ERIC Number: EJ1430824
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2286-8909
EISSN: EISSN-2697-4614
"My Accent Is Not Okay.": Exploring Thai Students' Attitudes towards English Accents
Aran Sahrai; Sutraphorn Tantiniranat
THAITESOL Journal, v37 n1 p156-178 2024
Native English speakers' accents are generally regarded as ideal models of English accents. However, in real-world communication, where English is used as a lingua franca for intercultural communication among people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, English users inevitably encounter a wide variety of accents. This paper presents part of a broader study that explores the attitudes of Thai students and teachers toward native speaker accents, Asian accents, and their own accents (i.e., Thai accents). Specifically, we focus on the attitudes of 123 Thai students attending a public secondary school in Thailand. We collected data through an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews and analyzed it using descriptive statistics and thematic coding. Our findings indicate that American accents were overwhelmingly viewed as the most favorable and served as the standard for pronunciation. While Asian English accents were generally perceived as intelligible and acceptable, some participants expressed negative attitudes toward their own Thai accents, considering them to be deficient. These findings highlight the importance of raising awareness about the diversity of English accents in both English language teaching and policy.
Descriptors: Pronunciation, Pronunciation Instruction, Metalinguistics, North American English, Language Variation, Asians, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Foreign Countries, Secondary School Students, Student Attitudes, Language Attitudes, Preferences, Intelligibility
Thailand TESOL Organization. Language Institute Building, Thammasat University, 2 Prachan Road, Pranakhorn, Bangkok, Thailand 10200. e-mail: journal.thaitesol@gmail.com; Web site: https://www.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/thaitesoljournal/index
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Thailand
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A