Thai Language and Society
To understand Thai culture, belief and value, it is important to understand the language use in Thai society. According to sociolinguistic point of view, Thailand is considered the “Diglossia Society”, where there are variety of languages use to serve a specialized function and are used for particular purpose. The purpose of the different language is to serve the different types of people. The standard Thai language is used with normal domain or normal people. Another language is used for “ High Function” or with the higher status domains such as with the monk and with the King and the Royal family. This kind of language is called “ Kam Racha Sap” /
/. The difference of the standard Thai language and Kam Racha Sap reflects Thai Society. Hence, it is necessary to understand how the two languages work, the differences of the two categories of Thai language so that we will understand Thai culture more.
According to “ Language in Society”, An introduction to Sociolinguistics, by Suzanne Romaine, the standard language is normally acquired at home as a mother tongue and continues to be used throughout life. Its main uses are in familial and familiar interactions. In Thailand, the standard language is acquired from home, school and public arenas. Different parts of the country acquire different local languages. However, people have to learn the standard language in order to be able to communicate with the rest of the people from the different parts of the country. It is used in school, governmental office, bank, university, and every public arena. People from Bangkok and its vicinities mostly acquire standard language from home as a mother tongue. Unlike people from other parts of the country who acquire local language as a mother tongue. Both local and standard languages serve the same purpose. They are used in normal conversation, with family member, friend, and other familiar interaction or with the normal domains such as school, governmental office, etc.
To serve the high status domains or people, Thai people are required to use higher function language, which is “Kam Racha Sap”/ /. Kam Racha Sap is considered Higher function. According to “language in Society” An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, by Suzanne Romaine, people do not acquire higher function language at home as a mother tongue. They acquire the h...
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... Thailand. Standard Thai language and Kam Racha Sap are the two main languages. They are differently used according to the social status of each person. Standard language is used in the normal domains or with normal people such as family member, friends, or any other familiar interactions. Kam Racha Sap is the high function language used in higher domains or with higher social status people such as The King, Queen, The royal family and the monk. Moreover, there are also sub languages within these two categories to determine the rank of those people. We have to learn to use the right word with the right status of the people. If we use wrong type of language or wrong word with wrong status of people, we might be considered uneducated or do not give respect to the person we are talking to mentioning about. Thus, it can be said that Thai culture concern very much about class differentiate. We show respect to the people by using different kinds of the language. It shows that Thai people value the status of the people. Thai culture shows the politeness through the language use. Thus, to be able to keep manner in Thai society, you must learn the language use in order to use it properly.
Cesar Chavez, a civil rights activist, was a major proponent of workers’ rights in Hispanic history. Cesar was born in 1927, in Yuma, Arizona, as a Mexican- American. He grew up in a large family of ranchers and grocery store owners. His family lived in a small adobe house, which was taken away during the Great Depression. In order to receive ownership of the house, his father had to clear eighty acres. Unfortunately, after his father cleared the land, the agreement was broken, and the family was unable to purchase the house. Since Cesar’s family was homeless, they had to become migrant farmers. In order to find work, they relocated to California.
After having read and watched the video about Cesar Chavez’s union, I gained an understanding about his long struggle to gain rights for field workers. But after having attended the event “What I learned about Cesar Chavez” I even gained a better understanding about how Cesar Chavez accomplished what he did. Throughout Grossman's lecture I was able to form several connections to what I learned from the book. Grossman spoke about Cesar Chavez’s determination and ability to inspire others. These characteristics inspired me to fight for what I believe in.
Cesar Chavez just helped with the worker’s pay and not very much physically. In the end in my opinion Mother Jones helped a little more than Chavez. I already said why I think this. Cesar Chavez did a lot of things for farm workers but not very much physically. I know that physically is better since people won’t get hurt as much. This concludes my essay on Mother Jones and Cesar
Cesar chavez (1927-1993) was a civil rights leader. He is most famous for creating the National Farm Workers Association. Chavez grew up in Arizona on his family’s farm. When the depression hit, Chavez was 11 years old, and his family lost their farm and were forced to become migrant workers. The working conditions on the farms Chavez and his family worked on were horrible. This later inspired him to make a union for farm workers, the National Farm Workers Association. He is known for being an activist of civil rights for Latinos, rights for farm workers, and also for animal rights.
Also as a young boy during the 1930’s he saw how many people lost their jobs and homes, and had to basically walk around the country in order to find a new job (“Cesar Chavez” 1). When Cesar was ten, due to the drought in the southwest, his parents were forced to become migrant farm workers (“Cesar Chavez” 1). After his parents became migrant farm workers Cesar Chavez had attended over thirty different schools and was only able to obtain a seventh grade education (“Cesar Chavez” 1). Through all of these harsh and tiring experiences, Cesar Chavez decided to start a migrant farm workers movement that would be very successful. Cesar Chavez was able to win the civil rights battle by being a strategic leader, having perseverant hope, and by gaining the support of common people, politicians, and Hollywood stars.
There are two forms of languages; public and private. The "private" language only spoken with family and close intimate relationships. The "public" language used in society, work, and school. Both of these help form two identities, that help us connect and communicate with one another. In the essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan and also in the article “Speech Communities” by Paul Roberts ,we will see how both private and public language demonstrate how we view, and grow from each language.
Most people who grow up with a foreign language spoken in there house grow up with an advantage in society. This advantage can only occur once the individual learning that foreign language also learns the dominant language spoken in that country. Once both of these languages are learned and mastered, the individual has now placed them se...
Senator Robert F. Kennedy described him as “one of the heroic figures of our time” (Cesar Chavez Foundation). This shows that Cesar Chavez made a difference in people’s lives, including Senator Robert’s. Some people may say that immigrants are bad people but Cesar Chavez was an immigrant himself yet, also a hero to the country. Experts say he was an American farm worker, labor leader, and a civil rights activist. This shows that he fought for what he believed in. Being a farm worker wasn’t something he planned on doing but he had no choice because he was an immigrant. He saw how cruel Americans were treating immigrants so he fought for their rights. He spoke for all the immigrants everywhere. The Cesar Chavez Foundation mentioned that at age 11, his family lost their farm during the great depression and became migrant farm workers. This shows how and why Cesar Chavez fought for farmworkers rights. He grew up not having the best childhood but he took others lives into consideration and fought for them to have a better and brighter
Another difficulty cultures deal with is language and the way people speak. In some cases, people struggle to belong by making changes in the way they speak the English language just to be assimilated. They attempt to use words and letters, as well as body language that fit in the norm; all in an attempt to denounce their original intonation and style of pronunciation. One ...
Even before Cesar Chavez was born people around the United States were treated unfairly. Many of them worked hard and didn’t get paid for their hard work. When he was young his parents and his siblings worked in the fields and all of them were still not able to make enough money to settle and have a good life. When Cesar Chavez grew older he opened his own grocery store to help and support the farmers that actually get paid a decent amount of
Verbal and written language is how people communicate with each other and encourage thoughts, achieve goals, and build relationships. Speaking a single, or multiple languages, and growing up in different setting can seriously alter the way that people speak the same language. This can either encourage diverse communication or make communication all but impossible. For the most part I speak English fluently, it is the only full language that I can speak and I developed this language growing up in a small farm town in the middle of New Jersey.
In various societies, people use several different languages in conversations between their friends, family and peers. Especially in Singapore, it is not an unfamiliar phenomenon to hear two or more bilingual speakers speaking and code switching between the language English and Chinese, English and Malay, English and Tamil or even Standard English and Singaporean English to each other in a natural and effortless manner. In this line, I have mechanistically relate speech varieties with “codes” and despite having a vast variety of definitions for code switching to choose from; I have decided to use Heller’s definition. Heller (1988) defines code switching as the alternating between two or more languages in a single sentence or conversation. During this phenomenon, it is common for individuals to fluently use more than one language in a course of a single communication episode. When this happens, bilinguals are not coached in how to code switch, but instead, they rely on unconscious linguistic understanding in differentiating between what are tolerable and intolerable code switching usages. According to Auer (1989), factors such as cultural interaction, intercultural marriage, education, and colonization are some influences for code switching. Moreover, speakers may choose to alternate from one code to another, either to distinguish oneself, to show commonality with a social group, to discuss a certain topic, join in social happenstances, to impress and influence the audience or to express feelings and affections (Crystal, 1987). However, there has been a misconception in many people’s perception, that “code switching is bad”, “code switching creates confusion” and that “code switching will result in a language deficit where individ...
According to the Singapore Department of Statistics, the literacy rates in Singapore have improved drastically over the past decades, in tandem with the creation of compulsory education children in Singapore for primary level and the increase in courses available for Singapore citizens to enroll in to upgrade their education level (2014). The increase in literate citizens of Singapore can be seen among the resident population aged fifteen years and over rising since the year 1990 to the year 2000, where there was a significant increase from 89 percent to 93 percent. And in the previous year 2013, the percentage for literate resident population aged fifteen years and over has a significant increase to 96.5 percent. However, along with the trend of increasing literate resident population, there is a markedly slow increase (or decrease) in the literacy levels for native languages – otherwise known in Singapore’s education system as “Mother Tongue”. Along with campaigns and new education systems being implemented in schools, the increase in effort to maintain the native languages of the resident population in Singapore suggests how literacy in English Language will continue to increase and may lead to a significant decrease in literacy in native languages. Hence, understanding the increase in literacy in Standard English in Singapore is crucial to the maintenance of culture and identity that is linked to one’s native language as deculturation through language loss is known otherwise as linguistic deculturation. Linguistic deculturation can be understood to be a process of language shifting that is a consequence of switching from one’s ethnic language or native language (substrate...
What language we use, how we use it, and why we use it are all essential in others perceptions of us. If a man’s first comment to somebody is “Hey Baby, how you doing?” with a gloating tone and boastful...
People live in the world of communication. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English (Moore, 1997), communication is defined as, “The activity or process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information”. The significance of communication can be found within the context of a human existing as a social being. As a human being manages his or her life in the course of the interaction between other members of the entire society, communication is inevitable. Communication occurs through the medium of a language and it is presented in two different forms which are written and spoken (Brown & Yule, 1983: 1-10). The importance of spoken performance of a language is becoming more prominent over the written performance capability. It is because the ability to speak a language reflects a person’s personality, self image, knowledge of the world, ability to reason, skill to express thoughts in real-time (Luoma, 2004: ix). These days, due to the global trend of internationalisation, the ability to communicate in English is needed as an essential skill. Whenever the international exchange happens, the use of spoken English entails. However, it is not always an easy task for people who use English as a second language to be able to speak to the level of a native speaker. They have to perfectly understand the sound system of English, have almost instant access to proper vocabulary and be able to place words together intelligibly without hesitation. Moreover, they also have to perceive what is being said to them and need to be able to respond appropriately to acquire amiable relations or to accomplish their communicative goals (Luoma, 2004: ix). Therefore, non-native English speakers encounter these barriers and they are subject to make mistakes often. In relation to this matter, this essay argues that there are socio-cultural factors as well as linguistic factors that affect non-native speakers’ communication in English. It provides analysis of several different situations when the use of spoken English has generated miscommunication problems in regards to author’s personal experience.