คณิตกรณ์ /ká-nít gon/but the preferred usage is the English borrowing, คอมพิวเตอร์/kom-piw-dter/, or the word for ‘modern’ in Thai is officially ทันสมัย/tan sà-măi/and yet the preferred usage isโมเดิร์น/moh-dern/. Note, also, that the Thai writing system may affect English pronunciation production for Thai speakers of English, but the factors involved in this go beyond the scope of this paper.
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Jocuns, A. (2018). English in Thai Tourism: Global English as a Nexus of Practice. In: Mehta, S. (eds) Language and Literature in a Glocal World. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8468-3_4
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