Using, attitude and language change of Tie Chew language in Thailand

Abstract

The objective of this research is to: 1) study the status of Tie Chew Chinese Dialect (Chaozhou) of the Tie Chew Chinese people in Thailand 2) study the attitude of Thai Tie Chew Chinese people in Thailand and 3) study the language changes of Tie Chew Chinese Dialect in Thailand. The populations of this research consist of 2 groups, namely, the first sample group that studied the status of using Tie Chew Chinese Dialect and Attitudes of Thai Tie Chew Chinese people in Thailand, 105 persons of Tie Chew Chinese descent in Thailand, and the second sample group that studied language changes of Tie Chew Chinese Dialect in Thailand in the numbers of 15 people. Both groups were divided into 3 sub-groups according to the age as follows: 1) Group 1, age under 25 years old 2) Group 2, age between 25 - 45 years old and 3) Group 3, age over 45 years old. The research found that Language use and attitude of the sample population, group 3, age over 45 years old, have the most fluency of language use and have a positive attitude to the Tie Chew Chinese Dialect. On the other hand, the new generation is the first group, age under 25 years old that have less than group 2 and 3. For their attitudes toward their Tie Chew Chinese Dialect, they thought that Tie Chew Chinese Dialect is more difficult than Thai. Although they agreed to preserve the Tie Chew Chinese Dialect as well as groups 2 and 3, but all 3 groups chose to use Thai instead. This study will show that although there are many Thai Tie Chew people in Thailand, Tie Chew Chinese Dialect is not necessary in everyday life; therefore they prefer using Thai instead. In addition, the language change of Tie Chew Chinese Dialect found that all 3 informants groups of Tie Chew have the same syllable structure of Tie Chew words. Their Tie Chew syllable structure is divided into 1) consonants 2) vowels and 3) tones. The language changes found are 2 issues: the vowels change that found only the oral vowels and the amount of the words use ability that the informants group 3 age over 45 have the highest vocabulary ability in Tie Chew, following the informants group 2 age between 25 - 45 and the lowest is the informants group 3 age under 25.