Title : The Use of the Thai Final Particle Na by Japanese Learners of Thai

Author(s) : Sumintra Maklai, Theeraporn Ratitamkul, Thanasak Sirikanerat

Pages : 27-54

Abstract in English : This research aims to analyze
communicative functions of the Thai final
particle na and to explore the use of na by
Japanese learners of Thai, comparing to
that of native speakers. The study
consisted of two parts. The first part
involved an analysis of na using data from
the Thai National Corpus (TNC). The
findings showed that na had three main
communicative functions. It was used to
soften the tone of an utterance, to
emphasize an utterance, and to mark a
topic of an utterance. The second part of
this research concerned conversational
data in a pair discussion task of 10
Japanese learners of Thai and 10 native
Thai speakers. The results showed that,
when different functions and contexts were
considered, the use of the Thai final
particle na by the Japanese learners was
similar to that of the native Thai speakers.
That is, both groups used na most
frequently to emphasize an utterance and
least often to mark a topic of an utterance.
This could result from a positive transfer
from the learners’ first language.
However, it was found that the Japanese
learners showed significantly fewer
instances of na as a topic marker than the
native Thai speakers. It is possible that its
marked position and low frequency in the
learners’ linguistic input as suggested by
the corpus data made na in this function
difficult to acquire. This research also
pointed to the importance of proficiency in
a second language as a factor affecting
learners’ use of final particles in
conversation.