Wannapa Trakulkasemsuk

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A Comparative Analysis of English Feature
Articles in Magazines Published in Thailand and
Britain Linguistic Aspects

• Wannapa Trakulkasemsuk

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World Englishes
A language achieves a genuinely global status
when it develops a special role that is
recognized in every country. Crystal (1997)

• How?
• The language is set as an official language of
  that country.
• The language is recognized as a special
  language that is taught as a foreign language to
  children in school or adults in the country
  mostly know or learn it as a common foreign
  language.

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Users of World Englishes
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EIL or IL
Bickertons (1975) language development of
non-native speakers of English Basilect
mesolect
acrolect
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Nativisation and Nativised Varieties of English
Identification of new Englishes (Platt et al.,
1984)

• It has developed through the education system.
  This means that it has been taught as a subject
  and, in many cases, also used as a medium of
  instruction in regions where languages other than
  English were the main language.
• It has developed in an area where a native
  variety of English was not the language spoken by
  most of the population.
• It is used for a range of functions among those
  who speak or write it in the region where it is
  used.
• It has become localised or nativised by
  adopting some language features of its own, such
  as sound, intonation patterns, sentence
  structures, words, and expressions.

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Cultural frameworks describing Thai and British
Culture
Thai _________________________________________________ Collectivism High context Indirect British _________________________________________________ Individualism Low context Direct
Hofstede
Hall
Kaplan
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Research procedure
Population and samples Thai representatives 30
feature articles written in English by Thai
writers taken from English magazines published in
Thailand English native speaker representatives
30 feature articles written in English by English
native speakers taken from English magazines
published in Britain.
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Research instruments

• Criteria for identification of the prominent
  head nouns
• Criteria for identification of the modifiers
• A statistical method, Chi square
• Concordancing program

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Modifiers
Identifying most prominent head noun

• pre-or post- modifiers
• types word, phrase, or clause

Identifying modifiers
Frequency Count
Frequencies Comparison, statistical test
Fine analysis of significant modifiers
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Findings
Noun modifiers
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General findings on noun modifiers
Average modifiers per head noun
TEA 0.77 BEA 0.63
Proportion of premodifiers and postmodifiers in
TEA and BEA
Type TEA BEA
Premodifiers 48 55
Postmodifiers 52 45
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Comparison of Thai and British writers
Preference for Premodifiers and postmodifiers
Premodifiers c2 1.74 Postmodifiers c2
45.03
Cut off value (plt0.05) 3.84
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Postmodifiers
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Thai English British English
- Greater amount of noun modifiers - Smaller amount of noun modifiers
- Higher preference for postmodifiers than premodifiers - Higher preference for premodifiers than post modifiers
- Significantly higher amount of postmodifiers - Significantly lower amount of postmodifiers
- Lengthy and complicated noun modifiers - Short and simple noun modifiers
Provision of unnecessary information is common and favourable. Provision of only necessary information is common and favourable.
Indirect - Direct
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Conclusion
Factors influencing features of Thai
English Thai language Thai cultures
- Collectivism - High context
- Indirect
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Thank You