‘Native-speaker’ varieties of English: Thai perceptions and attitudes

Abstract

It is important to gauge and explore current Thai perceptions of and attitudes towards varieties of English. Language attitudes are some of the factors that affect language policy direction and institutional practices, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including Thailand, are adopting English as their sole official language in 2015, making such an investigation particularly timely. In Thailand little if any prior research had investigated attitudes. For this questionnaire-based study, research questions investigated which varieties 251 Thai learners of English thought they were actually using; which they saw as their target model; and also explored their attitudes towards different ‘native-speaker’ varieties – pre-work had indicated that such varieties still predominated over alternatives such as ‘English as a Lingua Franca’. Responses were analysed using both qualitative and quantitative keyword and content analysis. Findings indicated strong but diverse perceptions of the nature of varieties, and also said something about the dynamic nature of such perceptions and the attitudes of learners in Thailand. We conclude by suggesting how our findings might relate to the realisation of current language policy and practice in Thailand, and how they might serve as a stepping stone towards investigations of perceptions across ASEAN and beyond.

Keywords:

• varieties of English
• native speakers
• models
• attitudes
• language policy and planning
• Thailand
• ASEAN

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In 2012, the Education Minister of Thailand and the former New Zealand Ambassador discussed the implementation of a similar English volunteer teacher project; however, the project which started in 2014 seemed to be a much smaller scale involving the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand and Educational Service Area Zone 18 in Rayong and Chonburi, Thailand only (Ministry of Education (MoE), 2014).

2. The data collection was conducted in 2013 before the 2014 Thai coup d'état and before there was a public backlash of anti-American sentiment in the capital of Thailand.