Abstract:
The objectives of this research were to analyze and compare the tonal systems and the characteristics of Fengshun Hakka tones in the speech of Hakka-regional Thai bilingual speakers: Central Thai dialect (Kanchanaburi), Northern Thai dialect (Chiangrai), Northeastern Thai dialect (Khonkaen) and Southern Thai dialect (Suratthani), and to compare with the tones of Fengshun Hakka dialect spoken in China. First of all, the data of Fengshun Hakka phonology was collected from a Hakka speaker in Bangkok. The data indicated that Fengshun Hakka dialect had 4 tones in smooth syllables and 2 tones in checked syllables. Then, a wordlist consisting of 30 testwords (5 testwords for each tone) was prepared for collecting the data on tones. All of the testwords used were monosyllabic words or stressed syllables in disyllabic words, consisting of voiceless initial consonants and vowel /a/. Three informants of each province were chosen. All of the informants were Hakka-regional Thai bilingual male speakers in the age range of over 50. The informants had to pronounce the wordlist five times randomly, and the pronunciation was recorded. However, only three repetitions were chosen to be analyzed for the fundamental frequencies with PRAAT Version 5.3.16. Consequently, the total number of test tokens to be analyzed were 30 (testwords) x 12 (informants) x 3 (times) = 1,080. Moreover, data on 4 regional Thai tones was collected to help interpret the Fengshun Hakka tones. Then, the fundamental frequencies were converted to semitone, and the data of the three informants in the same province was averaged to represent the data of the province. The results indicated that (1) The results of the tonal system studies rejected the hypotheses that the tonal systems of Fengshun Hakka dialects in the speech of Hakka-regional Thai bilingual speakers were different, and differed from the tonal systems of Fengshun Hakka dialect spoken in China, because all of them comprised 4 tones in smooth syllables and 2 tones in checked syllables. (2) The results of phonetic-characteristic studies also rejected the hypotheses that the phonetic characteristics of of Fengshun Hakka dialect in the speech of Hakka-regional Thai bilingual speakers were different, and differed from the tones of Fengshun Hakka dialect spoken in China; even though differences of pitch height in Tone 1 and the differences of pitch height and pitch contour in Tone 2 were found. All of them also indicated a difference from the tones of Fengshun Hakka dialect spoken in China. However, they showed little influence of Thai regional tones.