การรับอนุภาคลงท้าย “นะ” และ “สิ” ของผู้เรียนภาษาไทยเป็นภาษาที่สอง / สุมินตรา มาคล้าย = The acquisition of the Thai final particles Na and Si by learners of Thai as a second language / Sumintra Maklai
This dissertation aims to analyze communicative functions of the Thai final particles na and si and speech acts of utterances in which they occur, and to explore the use of na by Japanese learners of Thai and English learners of Thai, comparing to that of native speakers. The study consists of two parts. The first part involves an analysis of na and si using data from the Thai National Corpus (TNC). The findings show that na has three main communicative functions. It is used to soften the tone of an utterance, to emphasize an utterance, and to mark a topic of an utterance in order to call for attention. Four speech acts are found with utterances containing na, namely, representative, directive, commissive and expressive. As for si, the analysis shows that it has four communicative functions. It is used to increase authority, to make a firm utterance, to show no interest, and to mark a topic of an utterance in order to contradict a previous utterance. Three speech acts of si are representative, directive and expressive. The second part of this research concerns the use of na and si by native Thai speakers, Japanese learners of Thai, and English learners of Thai. The results show that in role play and pair discussion tasks, the overall uses of na and si by the three groups of participants are not significantly different in terms of frequency, variety of communicative functions, and speech acts. On the other hand, in the multiple choice test, it is found that the native speakers perform better than the two groups of learners with regard to both communicative functions and speech acts of na and si. The disparity can be accounted for by the objective and nature of the different tasks. The role play and pair discussion tasks aim to examine the use of final particles in natural conversations, and participants can freely choose which final particles to use. The multiple choice test, on the other hand, tests participants’ comprehension of na and si, in contrast with other final particles. Contexts of utterances are also predetermined. This may pose difficulty for second language learners. It can be concluded that the Thai final particles na and si can be acquired by the second language learners of Thai whose first language has or does not have final particles. However, the learners’ comprehension of the Thai final particles may not have yet reached the level of the native speakers
