The natural semantic metalanguage approach to a study of the comprehensive meanings of the cultural keywords maipenrai, krengchai and khotot in Thai
Abstract:
This study aims to investigate the denotative meanings, pragmatic meanings and social meanings of three key words in Thai: Maipenrai, krengchai and khotot, formulate these meanings in terms of cultural scripts, compare and contrast the cultural scripts of the three keywords and show the characteristics of Thai culture reflected in the cultural scripts. The data used in this study were taken from two sources: 1) the Thai Concordance website of the Department of Linguistics, Chulalongkorn University, http://ling.arts.chula.ac.th/ThaiConc/ and, 2) questionnaire responses. The results reveal that maipenrai has three denotative meanings, not affected, acceptable and do not worry. It has four pragmatic meanings, consoling, refusing, forgiving and responding to thank you. It has two social meanings, varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants and varying according to the formality of the situation. The results show that the speakers use maipenrai when talking to participants that are close to them more than participants who are not familiar with them, and when talking in the informal rather than formal situations. Krengchai has three denotative meanings, respect, afraid that other people would feel unsatisfied and afraid that what happened might bother others. The word krengchai has three pragmatic meanings, accepting, refusing and thanking. It has two social meanings, varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants and varying according to the formality of the situation. The results show that the speakers use krengchai when talking to participants that are not familiar with them more than participants who are close to them, and when talking in the formal rather than informal situations. Khothot has two denotative meanings, Im sorry for what I have done and excuse me. It has four pragmatic meanings, apologizing, introductory device, attention-getter, and leave-taking device. It has two social meanings, varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants and varying according to the formality of the situation. The results show that the speakers use khothot when talking to participants that are not familiar with and close to them, and when talking in the formal and informal situations, but with the different variants. The cultural scripts of maipenrai have these core contents: This is not a big thing and I dont want you to feel bad about this, different from those of krengchai:I dont feel good that you do or will do this thing for me and I dont want you to feel bad about me, and those of khothot: You might not feel good about me and this thing or because of this thing and I dont want you to feel bad. This result shows that these three cultural keywords have a similar meaning, i.e., I dont want you to feel bad. These cultural scripts reflect four distinctive characteristics of Thai culture: 1) avoiding conflicts, 2) respecting the elderly, 3) not desiring to inconvenience others, and 4) letting go.