Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication · Journal of Applied Language Studies and...

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Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication

วารสารการศกษาภาษาศาสตรเชงประยกตและการสอสาร Volume 2, Issue 1, January – June, 2016

ISSN 2539-584X

___________________________________________________ Editor Assistant Professor Dr. Melada Sudajit-apa Thammasat University Editorial Board Assistant Professor Dr. Nuchada Dumrongsiri Thammasat University Assistant Professor Dr. Songthama Intachakra Assistant Professor Dr. Pattamawan Jimarkon Zilli

Thammasat University Thammasat University

Assistant Professor Dr. Vikanda Pornsakulvanich Assistant Professor Dr. Wannapa Trakulkasemsuk

Thammasat University King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi

Assistant Professor Dr. Montri Tangpijaikul Kasetsart University Editorial Staff Kamonwan Fairee Jocuns Thammasat University Natthawadee Konthong Kampanant Induang Suriyaporn Eamvijit Jonathan Majumder

Thammasat University Thammasat University Thammasat University Thammasat University

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About the Journal Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication is a peer-reviewed journal by Department of English and Linguistics, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University. The electronic journal accepts manuscripts for publication in all aspects of language and communication. We welcome original manuscripts written in Thai or English in Global Englishes, English Teaching and Learning, Linguistics, Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis, Literary Studies, Translation, Cultural Studies, Intercultural Communication, Business English, Organizational/ Business Communication, and other related topics. Publication Frequency Two issues per year: June and December Submission Guidelines

1. A manuscript file is submitted to Editor [email protected] 2. All manuscripts are original and not published elsewhere, neither in printing nor electronic forms. 3. Manuscripts should not exceed 20 pages of A4-size paper, not including tables and reference

pages. 4. Citation in text and references follows APA style. 5. Abstract is submitted in both Thai and English at maximum of 250 words. 6. Brief information about author and co-author(s) is provided in Thai and English. 7. Format of the manuscript should be prepared as the followings:

a. Set page margins of all sides at 1 inch b. Use single space and font Calibri size 11 point c. Follow APA editorial styles such as heading levels and table/figure title d. Use a full first name and last name for all Thai sources in references

Contact Information Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication Department of English and Linguistics, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University (Rangsit Center) Klong Neung, Klong Luang, Pathumthani 12121 Telephone: 02-696-5688 Fax: 02-696-5660 https://www.tuenglish.org/publication Email: [email protected] Issn: 2539-584X

mailto:[email protected]

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Table of Contents

Pages Editor’s Note 4 An Exploration of the Use of Project-Based Language Learning to Develop the Critical Reading Skills of Thai University Students Sirion Lada and Piranya Bunnag Facebook Based Collaborative Learning Lessons to Enhance Thai EFL Students’ Writing Skills Nguyen Duy Linh and Suksan Suppasetseree Types and Topics of Culture in One Series of Selected English Textbooks used at Thai Secondary Schools Raveewan Viengsang and Chansongklod Gajaseni A Study of the Use of English in Thai Songs: Intelligibility of English Inserted in Thai Popular Songs Jutharat Nawarungreung Logical Spirituality: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to the Understanding of If-Conditionals in ThichNhatHanh’s and His Contemporaries’Applied Dharma Texts Napanant Montkhongtham

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Editor’s Note

We are delighted to introduce our first electronic issue of Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication (JALSC), after launching our brand new print JALSC in year 2015, to serve as an online forum for a larger Thai and global scholars and those who are interested in language and communication to share their research expertise, experiences, and thoughts to better construct knowledge to the fields.

Turning to our current journal issue, we present a diverse selection of inspiring articles from scholars and graduate students. The first one looks at how university students developed their critical reading skills through project-based learning and how the students’ production reflected their critical thinking. Sirion Lada and Piranya Bunnag displayed the entire processes of the implementation of project-based learning. They concluded that the participants reflected their critical thinking as a result of the PBL as well as achieving certain aspects of reading improvement. This is somewhat related to our second stimulating article presented by Nguyen Duy Linh and Suksan Suppasetseree, who examined whether or not Facebook based collaborative learning lessons could enhance EFL undergraduate students’ writing skills. They revealed that their Facebook based collaborative learning lessons enabled their participants to improve their writing skills as well as maximizing their motivation to work with other peers.

Besides the implementation of state-of-the-art lessons in the first two articles, our third article is a selection of smaller scale but insightful research focusing on the analysis of the types of culture used in English textbooks at Thai secondary schools. Raveewan Viengsang and Chansongklod Gajaseni showed that there was a predominance of the target culture, while international culture and Asian-oriented culture received less attention in the sample textbooks. At the end, they suggested introducing a more variety of the cultures of English speakers around the globe to open learners’ worldview.

The last two articles shift to the field of World Englishes and Cognitive Linguistics, moving beyond the context of actual classroom language pedagogies. Jutharat Nawarungreung focused on the study of the comprehensibility of English inserted in Thai popular music among four different groups of participants: Thais, non-native English speakers, native-English speakers and lyricists. She concluded that despite the fact that English in Thai popular songs was different from Standard English, participants who were Thais and non-native speakers, could clearly understand it. Napanant Montkhongtham in our final article attempted to explain how if-conditionals were adopted in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist spiritual texts to convey particular meanings through cognitive linguistics as a central framework. She also encouraged any future writers who wish to deliver abstract knowledge to consider if-conditionals as a linguistic device to create mental spaces and make their complicated messages accessible.

Lastly, our editorial board would like to thank all authors and reviewers for their contribution and devotion to the fields. Without them, this publication of the first issue of year 2017 would not be possible. Furthermore, we are grateful to the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Department of English and Linguistics at Thammasat University for their full support on this journal. At the end, we hope that our JALSC will be able to continuously pass on the appreciation of academic scholarship to our audiences.

Melada Sudajit-apa, Editor

Lada, S. & Bunnag, P. The Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication Vol. 2, Issue 1, January-June 2016, pp.5-15

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An Exploration of the Use of Project-Based Language Learning to Develop the Critical Reading Skills of Thai University Students

Sirion Lada

Thammasat University, Thailand

Piranya Bunnag Thammasat University, Thailand

The intention of this study was to explore how Thai university students developed their critical reading skills through project-based learning and how the students’ production reflected their critical thinking. The participants in the study were second-year students at a public university in Bangkok, Thailand. The students studied through project-based learning that was specifically designed to develop their critical reading skills. The research tools for data collection included observations, interviews, response journals, and questionnaires. The students were observed throughout the implementation phase of project-based learning and were required to write journals in the fourth stage of the project. At the end of each stage, the students were also required to complete questionnaires and some of them were also interviewed. The results of the study revealed that students could identify the author’s purpose, however, the levels of improvement were inconsistent when considering the author’s tone, point of view, intended audience, inferences, conclusions, bias, facts, opinions, arguments, and evidence. The students’ end products reflected their critical thinking and were solidly related to the texts used in their projects. Keywords: Project-based learning, critical reading skills, collaborative learning

งานวจยชนนมวตถประสงคเพอศกษาการพฒนาทกษะการอานอยางมวจารณญาณของนกศกษาไทยในระดบมหาวทยาลยผานการเรยนรโดยม

โครงงานเปนฐานและทกษะการคดอยางมวจารณญาณจากตวผลงานของนกศกษาจากการเรยนรผานการท าโครงงาน ผเขารวมวจยเปน

นกศกษาชนปท 2 ในมหาวทยาลยรฐแหงหนงในกรงเทพมหานคร ประเทศไทย นกศกษาเรยนรผานการท าโครงงานเปนฐานซงออกแบบมาเพอพฒนาทกษะการอานอยางมวจารณญาณของนกศกษา เครองมอวจยทใชในการวจยชนน ประกอบไปดวย การสงเกต การสมภาษณ การใช

แบบบนทกการอานและแบบสอบถาม ในการเกบขอมลผวจยสงเกตพฤตกรรมของนกศกษาในชวงของการท าโครงงาน แจกแบบสอบถามแก

นกศกษาหลงจากเสรจสนการท าโครงงานในแตละขน รวมถงสมภาษณนกศกษาบางคนหลงเสรจสนการท างานในแตละขนดวย ในขนทสของ

การท าโครงงานนกศกษาเขยนแบบบนทกการอาน ผลการวจยพบวานกศกษาสามารถระบจดประสงคของผเขยนได อยางไรกตาม ทกษะของ

นกศกษาในดานตางๆตอไปนยงคงไมสม าเสมอ ทกษะเหลานไดแกการระบน าเสยงของผเขยน การระบมมมองของผเขยน การระบกลมผอาน

เปาหมาย การตความและสรปความ การระบอคตของผเขยน การแยกขอเทจจรงกบความคดเหน การประเมนขอโตแยงของผเขยนและ

หลกฐานของผเขยน ในดานตวผลงานของนกศกษานนไดสะทอนใหเหนถงทกษะการคดอยางมวจารณญาณของนกศกษาและตวผลงานนนม

ความสอดคลองกบตวบทความทนกศกษาอานในการท าโครงงาน

Introduction

Critical reading skills are necessary for individuals to complete a careful reading of a text in this period of abundant information (Spears, 2006). To be in possession of these skills, individuals require instruction. This is important since critical reading skills are higher-order skills (Block, 2004) which individuals are not born with but can master when trained (Browne & Keeley, 2010). The focus of this study centered on nine critical reading skills. Based on a review of the literature related to critical reading skills the skills were identified in Leo, 1994; Mather & McCarthy; 2005; Adams & Patterson, 2008; Pirozzi et al., 2011; Carter, 2014. They included (1) identifying the author’s purpose, (2) identifying the author’s tone, (3) identifying the author’s point of view, (4) identifying the author’s intended audience, (5) making inferences and drawing conclusions, (6) distinguishing facts from


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opinions, (7) identifying the author’s bias, (8) evaluating the author’s argument, and (9) evaluating the author’s evidence.The focus of this present study was the use of project-based learning to develop students’ critical reading skills. Project-based learning is a product orientation, involving students exploring a task over a prolonged period time and creating end products related to their task (Stroller, 2006). Exploration enables them to develop knowledge, skills and strengthens the connection between learning in the classroom and confronting real-life situations. The end products demonstrate what students learn from their exploration. Project-based learning has been well recognized in education and it has been investigated in terms of its contribution to students’ learning in a variety of contexts (Doppelt, 2003; Ocak & Uluyol, 2010). In EFL contexts, project-based learning has also gained momentum in language teaching. However, the need to conduct studies into project-based learning is still present because at the moment it has not yielded consistent positive results (Beckett& Slater, 2005; Stroller, 2006; Ocak & Uluyol, 2010).The project-based learning used in this study was specifically designed to develop the critical reading skills of university students. The stages of the project were adapted based on the framework provided in the following articles (Legutke & Thomas, 1991; Ribé & Vidal, 1993; Sheppard & Stoller, 1995; Fried-booth, 2002; Katz, Chard & Kogan, 2014).This study was conducted to explore how the critical reading skills of university students developed after studying through project-based learning and how the students’ end product reflected their critical thinking.

The theoretical framework of project-based learning

Project-based learning is based on the sociocultural perspectives proposed by Vygotsky (Doppelt, 2003) which have made important contributions to the understanding of the influence of social contexts on human mental functioning and to the knowledge transfer between individuals (Scott & Palinscar, 2009). Project-based learning adopts the view that students can learn best when they collaborate with others in order to complete their projects. Project-based learning emphasizes student-centered learning (Boss & Krauss, 2007). The planning and implementation necessary for project completion were generally determined by the students themselves. The teacher becomes a person who provides encouragement and assistance to students with little interference. Katz & Chard (2000) asserted that the teachers were to provide practical suggestions to the students to help them with their projects. Under a suggestion-and-assistance approach students were more likely to complete their projects. Legutke & Thomas, 1991; Ribe & Vidal, 1993; Sheppard & Stoller, 1995; Fried-Booth, 2002; Katz et al., 2014 proposed a number of different stages in completing a project. The proposed framework share similarities in how projects are implemented. The initial stages were primarily concerned with preparation for undertaking a project. Students needed to understand the value of project-based learning to get them motivated about learning. A sense of personal responsibility and the importance of working together had to be ingrained and developed in the students’ minds. The next few stages were viewed as the stages of conducting the project. These stages placed great emphasis on teacher-student and student-student collaborations during the process of completing the project. Each individual student experienced decision-making situations with others and was encouraged to engage with the teacher and group members throughout all aspects the project. The final stages were viewed as the stages of presentation and evaluation. Students were required to make a presentation about their project. The presentation needed to reflect on their efforts across all stages of the project and to demonstrate what they had learned through their exploration.


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Method

Context and participants

This study was conducted in an English integrated-skills course at a faculty of a public university in Bangkok, Thailand. The participants were the second year students who were majoring in French. There were 20 students aged between 19 and 20 years old. The students learned through one fifty minute project-based learning class per week over a period of 14 weeks. The projects consisted of five stages: (1) Group formation, (2) teacher modelling, (3) topic selection and learning objective setting (4) text selection and critical reading activities, and (5) project presentation and evaluation.

Research tools

There were four research tools used in the present study. These included observations, interviews, response journals, and questionnaires. The instruments were constructed by the researcher. Then, they were validated by experts and piloted for improvements prior to conducting the main study.

Observations

There were three observers in this study. One was the researcher and the other two were university lecturers. Observation forms, videos and audio recordings were used to record the behavior of students during the observation. Then, these were sent to the other two observers in order for them to record their observations. The researcher and the other two observers compiled their data and checked its reliability. The observation forms consisted of two components. The first component was related to physical settings. The second component was subdivided into two main categories. The first category was related to collaborative learning and consisted of five behaviors. The second category relating to critical reading skills consisted of 29 behaviors. Interviews

Five interview guides were constructed. The primary purpose of the interview guides was that the researcher could consistently gather relevant information based on the set questions (Guthrie, 2010). The interviews were conducted at the end of each stage of the project. The total number of interviewees in the study was 15. The selection of the interviewees was based on purposive selection.

Response journals

In this study, response journals were used for students to demonstrate their understanding of the texts in terms of the nine critical reading skills stated above and express their feelings and opinions about the texts. The journals were distributed to the students in the fourth stage of the project- selecting a reading passage and completing critical reading activities. The journals were assigned as homework. After they finished writing their journals, the students were required to bring them to class for text discussions. Questionnaires

Five questionnaires were constructed to elicit the students’ opinions about the project and they were distributed at the end of each stage of the project. The questionnaires consisted of two sections. The first section was used to gather demographic information. The second section was used to evaluate the attitudes of the students towards (1) the learning activities, (2) the students’


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collaborative learning behaviors, (3) the teacher’s role in facilitating collaborative learning, and (4) critical reading skills. Data analysis Content analysis was used to interpret the qualitative data. The data from all the research tools was interrogated. Pilot study The pilot study was conducted with a group of the students whose background was comparable with the students of the main study, i.e. the students in the pilot study were second year French-major students, consisting of male and female students of mixed ability. Their age ranged from 19to 20 years old. They were enrolled on a course with similar goals, course syllabus, teacher materials, and duration. There were some points that needed to be revised in the pilot study in order to ensure the possibility of conducting the main study. In terms of the stages of the project, during the activities in the fourth stage of the project, it was found that some students copied the answers of the other groups. This was because each group read the group-selected text in the first week, found out the answers related to critical reading skills, and received the answers. When other groups were required to read the texts, they asked the group who had already completed the assignment and had received the answers. Therefore, this activity in the fourth stage needed to be revised. Based on the cheating discovery from the pilot, every group in the main study was required to vote on texts that they would like to read and then read each text at the same time and in the same order. It was hoped that this would force students to read the texts and find the answers on their own. In terms of teaching materials, according to the comments of the students, some items on the supplementary reading worksheet were difficult and needed to be changed. In addition, the project rubric had some subjective descriptors that could not be assessed and some descriptors that were quite similar. In terms of research tools, the observation forms, videos and audio recordings were the same as the ones used in the pilot study with revisions. For the observation forms, some items in the category of critical reading skills could not be observed. As for the interview guides and questionnaires, there were some unclear and redundant items. The teaching materials and research instruments were revised prior to conducting the main study.

Results

How can students develop their critical reading skills through project-based learning?

The results of the study were presented based on the stages of the project to give a complete understanding of what the students did in each stage until creating their end products and how these stages were linked together to facilitate students’ critical reading skills.

Stage 1 setting groups

The teacher introduced project-based learning to students and explained what they needed to do in the project. Then, the selection of group members was determined by the students. It was observed that the students selected group members based on proximity. The data from the interviews revealed that the selection was based on the relationship the students had with their peers and their English proficiency levels. After group formation, there were 4 groups of students. Each group consisted of 5 members of mixed abilities.


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Stage 2 teacher modeling

At this teacher-dominated stage, the teacher modeled the strategies necessary to read a text and how to find the answers to the questions related to critical reading skills. Then, the teacher checked the students’ understanding and provided assistance for the students so that they could find the answers themselves. After that, the students practiced the skill with the reading worksheets. It was observed that during teacher modeling, seventeen out of the twenty students or eighty five percent of the students read the texts that the teacher used for modeling and discussed the texts with the teacher and their peers; furthermore they asked questions when they could not find the correct answers. Three out of the twenty students or fifteen percent of the students did not participate in class discussions about the texts and did not add to the discussion. The interview results revealed that these students did not like reading activities. However, it was observed that they became more active when doing the worksheets with peers. While completing the worksheets, eighteen out of the twenty students or ninety percent of the students did the exercises in pairs or groups of three and they discussed the texts with their peers. Then, they wrote the possible answers, checked the answers with the peers, and exchanged the reasons behind their answers. Two out of twenty students or ten percent of the students worked alone, reading and answering the questions. They then waited for the whole class discussions to find out the answers to the questions. The interview results helped explain why some students chose to work together and some chose to work alone. The students who worked with their peers reported that the interaction with their peers made it possible for them to find the answers and they also helped explain how they had chosen their answers. For the students who preferred doing the exercises alone, they reported that it was challenging to complete and they needed to check their completed work with their teachers to find out their level of understanding.

Stage 3 selecting a reading topic and setting learning objectives

At this stage, the teacher modeled selecting a reading topic and setting learning objectives. Then, the teacher explained the criteria for text selection and gave the students some examples of the texts used in critical reading activities. After that, the groups were tasked with determining a reading topic and setting their own learning objectives. It was observed that two groups selected a reading topic and set their learning objectives, whereas, two groups had difficulty setting their learning objectives. One group requested assistance from the teacher while another group tried to ask for help from their classmates, and then from the teacher. After that, the teacher recommended sources for reading passages. The data from the interviews revealed that the topic selection by the students depended on their interest, personal background, and their members’ agreement. Their learning objectives were related to what they wanted to know about the topic and were related to nine critical reading skills. The students from the groups that could not set their objectives asked that the teacher to present more examples of objective setting since they were not familiar with how to set learning objectives.

Stage 4 selecting a reading passage and completing critical reading activities

At this stage, each group selected a text to read. There were four texts to read based on the number of groups. Then, individual students voted for the text that they wanted to read the most. These were read by the students in order based on their votes, one text per week. Every student needed to repeatedly go through a series of critical reading activities: reading the text individually, writing response journals about the answers to the questions related to critical reading skills, and discussing the text with the group members. Only groups who were assigned the text were required to make a presentation about the text related to critical reading skills and the results. All four texts were authentic and the average length was about one page of A4. According to the data from the interviews, the students revealed that text difficulty, content, vocabulary, the length of the text, personal background and interest were the most important considerations in the selection of the text. Some students reported that their groups changed the reading topic and the


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learning objectives since they found that this text was more interesting. During the text discussions, it was observed that the students could find answers relating to the nine critical reading skills by using reading strategies. These strategies included questioning, rereading, citing text evidence, and dealing with unknown words. With the assistance of group members, it was possible to come up with the answers to the exercises. They modeled how they found the answers and encouraged fellow students to think and work together discussing and presenting different viewpoints. This discussion with other members facilitated the students’ critical reading skills. It was observed that they not only understood what their peers explained to them but learned to apply it in order to find the answers. When there were differences in their answers, they learned to compare the answers, evaluated reasons and the evidence used to support the answers before their response. The data from the interviews revealed that they used strategies in reading the texts and finding the answers, and they applied what they learned from the other group members in discussions when they read the texts individually. Figure 1 presents the overall results from the response journals of group 1. The results revealed that the students in group 1 could identify the author’s purpose. The results do not demonstrate a consistent improvement in identifying the author’s tone, point of view, intended audience, inferences, drawing conclusions, facts, opinions, bias, evidence, and arguments. However, they did find the correct answers to their assigned text.

Figure 1: Results from the response journals of students in group 1

CR 1 = identifying the author’s purpose CR 2 = identifying the author’s tone CR 3 = identifying the author’s point of view CR 4 = identifying the author’s audience CR 5 = making inferences and drawing conclusions CR 6 = distinguishing facts from opinions CR 7 = identifying the author’s bias CR 8 = evaluating the author’s argument CR 9 = evaluating the author’s evidence

Figure 2 presents the overall results from the response journals of group 2. The results revealed that the students could identify the author’s purpose and bias. The students showed an improvement in identifying the author’s tone, point of view, intended audience, making inferences and drawing conclusions. There was not a constant improvement in distinguishing facts and opinions

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and evaluating the authors’ argument and evidence. Similar to group1, the students in this group did find the correct answers to their assigned text.


Figure 3 presents the overall results from the response journals of group 3. The results revealed that the students in group 3 could identify the author’s purpose and bias. The students showed an improvement in making inferences and drawing conclusions. They did not have a constant improvement in identifying the author’s tone, point of view, intended audience, facts and opinions, bias, arguments and evidence. Similar to group1 and 2, the students in this group did find the correct answers to their assigned text.


Figure 4 presents the overall results from the response journals of group 4. The results revealed that the students in group 4 could identify the author’s purpose and bias. The students showed a gradual improvement in identifying the author’s tone, intended audience, and evaluating the author’s argument. They did not show a constant improvement in identifying the author’s point of view, making inferences and drawing conclusions, facts from opinions, and evidence. In contrast to the other three groups, the students in this group did not do find the correct answers to text one

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which was assigned to them, however with text four they did have the highest number of correct responses.


Stage 5 project presentation and evaluation

The groups were required to make a presentation about their selected text and results. After the presentation was finished, the groups received comments from their classmates and their teacher. Then, each group evaluated their groups’ performance throughout the project. It was observed that eighty five percent of the students paid attention during the presentations and asked questions about the proposed ideas; furthermore they expressed their views about the points they agreed with and those they disagreed with. However, it was noted that fifteen percent of the students did not pay attention to the presentation. The data from the interviews revealed that these students were worried about their own group’s presentation and therefore they paid less attention to the other presentations. How do students’ end products reflect their critical thinking?

The end product, observations and interview results demonstrated that their proposed ideas and final product still managed to utilize critical thinking abilities. Students’ critical thinking was reflected in all their discussions, planning, idea proposals and the reasons behind their proposed ideas. After completing critical reading activities, each group needed to create their end product based on the text that their group selected. They needed to propose ideas related to what they read in their text. In this study, the students agreed to produce a leaflet. According to the guidelines, the students could propose ideas related to their text. Group 1 provided guidelines for pregnant girls, schools, parents, and friends. Group 2 provided guidelines about rewarding students who received good grades. Group 3 suggested ways Facebook can benefit everyone. Group 4 suggested guidelines for people to find out whether they were suited to working at home. It was observed that during the presentations, classmates were actively providing responses to the ideas that the presenters proposed by asking questions, sharing ideas, and agreeing or disagreeing with the proposed ideas. As for the presenters, they could answers the questions and expressed their agreement or disagreement with their classmates’ ideas. Both presenters and classmates appeared to be interested and motivated to analyze the presentations based on their own reading and background knowledge and they were both using critical thinking skills. The data from the interviews revealed that the students found that it was satisfying to express their own thoughts related to the texts in the results. They reported that they tried to link what they read to their real life situation and they

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also agreed that sharing ideas with classmates during the presentation made them think about points that they may have overlooked.

Discussion

In this study, the first issue was related to the factors determining the response journal scores for set questions. Being the group owners of a text was the most influential factor because the text owners’ were required to propose ideas, and create and present an end product based on their text. They spent more time on reading their text and thus obtained perfect or high journal scores when the reading was their own. Other influential factors included text difficulty, student interest in the text, and student background knowledge. Another important issue was that being in groups comprised of students with mixed abilities also had a positive impact on learning activities. More competent students took part in assisting less competent students which improved the students’ learning progress. However, students sometimes changed their answers to conform with the majority of the group. Even though the answers of the majority were not supported by reason or evidence; the rest of the members readily agreed without question. This behavior demonstrated a lack of development and created an obstacle for the improvement of critical reading skills. The third issue was related to role assignments in the text discussions. In the present study, role assignments in the discussions were not clearly established by the students. Topics related to critical reading were predetermined and discussion objectives were clear, such that role uncertainty was not a problem. Students performed their roles as discussion leaders or members and easily swapped their roles within the group. Although the roles of the students were not fixed in the discussions, the dominant students acted as discussion leaders and those who were less dominant acted as discussion members.

Pedagogical implications

In order to prepare for implementing project-based learning in critical reading instruction, teachers need to specify the learning objectives for students, consider student characteristics, proficiency levels, and students’ familiarity with project-based learning. Teachers should determine the type of project to be used based on the factors stated above. The type of project will dictate the roles and duties of teachers and students. Teachers should design the project stages and learning activities in each stage with the aim of improving students’ critical reading skills. The teacher should also develop teaching materials appropriate for the students to practice critical reading. To enhance the critical reading skills of university students, reading worksheets are crucial in helping students practice the strategies necessary for reading texts. Several factors to be considered when creating worksheets are the text’s level of difficulty, the content of the text, the length of the text, the students’ level of proficiency, and the students’ interests and background knowledge. In addition to classroom worksheets, teachers may suggest or create online exercises so the students can spend more time practicing reading strategies outside the classroom. The worksheets should require students to write down both the answers and the evidence or reasons supporting the answers. Project-based learning is student-centered. Students were expected to be active decision-makers and learners, and to assume a dominant role in completing the project. The role of the teacher was to open up ample opportunities for the students to take control over their own education. Further to that end teachers needed to design materials and learning activities aimed at improving the students’ skills and knowledge thus helping them successfully complete the project. Part of the teachers’ duties was to not only to check the students’ answers and provide feedback, but to encourage students to discuss and exchange ideas whenever they disagreed with their teacher’s feedback. Teachers did not interfere with the students and only provided support and assistance when necessary or when requested by the students.


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Recommendations for future research

Future research is recommended to investigate the effects of implementing an online project-based learning program on students’ critical reading skills. In this study, the students took part in a fifty minute project-based learning class for 14 weeks due to time constraints. Therefore, for the teachers who have an interest in using project-based learning in their lessons but are concerned about time constraints; an online project-based learning program may reduce this anticipated problem. Implementing online project-based learning may make it possible to investigate the long-term outcomes of project-based learning on students’ critical reading skills. In addition, future research is recommended with students whose characteristics are similar or different from the students in the present study. The students in this study were studying French as their major in small classes and were interested in studying languages. The comparison between the findings of the present study and the findings of future research may contribute to a better understanding of the contribution that project-based learning has on students’ critical reading skills development and its limitations.

Biodata: Sirion Lada has just completed her Ph.D. in English Language Studies at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University. She can be reached at [email protected].

Dr. Piranya Bunnag is a full-time lecturer at the Department of English and Linguistics, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University. She can be reached at [email protected].




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References Adams, R. W., & Patterson, B. (2008).Developing reading versatility. Boston, MA: Thomson Learning. Beckett, G.H., & Slater, T. (2005). The project framework: a tool for language, content, and skills

integration. ELT Journal, 59, 108-116. Block, A. A. (2004). Talmud, curriculum, and the practical: Joseph Schwab and the Rabbis. New York:

Peter Lang. Boss, S. & Krauss, J. (2007).Reinventing project-based learning: Your field guide to real-world projects

in the digital age. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education. Browne, M. N., & Keeley, S. M. (2010). Asking the right questions: A guide to critical thinking.

Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall. Carter, C, E. (2014). Mindscapes critical reading skills and strategies. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning. Doppelt, Y. (2003). Implementation and assessment of project-based learning in a flexible

environment. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 13, 255-272. Fried-Booth, D. (2002). Project Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guthrie, G. (2010). Basic research methods: An entry to social science research. Thousand Oaks,

CA: SAGE Publications. Katz, L. G. & Chard, S. C. (2000).Engaging children's minds: the project approach. Stamford, CT: JAI

Press. Katz, L. G. & Chard, S. C. Kogan, Y. (2014). Engaging children’s minds: the project approach. Santa

Barbara: ABC Clio. Legutke, M. & Thomas, H. (1991). Process and experience in the language classroom. Harlow:

Longman. Leo, E. S. (1994). Powerful reading, efficient learning. New York: Macmillan Mather, P., & McCarthy, R. (2005). The art of critical reading: brushing up on your reading, thinking,

and study skills. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Ocak, M., &Uluyol, C. (2010). Investigation of college students’ intrinsic motivation in project based

learning. International Journal of Human Sciences, 7(1), 1152-1169. Pirozzi, R., Starks-Martin, G., &Dziewisz, J. (2012).Critical Reading, Critical Thinking: Focusing on

Contemporary Issues. Boston: Pearson Education. Ribe, R., & Vidal, N. (1993).Project work. Oxford: Heinemann. Ruggiero, V. R. (2001). Beyond feelings: A Guide to critical thinking. Mountain View California:

Mayfield Publishing Company. Scott, S., &Palincsar, A. (2009).Sociocultural Theory. Retrieved from

http://www.education.com/reference/article/sociocultural-theory Sheppard, K, &Stoller, F. L. (1995). Guidelines for the integration of students

projects into ESP classrooms. English Teaching Forum, 33(2), 10-15. Spears, D. M. (2006). Developing Critical Reading Skills. New York: McGraw-Hill. Stoller, L. F. (2006).Establishing a theoretical foundation for project-based learning in second and

foreign language contexts. In G. H. Beckett & P.C. Miller (Eds), Project-Based Second and Foreign Language Education: Past, Present, and Future (pp. 19-40). Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing.

Linh, N.Y & Suppasetseree, S. The Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication Vol. 2, Issue 1, January-June 2016, pp.16-46

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Facebook Based Collaborative Learning Lessons to Enhance Thai EFL Students’ Writing Skills

Nguyen Duy Linh

Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand

Suksan Suppasetseree Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand

Writing is one of the English language skills that is neglected during the early stages of learning the language but writing is widely considered to be one of the essential general language skills in which university students should receive instruction during their English language education (Devereux, et al. n.d.). This research study was conducted to develop and check whether or not Facebook based collaborative learning (FBCL) lessons can enhance EFL students’ writing skills. The participants in this study were students who studied English as a fundamental course at Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand. A Pre-test, post-test and 80/80 standard criterion were employed to check the efficiency of the FBCL lessons. The results revealed that FBCL lessons were efficient in helping students improve their writing skills. Moreover, the participants were interested in working in groups with to attain the goals of the FBCL lessons. The study provided some pedagogical implications for instructors to teach writing skills via online social media sites. Keywords: Facebook-based collaborative learning lessons, Thai EFL students, EFL writing skills

การเขยนเปนหนงในทกษะภาษาองกฤษทถกละเลยในระยะแรกของการเรยนภาษาตางประเทศแตการเขยนกลบถกพจารณาอยางกวางขวางวาเปน

หนงในทกษะทางภาษาทจ าเปนส าหรบผเรยนในระดบอดมศกษาทควรไดรบ (Devereux, et al. n.d.) งานวจยนไดจดท าขนเพอพฒนาและ

ตรวจสอบวาบทเรยนการเรยนแบบรวมมอกนผานทางเฟสบคสามารถชวยสงเสรมทกษะการเขยนของนกศกษาทเรยนภาษาองกฤษในฐานะ

ภาษาตางประเทศไดหรอไม ผเขารวมในการวจยนคอนกศกษาทเรยนภาษาองกฤษพนฐานทมหาวทยาลยเทคโนโลยสรนารในประเทศไทย

แบบทดสอบกอนเรยนและหลงเรยน เกณฑมาตรฐานในการประเมนบทเรยนแบบ 80/80 ถกน ามาใชเพอทดสอบประสทธภาพของบทเรยน

FBCL ผลการทดลองปรากฏวาบทเรยน FBCL มประสทธภาพทดในการชวยใหผเรยนพฒนาทกษะการเขยนใหดขน มากไปกวานนผเขารวม

การทดลองมความสนใจในการท างานเปนกลมกบเพอนๆผานทางบทเรยนFBCL งานวจยนเปนประโยชนตอผสอนทสอนทกษะการเขยนผานทาง

โซเชยลมเดย

Introduction and Rationale of the Study Writing is a basic and primary tool used to communicate with people from all over the world

(Torwong, 2003); and it is also reflects students’ understanding of English (Kitchakarn, 2012). In addition, writing is considered one of the most challenging aspects of English for EFL students to acquire, especially in Thai higher education where English is a compulsory subject. Writing in a foreign language requires students to have knowledge of linguistics such as syntax, semantics, lexicology, etc. Therefore, students need training and practice to improve their English writing skills.

Furthermore, special attention needs to be paid to Thai students of English who have limitations in their English learning abilities, and need suitable and effective writing teaching techniques or


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activities (Kitchakarn, 2012). Most students at Suranaree University of Technology where English is taught as a foundation course have a low proficiency in English (Suppasetseree, 2005; Chongapirattanakul, 1999) and a low knowledge of the essential vocabulary for reading textbooks in English (Ward, 2000; Saitakham, 2010). In addition they hardly have any opportunities to develop their writing skills in the English classroom since the communication skills, listening and speaking, have been prioritized in the classroom.

The appearance of the Internet and social media sites have been changing teaching and learning a foreign language. Among a number of popular social media sites, Facebook has become one of the most popular media sites with billions of active users and a compelling platform to encourage language development, interpersonal communication, group collaboration, and ICT skills improvement (Vota, 2010). Social applications on Facebook which allow users to exchange or share opinions, seek feedback, and connect with new people can enhance collaborative learning which facilitates social processes, communication and enables social learning. This feature can motivate students to be more active in engaging in discussion or sharing with their group members or teachers. Thus, Facebook groups are expected to be a good online learning environment for Thai students where they can learn EFL writing skills in particular and EFL in general; independently and or collaboratively with group members.

As a consequence of this, the Facebook based collaborative learning lessons (FBCL lessons) were designed by the researcher in the form of Facebook groups to be applied in the experimental class. Online learning in Facebook groups employed activities for other skills like listening and reading using videos, texts, grammar exercises and guided questions for students to answer and give feedback to their peers. The students applied the guided questions to construct answers from their own experiences or knowledge. During the activities, students could work with peers, and interact with the teacher or other peers in Facebook groups. These writing activities were developed to complement the other listening and speaking skills.

The practice of writing via Facebook using the developed FBCL lessons for university students’ might prove that Facebook groups are a useful tool for practicing writing in the EFL context. Especially as the utilization of Facebook and Facebook groups in the classroom might increase student engagement with regard to writing thereby encouraging its use in other writing classes, particularly at Suranaree University of Technology where the teaching of writing skills is limited.

Moreover, the holistic picture of this study might provide some alternative possibilities for researchers, instructors and educators, and provide more opportunities for students to practice writing via technology in order to enhance students’ writing skills. Therefore, integrating this new technology in the writing class, especially in the Thai context, might be useful in some ways and it is worth exploring to seek evidence for the usefulness of Facebook groups in the writing classroom so that the extension of the classroom for enhancing students’ writing abilities could be considered including the applications of this new technology among researchers, instructors, scholars and learners in the EFL and ESL context. Research Questions

From these views mentioned, this research study was conducted to look for the answers for the following research questions:

1. Does the efficiency of Facebook based collaborative learning lessons to enhance EFL students’

writing skills meet the 80/80 standard criterion?

2. Are there any significant differences in the students’ writing achievement before and after

learning using Facebook based collaborative learning lessons?

Literature Review


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In searching for the answers to the research questions the following areas are briefly reviewed below to look for appropriate teaching methods for undergraduate students to improve their EFL writing skills: EFL writing, teaching writing skills at higher education, constructivism, collaborative learning and Facebook in language learning in Thailand.

EFL Writing

Although writing is complex and multifaceted by its nature, it is regarded as one of the most

difficult skills learners are expected to master. Yet it has a minor role in ESL/EFL teaching and learning, thus it is usually taught last according to the typical process of learning a language, i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Williams, 2012). However, most ESL/EFL learners take years to learn and develop writing skills appropriately and effectively (Kormos, 2012). Long and Doughty (2011) state that writing is not a process that students can communicate in one direction; therefore, it can facilitate the language proficiency in general and teachers can also utilize writing to improve other language skills.

Moreover, Friedrich (2008) states that the elementary theory of writing is the process whereby writers discover meaning actively, interactively, and recursively when they write, communicate with their own texts, responses from others, and revise. The students need to participate actively to learn and construct meaning. From this definition, Friedrich goes deeper and considers more benefits of writing activities and the changing role of the learners from passive to active.

Besides, Devereux, Macken-Horaik, Trimingham-Jack, and Wilson (n.d.) affirm that writing is widely considered one of the essential general language skills in which university students should receive instruction in their ESL/EFL education. Reichelt (2005) adds that English language writing skills are a tool to support learning a second/foreign language in general by learning the vocabulary, grammar and structures from other language skills such as listening, reading. Cumming (2001) suggests that people who learn to write in a second/foreign language need to have abilities to plan, revise, and edit the texts to look for the appropriate vocabulary. Furthermore, Gabrielatos (2002) indicates that to develop writing skills, students need to know more than just the correct grammatical points and a wide range of vocabulary. More importantly, writing helps students learn because students can apply the vocabulary and grammatical structures that they have been taught in their writing classes. They have an opportunity to take risks and overdo what they have just learnt in their writing, and they will try their best to use their brain, eye, and hands to express their ideas in their writing (Raimes, 1983).

In English writing classes in the Asian setting, especially at SUT, teachers have to deal with mixed ability groups, and thus one approach cannot be applied effectively for the whole class. The approach used depends on the level of students, the text type studied, the curriculum, and many other factors (Hasan & Akhand, 2010). Additionally, Garner and Johnson (1997, p. 36) claims that ‘writing is a fluid process created by writers as they work…’ the writing process is actually not ‘a highly organized linear process’, it is more like recursive steps during the writing process.

Brookes and Grundy (1990) state that teaching writing with separate approaches frequently leads to performing L2 writing in an unbalanced way. Hence, the main purpose is to help undergraduate non-English major students at SUT apply the knowledge they have acquired more effectively in their writing production. In participating in the writing course in this study, the EFL learners applied the vocabulary and grammar knowledge they learnt in the classroom instruction with the group writing activity and guided questions. They were required to write a beginning sentence, body, concluding sentences. They worked in groups to answer the questions. The body part was a combination of the answers to the guided questions which the participants in the study were provided. Then, they combined all of the answers from the guided questions to write in groups, i.e. a free style of writing activity. Donato (1994, cited in Hyland & Hyland, 2006) states:


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"social interaction [in which] a knowledgeable participant can create, by means of speech, supportive conditions in which the novice can participate in, and extend current skills and knowledge to higher levels of competence." (p.40). In working with their peers in class, students could learn and develop their critical thinking and

writing skills from their peers’ feedback or comments given about their writing products. The concept of the audience in giving feedback or comments on their peers’ writing through collaborative learning during class might assist them in creating their own thoughts via critical thinking and thus they may learn how to be think independently from their teacher’s feedback (Tangpermpoon, 2008).

In this study, the participant students were prepared with the linguistic knowledge of grammar and vocabulary that were necessary to create a particular text for SUT students with a high beginners’ level of English proficiency. The participants could then gain more information about the topics through listening comprehension activities and while working with their group members to understand the information from the activities. These activities provided students with the vocabulary and grammatical structures to prepare them for their guided writing activities. Specific grammar structures and topic-related vocabulary were introduced in the individual learning. In teaching writing to undergraduate students in Thailand, Tangpermpoon (2008)says that students are prepared enough linguistic input of English language knowledge and skills for their writing assignments and it will be less difficult for their L2 writing.

After that, they could collaborate with their group members to answer the guided questions to build up their written work. The written texts from each group were posted on the Facebook group for comments and feedback from the group members. After receiving comments and feedback they were compared and analyzed with the written products of others within their small Facebook groups, then in the big Facebook groups, students submitted their final written products which were marked or graded by their teachers. The revision stage with peer feedback from group members, among group members, and from teachers was employed in this study. The final version of their guided writing was incorporated in a poster and posted on the Facebook group allowing their peers to vote for their favorite group guided writing.

Teaching Writing at Higher Education

Writing at the tertiary level is a challenge for students (Devereux, Macken-Horarik, Trimingham-Jack, & Wilson, n.d.). Those students who are stuck and unable to write in a critical way are also likely to have a poor attitude and are probably not interested in writing (Osman & Bakar, 2009). Most of them either achieve a mediocre or poor result in their writing exams (Choo, 2001). Furthermore, Ismail, Elias, Albakri, Perumal, and Muthusamy (2010) revealed in their study that students at the tertiary level face many problems in writing which concern their weakness in linguistic knowledge such as grammar, vocabulary; and their inability to think and write critically. As a result, EFL students at the tertiary level need to be trained and taught with knowledge and critical skills in writing; and above all, they need more opportunities to practice their writing skill.

Writing is a skill that SUT undergraduate students have few chances to develop or improve during their language education at SUT since the main purpose of learning English at SUT is to enhance their communication skills through listening and speaking. Therefore, EFL students normally make a variety of errors in their writing because of their stress and anxiety in writing in a foreign language (Spratt & Leug, 2000). How can EFL teachers try to help their students reduce their mistakes or improve


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their writing if they are not taught how to read their own writing? (Graves, 1994). This was also applied in this study through the revision stage of the participants’ group activity.

Constructivism

Reviewing the main goals and principles of constructivism in an educational context, it could be summarize by saying that constructivism emphasizes learning and not teaching, encourages learner autonomy and personal involvement in learning. Many researchers, educators and authors are actively using constructivist principles to design and implement new learning environments showing that theory can effectively guide educational practice and that learner-centeredness is one of the most important principles of constructivist language teaching and learning (Wang, 2011).

Based on the learner-centeredness and construction of their own knowledge through students’ active participation, this study provided students with some comprehension activities where they could collaborate with their group members in small Facebook groups to give their answers to those activities. Through their participation, they could learn from their group members and develop their writing skills to construct a group guided writing in English.

Collaborative Learning Panitz (1999) defines collaboration as a philosophy of interaction and personal lifestyle where individuals are responsible for their actions, including learning and respecting the abilities and contributions of their peers. Collaborative learning is related to social constructivism, and is concerned with creating new knowledge, and the teacher in this collaborative learning paradigm serves as a facilitator or a guide to the social process of discovery (Olivares, 2004).

In the collaborative learning literature, collaborative learning is a social-intellectual exercise concerned with the creation of new knowledge, whereby a problem or task is posed, and a solution or solutions found (Brody, 1995; Bruffee, 1995). Panitz (1999) states that collaborative learning is a personal philosophy and not just a classroom technique. So, students in a collaborative learning environment can come together in groups, they can learn how to deal with their group members, respect and highlight individual group members' abilities and contributions. They share the authority and accept the responsibility for the group’s actions performed by group members. Therefore, collaborative learning is a learning method that uses social interaction as a means of knowledge building as Dennen (2000) indicated.

Facebook in Teaching EFL Writing Skills

Communication, sharing, and connection are the main features of social networking sites. With these benefits Facebook seems to be an appropriate platform for implementation of this study since Facebook can help students to communicate with other Facebook friends within Facebook groups. Moreover, they can connect with other people such as teachers or other students. They can share their own opinions and post their comments within their Facebook groups. And within the Facebook groups, teachers can set the privacy levels for their students, which is not generally available in blogs. Only Facebook group members can see their posts or comments. Students are thus not afraid of being seen by others if they are confident in the privacy of their comments and written products. This feature can motivate students to be more active in engaging in discussion or sharing with their group members or teachers. Besides, teachers can control students’ discussions and comments in each group or subgroup more easily; and students can send messages to their peers or teachers via inbox messages on


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Facebook. Several of the benefits of Facebook in EFL teaching and learning are reviewed from previous research studies below.

Peer feedback in Facebook groups helped students enhance their learning motivation, interest, interactions to exchange their ideas, opinions, and to share knowledge. Peer feedback can also be effective in improving students’ grammar, knowledge of tenses and sentence structure to learn English more effectively (Shih, 2013). In addition, it is confirmed that Facebook groups can help students learn new vocabulary from their peers’ comments and Facebook groups should be integrated into teaching and improving EFL writing skills (Yunus & Salehi, 2012; Dixon, 2012). Facebook groups were used as a means of learning grammar and improving writing skills for low-intermediate EFL students in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand (Suthiwartnarueput & Wasanasomsithi, 2011). Besides the media functions and features that Facebook provides in language teaching and learning, Facebook was also considered the only supporting tool that assisted students in learning English writing courses (Ju, 2014). With the advantages of Facebook from the previous research studies, Facebook seems to be the most appropriate social media site for EFL students at SUT to practice English, especially to practice and enhance their EFL writing skills.

In searching for an interesting and effective way to assist students in their EFL learning, the researcher incorporated activities, such as posting comments as a social interaction activity, with an online learning course using Facebook groups as a collaborative learning tool. With the aforementioned information, this study was conducted to provide SUT students with more chances to learn English outside the classroom because teachers do not have sufficient time to give them detailed knowledge from the textbooks for the purpose of improving their English knowledge and skills, especially their writing skills. Therefore, Facebook based collaborative learning lessons to enhance EFL students’ writing skills were developed and checked in this study to establish if they were efficient or not.

Methodology Participants

The population of the study was the first year university students who took English 1 at

Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand. Those students who were new to the university and needed to improve their English language skills to have a stronger foundation to continue with other English courses at SUT took part in this experiment. They were expected to be more interested in joining this course because of the use of technology and the fact that part of the course was online, supplementing classroom instruction. Moreover, as a result of the course they might be more independent in their own study not only after this course but also in their lifelong learning.

Samples of the study were selected by a purposive sampling technique. Purposive sampling is a non-random sampling technique in which the researcher specifies the characteristics of the population of interest and then tries to locate individuals who have those specific characteristics to participate in a research study (Johnson & Christensen, 2012). In addition, the main goal of purposive sampling is to focus on particular characteristics of a population that are of interest, which are best enable to answer the research questions. There were two groups of participants in the study, including participants for the try-out studies and participants for the main experiment.

Participants for the Try-out Studies


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The first group consisted of the participants who were selected from the first year students in Trimester 3/2013 who just finished the English 1 course at Suranaree University of Technology. They were not students for the main study. There were fifty-six students from English 1 courses and they were randomly divided into smaller groups of four. Four students participated in the individual testing, twelve students joined the small group testing, and forty students took part in the field testing.

Participants for the Experiment

The second group consisted of a group of fifty-two students who took the English 1 course at SUT. These fifty-two students were from one group of English 1 who took the course in Trimester 2/2014. They had more opportunities to practice their EFL writing skills in Facebook groups which encouraged the students to be more focused on learning English independently and autonomously.

Research Design Phase 1 Construction and Evaluation of Facebook Based Collaborative Learning Lessons

The lessons were designed based on the development of the instructional design model on Facebook based collaborative learning (see Appendix A).The FBCL instructional model provides a guideline for designing FBCL lessons because of its systematic and social media site based orientation using Facebook’s collaborative based learning environment to enhance EFL university students’ writing skills. The FBCL lessons consist of two units based on the textbook by Richards and Bohlke (2012), Four Corners 3, Cambridge University Press. The FBCL lessons are composed of three main sections: Listening Comprehension, Grammar Exercise, and Group Writing Practice. The main platform for the FBCL lessons were Facebook groups where students’ practiced their collaborative writing. The EDpuzzle website provided a sub platform for the listening comprehension and grammar exercises for their independent learning. After the FBCL lessons were developed, they were uploaded to the Facebook groups and EDpuzzle before the main experiment was conducted (see Appendix D).

The students joined the lessons were joined after they took the pre-test. The learning activities to enhance EFL students’ writing skills were embedded in Facebook groups via the group writing activities with guided questions (see Appendix B). The participant students took the FBCL lessons within eight weeks. Then they took the post-test. The student writing activities were based on a Question and Answer format which allows more freedom for students to structure sentences (Raimes, 1983). Before the main study, testing for the Facebook based collaborative learning lessons was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of the lessons and relevant improvements were made. They were tested and revised through 3 stages which included individual testing, small group testing, and field testing. They are illustrated in Figure 1.


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Evaluation of Facebook Based Collaborative Learning Lessons

The Facebook based collaborative learning lessons were employed in the try-outs of three stages: individual testing, small group testing, and field testing. After the three stages, the lessons were revised and improved to make the lessons better for future use. Individual Testing 1:1

Individual testing was the first stage of the pilot study. Four students who just finished English 1

joined this stage. These four students took part into the Facebook based collaborative learning lessons and completed the activities and tests. The results from the activities and tests were calculated to check the efficiency of the process (E1) and the efficiency of the product (E2). Small Group Testing 1:10

Small group testing followed the pilot study of individual testing. Twelve students who finished

English 1 joined the Facebook based collaborative learning lessons. The procedures were the same as those of the individual testing. Field Testing 1:100

The last stage of the trial study was field testing. Forty students four students grouped into one small Facebook group, were selected as samples to participate in the try-out studies. The procedures of this field study testing were the same as those of individual testing or small group testing.

The students who took part in three trial studies were different from the experiment group of the main study. They completed the Facebook based collaborative learning lessons, did the writing activities and obtained the assignments from the links on Facebook. Their achievement scores from both


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exercises and tests were recorded to evaluate the efficiency of the lessons. The 80/80 Standard was applied as a criterion to determine the efficiency of the lessons (Brahmawong, 1978). The standard includes two formulae: the efficiency of the process formula (E1) and the efficiency of the product formula (E2) (see Figure 2).

The two formulae were used to evaluate the efficiency of the Facebook based collaborative learning lessons. If the FBCL lessons meet the 80/80 standard, it would indicate that the FBCL lessons are efficient.

Figure 2 Efficiency of the Process (E1) and Efficiency of the Product (E2) Formula Results from three trial stages and the main experiment in the second phase were collected and

analyzed according to the 80/80 standard to answer the first research question, “Does the efficiency of Facebook based collaborative learning lessons to enhance EFL students’ writing skills meet the 80/80 standard criterion?”

Phase 2 Implementation

In the second phase, prior to the main study, the experiment group completed a pre-test to check their writing skills. After the 8-week treatment for the experimental group, all the students took the post-test to examine whether the effects of the experiment showed a significant difference.

Pre-test and Post-test

In this study, two English writing tests were employed for the pre-test and post-test. The English

writing tests were developed from the guided writing activities with ten guided questions used as a clue for guided writing of 100 to 150 words (see Appendix A). The guided questions were based on the two main topics from the two units of the FBCL lessons. The criteria for grading the students’ writing comprised content, organization, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization (RCampus, n.d.). Since the organization of a guided writing was assessed by how students combine their answers from the guided questions to make a well-organized written text. And the students of English 1 were just beginners on this writing course, the researcher based more emphasis on the content of the guided writing and how students used the appropriate grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. Thus these aspects were given more weight in the scoring rubrics. Based on the criteria mentioned, the scoring rubrics for the pre-test and post-test were adapted from Hyland (2003) and RCampus (n.d.) (see Appendix C). The separate scales for content, organization, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization were adopted from Hyland (2003) with the analytic scoring rubrics of a set of criteria to evaluate writing tasks in general. In addition, more detailed descriptors were provided for each feature

E1 = 𝑋

𝐴

× 100

E1 : Efficiency of the process in percentage �� : Average score all students obtain in the exercises A : Total score of the exercises in the lessons

E2 = 𝐹

𝐵

× 100

E2: Efficiency of the product in percentage �� : Average score all students obtain in the tests B : Total score of the tests in the lessons


25

to assess the quality of guided writing by beginners were obtained from RCampus (n.d.). They were suitable to assess students’ guided writing from the English 1 course at SUT.

Analysis of Pre-test and Post-test

To answer research question 2, a pair-sample T-test was used to compare the participants’

means scores of the pre-test and post-test to find out the differences in students’ writing achievement before and after learning via the Facebook based collaborative learning lessons.

Results Results of the Efficiency of the Facebook Based Collaborative Learning (FBCL) Lessons to Enhance EFL Writing Skills.

The FBCL lessons were evaluated for their efficiency in two phases: trials and the main

experiment. Before the main experiment, three trial studies were completed to evaluate the efficiency of the FBCL lessons and to improve the lessons. The trial studies consisted of three steps: 1) individual testing, 2) small group testing, and 3) field testing. In order to improve the FBCL lessons, the 80/80 standard (Brahmawong, 1978) was employed as a criterion to determine the efficiency of the FBCL lessons. In each step of the trial studies, according to the results and student’s feedback, components of the FBCL lessons were modified and improved to make the lessons more suitable and effective. After the trial studies, the main experiment (trial run) was carried out to determine the efficiency of the FBCL lessons. Results of the Individual Testing

The individual testing was the first step of the try-out studies. Four students of English 1 in Term

3/2013 with mixed different English proficiency level were selected to learn the FBCL lessons. Their scores were recorded and presented in Table 1 to show the efficiency of the process and product for the individual testing.

Table 1 Results of Individual Testing for the Efficiency of the FBCL lessons

Tryout Step Learning Unit E1 E2

Individual Testing 1 78.08 76.75

2 78.66 77.00

According to Table 1, the average scores of E1/E2 for Unit 1 and Unit 2 were 78.08/76.75, and

78.66/77.00, respectively. Therefore, none of the lessons in the individual testing satisfied the 80/80 standard. The findings indicated that the contents did not cover some of the learning objectives and some instructions were not appropriate to the characteristics of the online learning. From the student’s opinions and feedback, it was determined that they needed more learning scaffolding, explanation, and more activities to assist them improve their writing skills. Firstly, the exercises was adjusted to a multiple choice format which suits the online activities and gets the students involved and more interested in doing the exercises, rather than just typing their answers in sentences. The video clip of listening comprehension used open ended questions for the first lesson assignments which were changed to multiple choice questions for all the units. Secondly, more grammar exercises using Present Simple and Present Continuous tenses were added to the second assignments of Unit 1; Past Simple and


26

Present Perfect tenses for the second assignment of Unit 2. The FBCL lessons reviewed their knowledge relating to the learning objectives and helped students with their writing. In addition, some interview activities were removed because this activity was repeated in the second lesson to prepare the students for the group writing task. Thirdly, the instructions for the Grammar Review assignments in the second part of Units 1 and 2 of the FBCL lessons were revised and made simpler allowing students to follow them more easily. After a revision of the first trial step, the FBCL lessons were employed in the second trial step, small group testing. Results of the Small Group Testing

The second trial step was the small group testing. In this trial step, 12 students from mixed

English proficiency levels were divided into 3 groups. The results of the trial are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Results of Small Group Testing for Efficiency of the FBCL lessons


Small Group Testing 1 79.64 78.92

2 79.78 79.00

As shown in Table 2, the scores of E1/E2 of twelve participants were 79.64/ 78.92 and

79.78/79.00for Unit 1 and 2 respectively. In this step, none of the lessons met the 80/80 standard. However, the scores of E1/E2 in this step increased compared to those found in the individual testing step. This indicated that the efficiency of the process and the product for small group testing from twelve students had improved. In addition, after the students’ feedback was collected, the lessons were revised and improved by adding more examples to the instructions of the second part of Unit 1 and Unit 2 of the FBCL lessons to make them clearer and easier for students to grasp. Eight links to the websites about Present Simple, Present Continuous, and Zero Conditional Sentences were provided to offer additional grammar exercises in the second parts of Units 1 and 2 of the FBCL lessons with the intended purpose of assisting students in the review of previous grammar points taught in the classroom. The FBCL lessons were edited and revised for the next step of trial studies. Results of the Field Testing

Field testing was the last step of the trial studies. In this step, forty students with mixed level

English proficiency level participated. These students were divided into ten groups of four students.

Table 3 Results of Field Testing for Efficiency of the FBCL Lessons


Field Testing 1 80.49 80.00

2 80.60 80.13

The results of this step were 80.49/80.00 and 80.60/80.13, respectively for the FBCL lessons

shown in Table 3. It showed that the scores for the process and the product had met the 80/80 standard. In this stage, all of the content, exercises, tasks, and instructions of the lessons were reviewed again, especially the guided questions to prepare for group guided writing, the final group product of the FBCL lessons. All of the links to the video clips and additional grammar exercises were checked again


27

to ensure availability and functionality and were then ready to be implemented in the main experimental study.

Results of the Main Experiment (Trial Run Study)

After three iterations, the FBCL lessons were implemented in the trial run phase for the main study with the whole group of fifty-two English 1 students to test the efficiency of the FBCL lessons. They were from mixed English proficiency level and divided into 13 small groups of four students. The results of the efficiency of the process (E1) and the product (E2) of the main experiment are shown in Table 4.

Table 4 Results of Experiment for Efficiency of the FBCL Lessons

Testing Step Learning Unit E1 E2

Experiment 1 81.22 80.19

2 81.89 80.96

According to Table 4, the efficiency of the process (E1) and of the product (E2) of Unit 1 and Unit

2 were 81.22/ 80.19 and 81.89/80.96 respectively. These scores clearly showed that the efficiency of the exercises and tasks of the FBCL lessons met the 80/80 standard criterion. The results indicated that the FBCL lessons were efficient, able to help students reach the learning objectives, and suitable for English writing instruction with EFL students, especially English 1 students at SUT. The results also responded well to the first research question of this study “Does the efficiency of Facebook based collaborative learning lessons to enhance EFL students’ writing skills meet the 80/80 standard criterion?”

Results of the Participants’ Writing Achievements Before and After the FBCL Lessons

In order to evaluate students’ writing ability, a parallel pre-writing test and post-writing test were employed right before and after the implementation of the FBCL lessons. Both tests which were administered to the whole group of 52 students provided students guided questions for their guided writing containing about 100 to 150 words. The results of the overall writing ability from the pre-test and post-test are presented in Table 5.

Table 5 Results of the Participants’ English Writing Achievements

N Pre-writing test Post-writing test

X SD X SD

Experimental Class 52 60.58 9.63 69.81 10.19

As shown in Table 5, the students’ average score for the pre-writing test and post-writing test

were 60.58 and 69.81 respectively. The results indicate that the post-writing test score was higher than the pre-writing test score. In order to investigate whether there was a significant difference between the pre-writing test score and post-writing test score, a paired-sample t-test was utilized to compare. The results of the t-test are shown in Table 6.

Table 6 Results of Paired Samples t-test for the Experimental Group


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Paired Differences

t df Sig.

(2-tailed)

Mean Std. Deviation

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper

Pretest – Posttest

-9.23077 8.82202 -11.68684 -6.77470 -7.545 51 .000

Table 6 shows the statistics of the distribution of differences between one pair scores (Pair

Differences) of the experimental class. The results reveal that there was a highly significant difference between the mean scores of the pre-writing test and post-writing test (p=.000, p<.05). This indicates that the students who joined the FBCL lessons made remarkable progress in their writing skills. It proves that the FBCL lessons assisted EFL students significantly in improving their EFL writing skills.

Discussion Discussion of the Efficiency of the Facebook Based Collaborative Learning (FBCL) Lessons to Enhance EFL Students’ Writing Skills

According to the results of the efficiency of the FBCL lessons in this study, it was revealed that

the efficiency of the process (E1) and the efficiency of product (E2) of the FBCL lessons in the main experiment (trial run) reached the 80/80 standard criterion. This confirmed that the FBCL lessons would be efficient at enhancing EFL students’ writing skills. This might result from the systematic development of the FBCL lessons through three stages: listening comprehension, grammar revision, and writing practice in groups in each lesson which were developed from a step-by-step process of the FBCL Instructional model (see Appendix A). All 6 major steps and 16 sub-steps of the FBCL Instructional model were evaluated very appropriate with a mean score which was well within the “very appropriate” level to the enhancement of EFL students’ writing skills (Nguyen & Suppasetseree, 2016).The FBCL Instructional model was also approved to be appropriate to analyze the setting, the instructional goals, conducting evaluation and revision of writing instructions. It was also approved as an integration of Facebook groups with collaborative writing.

Another reason why the FBCL lessons were found to be efficient might be that the lessons were tested before the main experiment (trial run) through three trial stages: individual testing, small group testing, and field testing. These initial stages were applied to support the determination of the efficiency of the process (E1) and the product (E2) of the FBCL lessons with the 80/80 standard criterion. During each stage of the trial, the scores of the exercises and the tests were collected to evaluate the efficiency of the FBCL lessons. Based on students’ scores and feedback, the FBCL lessons were gradually modified and improved. The students’ feedback is believed to assist teachers in improving their teaching (Davis, 2014). Moore and Kuol (2005) also mention that students can provide useful feedback on the effectiveness of teaching. Student feedback also enhances the quality of teaching (Penny & Coe, 2004).


29

That the FBCL lessons were improved and found to efficient during the trial stages, may have led to why the FBCL lessons were also efficient in the main experiment (trial run). Therefore, the three trial stages might have made the FBCL lessons efficient and appropriate to enhance EFL students’ writing skills.

One more reason why the FBCL lessons were efficient in enhancing the EFL students’ writing skills might be from the systematic process used with the assignments, exercises, tests and the final group writing product. Students had the chance to review the linguistic knowledge before they made use of it in their group writing activities. They could practice listening to video clips about the same topics that they were going to write about. There were also video clips provided for them to listen to more vocabulary relevant to the topics they were going to work on. In addition, they did grammar exercises to review the grammar points that would be used in the group writing activities. Students could complete listening comprehensions and grammar review exercises interactively which were provided on EDpuzzle that were linked to Facebook groups. As Ismail, Elias, Albakri, Perumal, and Muthusamy (2010) stated that EFL students were normally weak in linguistic knowledge such as grammar, vocabulary, and in thinking and writing critically. In the FBCL lessons, guided questions provided support for the students’ weaknesses before they started to practice writing in groups. Moreover, there was a significant correlation between the grammar knowledge and writing ability (Suthiwartnarueput & Wasanasomsithi, 2012). The linguistic knowledge of grammar and vocabulary that they got from the practice exercises prepared them for the guided writing activities in groups. Their collaborative guided writing activities including peer comments from their own groups, the other groups, and their teacher which helped them improve much of their group guided writing at the end of each unit of the FBCL lessons. This idea was supported by the studies of Yunus, et al. (2011) and Yunus and Salehi (2012) in that learning using Facebook improves students’ writing skills, and by another study conducted by Shih (2013) that found that peer feedback in Facebook groups helps students learn English more effectively. As a result, owing to these connected and systematic activities the FBCL lessons were approved as efficient for the enhancement of EFL students’ writing skills.

The results of this study were consistent with the findings from Suppasetseree’s study (2005), Dennis’s study (2011), and Tian’s study (2012).All in all, the FBCL lessons were efficient at enhancing EFL students’ writing skills since the results of the lessons met the efficiency level of the 80/80 standard that had already been set. The FBCL lessons were proven to be efficient as a result of the logical design process, the systematic testing procedures, and being consistent with previous studies of teaching English online or via the Internet.

Discussion of the Results of the Participants’ Writing Achievements Before and After the FBCL Lessons

The results showed that the average scores of post-writing test ( X = 69.81) were higher than

those of pre-writing test ( X =60.58). And the result of a statistically significant difference between the scores of the pre-writing and post-writing tests showed that there was very significant difference between the average scores of the pre-writing test and post-writing test (p=.000, p<.05). It indicated that students’ guided writing skills were improved after the intervention provided by the FBCL lessons. This indicated that the FBCL lessons had a positive effect on first year SUT students’ writing achievements. The reasons why the students’ writing achievements were significantly improved after applying the FBCL lessons might be explained as follows.

The first reason was probably because before the students took the post-writing test, they practiced the learning activities in each unit. In one unit, students were asked to watch video clips for the Listening Comprehension part to increase their vocabulary about the topic mentioned in the group writing activities later. They were also required to do more grammatical exercises to review the grammar points that were applied later in the group writing practice. They could practice these activities


30

several times at their own pace. Students could also learn more about the new vocabulary and grammar points from peer comments or feedback which helped them have fewer spelling errors, and use grammar more appropriately (Yunus, et al., 2011). It was confirmed that students learn better and retain the newly acquired knowledge longer when they can do meaningful practice and repetition (Thorndike, 1991). Moreover, students had the chance to practice the writing skills which were later tested in the post-writing test. The writing skills were taught in groups where students were prepared to help each other answer guided questions in the writing practice activities and then work together in groups writing which was also tested for on the post-writing test. The fact that students were trained in the linguistic knowledge and skills within the FBCL lessons might have led to a positive effect on students’ post-writing test scores.

The second reason for students’ writing achievements might be from the effective learning activities of the FBCL lessons. During their participation with the FBCL lessons, students were provided with linguistic knowledge through their independent participation at their own pace. Participants’ knowledge was actively reviewed, gathered, and engaged through their participation in the process of development and learning as builders and creators of meaning and knowledge (Bruner, 1990; Duffy & Jonassen, 1992; Gray, 1997). According to constructivist learning theory, learners use their own previous knowledge and experiences to help expand their new knowledge. Moreover, student errors should be considered in a positive way and as a means of gaining insight into how they combine their own knowledge and experience to construct new meanings. In social constructivist perspective, individual and social components in learning cannot be separated (Fosnot, 1996). There could be an interaction among teachers, learners, tasks, and contexts in the learning process as it is emphasized in constructivism as learner autonomy and personal involvement in learning are encouraged. Hence, the importance of constructivist learning theory in the study was approved through student participation through learner-centeredness and their active social learning environment through interaction with their teachers, tasks, and peers (Wang. 2011). In addition, the guided writing skills from the participants were also improved by learning together in groups or through feedback from other groups. The linguistic knowledge which students learnt at their own pace could be applied in the guided writing in groups. They learnt collaboratively and interacted socially together in groups as Panitz (1999) states and students can collaborate in groups, deal with their group members, respect one another, accept, and share responsibility among group members. Therefore, social interaction among participant students was used in this study to learn, review, and build their knowledge through their group writing activities as Dennen (2000) mentions in collaborative learning. This also corresponded well with results from a study by Suthiwartnarueput and Wasanasomsithi (2012) that found a significant correlation between the scores of grammar points and writing skills in the pretest and post-test.

In summary, EFL students’ writing achievements between the pre-writing test and post-writing test were significantly different due to the development of students’ guided writing skills which were trained systematically through the FBCL lessons and effectively learning in groups.

Pedagogical Implications from the Study

The organization of the lessons was carried out in a proper order which helped students learn or review their linguistic knowledge (such as learning vocabulary from listening comprehension activities; reviewing grammar from completing grammar exercises) so that they would be able to apply them to the writing activities. The logical process of learning activities should be carefully examined to help learners gain or reach their learning goals with the highest results. Consequently, English instructors or teachers should follow the order and structure of the FBCL lessons which could help learners of English study more effectively.


31

Constructivist learning theory and collaborative learning were employed in this study, which led to an improvement in the students’ writing skills and the FBCL lessons were found to be efficient by the results of this study. These two learning theories are highly recommended for inclusion in online writing instruction via social networking sites or media sites.

The FBCL lessons were used as a supplementary course since the English 1 students at SUT had not had any chances to practice their writing skills. Since the efficiency of the FBCL lessons was approved for enhancing the EFL students writing skills and students were able to learn more in groups, the lessons could be considered for application as an official course to provide learners with more chances to practice their writing skills and enhance their English learning.

Conclusion

The results of the study showed that the efficiency of the FBCL lessons (E1/E2) were 81.22/80.19 and 81.89/80.96 respectively which met the 80/80 standard criterion. This indicated that the FBCL lessons had reached the learning goals and were suitable at enhancing EFL students’ writing skills. Moreover, the scores of the pre-writing test and the post-writing test were compared and analyzed with a pair sample t-test. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the pre-writing test scores and post-writing test scores (p=.000, p<.05). This also showed that students’ writing skills had progressed and improved significantly.

Biodata:

Mr. Nguyen Duy Linh is a Ph.D. candidate in English Language Studies at Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand. His research interests include Technology Enhanced Language Learning, Instructional Design, and English Language Teaching and Learning. He can be reached at [email protected]

Dr. Suksan Suppasetseree is currently an English lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages, Institute of Social Technology, Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. He is the Unit Supervisor of Foreign Languages Resource Unit (FLRU), the self-access language learning center, at Suranaree University of Technology. He is also the Coordinator of Korean and Vietnamese courses taught at Suranaree University of Technology. His research interests are in the areas of Instructional Systems Design, and Technology-enhanced Language Learning. He can be reached at [email protected]




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APPENDIX A

The Instructional Model on Facebook Based Collaborative Learning to

Enhance EFL writing skills (The FBCL instructional model)


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APPENDIX B

PRE-TEST

Instructions:

First, answer these questions in complete sentences

Example:Question: How many people are there in your family?

Answer: There are four people in my family. They are my father, my mother, my sister, and me.

Answer: Four. (It is NOT accepted)

Then, write a journal about your life at the university and travel experience about 100 to 150 words. In your journal, you should include the information from all of the answers of the following questions.

Guided questions:

What’s your name? Where are you from? What is your major at your

university?

How do you get to class? Where do you stay when you study at

university?

Do you have any close friends at the university? How did you meet

these friends?

What is your favorite subject? Why do you like it?

What was your favorite trip? What was good about it? Please

describe it!

Where did you go? How did you get there?

Who did you go with?

What did you do during the trip?

What was the most dangerous situation you have had on vacation?

What happened?

What do you remember most about the trip? Why?

POST-TEST

Instructions:


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First, answer these questions in complete sentences

Example:Question: How many people are there in your family?

Answer: There are four people in my family. They are my father, my mother, my sister, and me.

Answer: Four. (It is NOT accepted)

Then, combine your complete answers to write a journal about your life at university and travel experience about 100 to 150 words.

Guided questions:

What’s your name? What is your major at your university?

How long have you studied at the university?

What is the most difficult problem you have at your university? How

can you overcome this problem?

After completing a challenging term, where would you like to go on

your dream vacation?

Who would you like to go with? Why would you like to go with them?

Why would you like to go there? Have you ever been there before?

How do you know about that place?

What are the geographic features there? Describe what that place

looks like?

How can you get there? How far is it from here (SUT/ Thailand) to

that place?

Where would you like to stay? How long would you like to stay there?

What can you do there? What interesting activities can you do there?


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APPENDIX C

Scoring Rubrics for Pre-test and Post-test of Writing skills for the Instructional Model on Facebook-based Collaborative Learning Lessons* (score out of 100).

Marks

Excellent

Band 4

Good

Band 3

Almost

Band 2

Needs

Work

Band 1

Reflection

(20)

The

response is

very

specific to

the task; all

prompts are

addressed

and clearly

stated and

supported.

The

response

refers to the

task; major

points are

made, but

only

somewhat

supported.

The

response

refers to an

unspecified

tasked;

answer

does not

clearly

respond.

The

response

does not

specify the

task;

confusion

on

connection

to prompt

and

answer.

Ideas and

Content

(40)

Information

is accurate

and

response

shows

penetrating

insight. The

task is

referred to

in the

answer.

Information

is accurate.

A logical

conclusion

or an

opinion is

offered.

Information

provided is

generally

accurate

but no

insight is

offered.

Information

may be

missing or

inaccurate.

No insight

is shared.

Organization, Writing is Writing is There may Any


39

Spelling, Gram

mar &

Punctuation/

Capitalization

(40)

fluent and

lively.

Answer is

concise and

to the point,

in complete

sentences

and correct

grammar.

There are

0-2 spelling

errors.

Paragraph

has 0-2

errors in

punctuation

,

capitalizatio

n, and

noun-verb

agreement.

fluent but

not

interesting;

grammar is

mostly

accurate.

There are

3-4 spelling

errors.

Paragraph

has 3-4

errors in

punctuation

,

capitalizatio

n, and

noun-verb

agreement.

or may not

be a

conclusion

or an

opinion.

There are

5-6 spelling

errors.

Paragraph

has 5-6

errors in

punctuation

,

capitalizatio

n, and

noun-verb

agreement.

conclusion

or opinion

offered may

be judged

to be off-

task.

There are

more than 6

spelling

errors.

Paragraph

has more

than 6

errors in

punctuation

,

capitalizatio

n, and

noun-verb

agreement.

APPENDIX D


40

This part was about some pictures captured from the Facebook

based collaborative learning lessons were uploaded in EDpuzzle and

Facebook groups.

This is a sample page of the Listening Comprehension part that was

uploaded in EDpuzzle. The content was adapted from Four Corners 3,

Teacher Edition.


41


42

This is a sample page of a grammar exercise that was also uploaded

to EDpuzzle for students to review the grammar point taught in the

classroom


43


44

These are samples of a Writing Practice activity that was uploaded in

the Facebook groups.


45

Viengsang, R. & Gajaseni, C. The Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication Vol. 2, Issue 1, January-June 2016, pp. 47-63

47

Types and Topics of Culture in One Series of Selected English Textbooks used at Thai Secondary Schools

Raveewan Viengsang

Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Chansongklod Gajaseni Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

The objectives of this study were to a) survey the types of culture used in English textbooks at Thai secondary schools, and b) explore the topics presented in each type. Textbook analyses were conducted by analyzing the frequency of a) types of culture and b) topics of culture. The findings showed a predominance of the target culture, while international culture and Asian-oriented culture received less attention in the sample textbooks. The study also found that the higher the level of textbooks, the more target culture had been emphasized. Furthermore, the most common topics in the textbooks were Daily Life, Interaction, and the Nation respectively. Not surprisingly, learners were mainly introduced to the cultures of native speakers and the customary situations such as routines. The study suggests that teachers should provide much more information about the different cultures of English speakers around the world, as well as the learners’ own culture in order to expand their worldview and develop cultural understanding and an awareness of others.

Key Words: cultural materials, types of culture, topics of culture, English textbooks,

secondary schools

วตถประสงคของงานวจยนมเพอ 1) ส ารวจประเภทของวฒนธรรมในแบบเรยนภาษาองกฤษทใชในโรงเรยนมธยมศกษา และ 2) ส ารวจหวขอทปรากฏในแตละประเภท จากการวเคราะหขอมลแบบเรยนโดยใชความถของ ก) ประเภทของวฒนธรรม และ ข) หวขอทางวฒนธรรม ผลการวจยพบ ความโดดเดนของวฒนธรรมเปาหมาย (target culture) ในขณะทวฒนธรรมนานาชาต (international culture) และวฒนธรรมเอเชย(Asian-oriented culture) ไดรบความสนใจนอยกวา การวจยยงพบวา ยงแบบเรยนมระดบสงขนสดสวนของวฒนธรรมเปาหมายยงปรากฏมากขน นอกจากน ยงพบวาหวขอทางวฒนธรรมทปรากฏมากทสดในแบบเรยนไดแก ชวตประจ าวน (Daily Life) การปฏสมพนธ(Interaction) และ หวขอทเกยวของกบชาต (The Nation) เรยงตามล าดบ จงไมนาแปลกใจทผเรยนไดรบวฒนธรรมของเจาของภาษา และไดเรยนรหวขอเกยวกบสถานการณทผเรยนคนเคย เชนกจวตร มากทสด จากผลการวจยชใหเหนวา ครควรแนะน าวฒนธรรมของผใชภาษาองกฤษทวโลกอยางหลากหลาย รวมไปถง แนะน าวฒนธรรมของผเรยนเอง เพอขยายมมมองของผเรยน พฒนาความเขาใจทางวฒนธรรมและความตระหนกรตอวฒนธรรมของผอน


48

Introduction At present, the predominant reason to learn English worldwide is to communicate (Lewis & Hill, 1992). In accordance with Thailand’s English language learning situation, the Basic Education Core Curriculum A.D. 2008 states that the ultimate goal of learning foreign languages is:

‘the ability to use foreign languages for communicating in various situations, seeking knowledge, and engaging in a livelihood and pursuing further education at higher levels. Learners will thus have knowledge and understanding of diversified matters and events of the world community, and will be able to creatively convey Thai concepts and culture to the global society (Office of the Basic Education Commission, 2008, p. 267)’.

As aforementioned, linguistic knowledge is not enough for learners. Not only should they be equipped with linguistic knowledge, cultural behavior, and cultural awareness but in addition, they should feel comfortable communicating with global and local speakers in an appropriate manner (Alptekin, 2002). In order for them to be able to do so, the instructional materials and activities should provide a variety of local and international contexts with interactions among native and non-native speakers. Cortazzi and Jin (1998, 1999) suggest that in intercultural contexts, learners should communicate appropriately, understand the communication patterns and expectations of people, and be able to interpret the conversations they have with others. Also, Fantini (2005) and McKay (2000) state that learners should be able to effectively communicate with others using linguistically and culturally appropriate interactions. In summary, culture is inseparable from language and remains significant in the area of language learning in terms of communications where learners should be able to use language in a variety of cultural contexts. Consequently, in the process of designing and developing materials for language learning nowadays, cultural information should be one of the most crucial considerations. In the area of language learning, Tomlinson (2012) values textbooks as sources for lesson planning and material designing. He also believes that published materials are useful for both teachers and students. Materials used in English language learning should incorporate different cultures from around the world because cultural content helps students to relate their local culture to English language learning and provides more opportunities to explore other cultures (Tomlinson, 2005). Teachers should also take this approach. McKay (2000) finds that teachers and administrators in non-English-speaking countries tend to use native culture in their English textbooks. In Thailand, in 2008, the Ministry of Education announced the implementation of the Basic Education Curriculum, which serves as the core curriculum for national education. The curriculum details eight learning areas including foreign languages. Learning a foreign language, especially English, is deemed essential for global communication, educational and technological advancement, and the understanding of different cultures. One of the strands within the learning area emphasizes language and culture. It states that students should be able to “use foreign languages in accordance with the culture of native speakers and their relationships, understand the similarities and differences between the language and culture of native speakers and Thai culture, and apply the knowledge appropriately (Office of the Basic Education Commission, 2008, p. 267).” English textbooks are a part of language learning materials required by the Ministry of Education for English subjects taught at secondary levels (Bureau of Academic Affairs and Educational Standards, 2015). Moreover, in the agreement with the national basic education support scheme, as a part of 15-year for free education program, the government is responsible for purchasing the books for every student in Thailand. The teachers at secondary schools have to order textbooks from the approved textbook list provided by the Ministry of Education. At present, there are no textbooks written,


49

developed and published by Thai authors. All of the available commercial textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education in Thailand are ones sold and used in schools all around the world. Furthermore, in the main teachers depend on the content in these textbooks. Thus, English teachers in Thai secondary schools should be aware that the representation of culture in such texts might not include as much local culture as they would expect. This study, therefore, explored the types and topics of culture represented in English textbooks so as to raise teachers and students cultural awareness. Also, the findings of this study represent a guideline to help teachers to develop their teaching and supplementary materials to support their students’ acquisition of local culture. Objectives of the Study

1) To survey the types of culture used in English secondary education level textbooks in Thailand. 2) To explore the topics presented in each type of culture in English secondary education level

textbooks in Thailand.

Literature Review Types of Cultures

There have been many definitions of culture. The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics defines culture as “the set of practices, codes and values that mark a particular nation or group (Richards & Schmidt, 2002, p. 138).” It can also be defined as “a way of life (Brown, 2014, p. 175).”According to (Brown, 2014), culture plays a major role as the blueprint and glue that binds people together in the same society. Briefly, culture refers to a set of behaviors, beliefs, and thoughts that link people in the same community together and characterize a community’s beliefs and practices. Cultural information can be analyzed differently depending on its perspective such as:

Four Sense of Culture proposed by Adaskou, Britten & Fahsi (1990) as cited in Abdullah (2009),

Hermawan and Noerkhasanah (2012), McKay (2000), Rajabi (2012) and Sárdi (2002).

A New Cultural Framework as Determiner of L2 Cultural Contents proposed by Harumi (2002).

The Expanding Circle of Kachru’s Three Concentric Circles in 1998 and 1992inXiaoqiong and

Xianxing (2011).

Cultural information in material development proposed by Cortazzi and Jin (1999).

Cortazzi and Jin’s (1999) model was designed primarily for the development of teaching materials and was widely used in many textbook analyses such as Hermawan and Noerkhasanah (2012), Ke (2012), Kirkgöz and Agcam (2011), McKay (2000, 2003), Munandar and Ulwiyah (2012), Shin, Eslami and Chen (2011) and Siddiqie (2011).Moreover, some of the analyses such as those undertaken by Ahmedand Narcy-combes (2011), Greil (2004), Tajeddin and Teimournezhad (2015), and Yuen (2011) looked into the culture elements of English textbooks used in Thai secondary schools. Based on their reasoning, this study adopted Cortazzi and Jin's (1999) model in order to identify the types of culture in commercial English textbooks currently used in secondary schools. Cortazzi and Jin (1999) state that when considering the development of teaching materials, there are three types of cultural information:

target culture

source culture


50

International culture.

As for target culture, cultural information is derived from the countries where English is the native language or mother tongue, namely:

The United Kingdom

The United States of America

Canada

Australia

New Zealand

Source culture is considered to be the culture of the learners of English which includes their cultural background, context, and information. Finally, international culture refers to the other countries where English is not used as a second language, but as a foreign language such as Brazil, Chile, Italy, Spain, and France. Topics of Culture Diaz-Rico and Weed (2006), and Snow (1996) categorize cultural topics into seven groups in order to provide a core for oral skills classes and also for materials development as mentioned in Table 1.

Table 1:

Cultural topics adapted from Diaz-Rico and Weed (2006) and Snow (1996)

Daily Life

Animals Hobbies Medical Care Sports Clothing Housing Plants Time Daily Schedule Hygiene Recreation Traffic and Transport Food Identification Shopping Travel Games Jobs Space Weather

The Cycle of Life

Birth Marriage Old Age Men and Women Children Divorce Funerals Rites of Passage Dating/mating Friends

Interacting

Chatting Function in Communication Parties Politeness Eating Gift Language Learning Problem Solving Drinking

Society

Business Education Government and Politics Science Cities Farming Language and Dialects Social Problems Economy Industry Law and Order

The Nation

Holidays History Famous People Stereotypes Geography Cultural Borrowing National Issues

Creative Arts

Arts Genres Music Television Entertainment Literature

Philosophy, Religion and Values


51

Diaz-Rico and Weed (2006), and Snow's (1996) framework provides inexperienced ESL teachers, who have to teach culture but still need some guidelines, with appropriate topics for the language classroom. Though it was not specifically designed for an EFL context, the categorization is useful for content analysis. In addition, the textbooks in this study are designed for commercial purposes and are used in many schools in non-native English speaking countries such as some African countries and Singapore, where English is considered as a second language. The use of the textbooks is not only in an EFL context but in an ESL context too. In light of this, the Diaz-Rico and Weed (2006), and Snow's (1996) framework was used to analyze cultural topics in English textbooks used in secondary education level. Related Research on Culture in Textbooks Textbook analysis has been used as a major methodology so as to investigate different cultures used in English textbooks for example:

Greil’s (2004) Investigation of the frequency of cultural orientation

Siddiqie’s (2011) Representation of the proportion of cultural contents in local textbooks

Tajeddin and Teimournezhad’s (2015) Study on the cultures in dialogues and reading passages in

localized and international textbooks of Iran.

A few studies on the cultural elements in textbooks have shown that different types and topics of culture should be covered in English language teaching in order to develop learners’ intercultural communicative competence. Greil (2004) investigated the cultural orientation of reading and listening texts in three English textbooks used in secondary schools in Thailand, namely:

Snapshot

Speed Up to the World Outside

Weaving It Together

Her cultural orientation categorizations are divided into four types: Target Culture, Non-target culture, Multi- /Cross-culture, and Global issues. Both Snapshot and Speed Up strongly represent the target cultures followed by Multi-culture and Non-target culture. Both textbooks seem to pay little or no attention to Asian-oriented culture. However, Weaving It Together is the only textbook series that presents all types of culture almost equally. The researcher suggests that the materials in ELT should present different perspective of the learners’ own culture and openly relate it to other cultures as an alternative way for students to expand their view of the world. Also, the representations of cultures should be balanced between target, non-target, and cross cultures. Ahmed and Narcy-Combes (2011) analyzed three English textbooks used in Pakistani private schools composed by foreign authors with content about the learners’ first culture (C1) and the target language’s culture (C2). The study mainly focused on the representation of C1 through pictures in the textbook, cultural stereotypes pertaining to the learners’ first culture and discussed the cultural sensitivity shown by the textbook’s authors. They found that the pictures on the covers of the textbooks depicted extreme poverty. The texts presented four themes portrayed stereotypically: marriage, childbirth, professions and gender. Another problem was cultural sensitivity, mostly regarding religion. To summarize, the study points out that these problems are from the authors’ partial knowledge of learners’ culture and preferences. In order to solve these problems, these textbooks needed to be reviewed with the cooperation of local authors who could identify and represent both C1 and C2 appropriately to ensure that the cultural information in the books avoided culturally sensitive issues in the country, and encourages cultural understanding and awareness of learners among different cultures.


52

Research Methodology Theoretical Frameworks In order to analyze the topics of culture, the researcher has adapted the categorization of types of culture used by Cortazzi and Jin (1999). There are three types of cultural information that can be used in language textbooks and materials as follows;

1. Target culture: uses the culture of countries where English is spoken as a first language

which are The United Kingdom, The United States of America, Canada, Australia and New

Zealand.

2. Source culture: draws on the learners’ own culture as content. This study focused on Asian-

oriented culture as the learners’ own culture because the textbooks are commercial

textbooks which are used around the world as well as in Asia such as China, Indonesia,

Israel, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Also, this study

mentioned source culture as Asian-oriented culture in order to correspond with the data

analysis.

3. International target culture: uses a great variety of cultures in English and non-English-

speaking countries around the world. In this study, this culture did not belong to target or

source culture such as South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Spain and France.

In order to analyze the investigation of topics of culture, the framework of the investigation of topics of culture proposed by Diaz-Rico and Weed (2006) and Snow (1996)was adopted. The framework categorises topics of culture into seven topics which are daily life, the cycle of life, interacting, society, the nation, creative arts, and philosophy, religion and values as aforementioned in Table 1.

Selection of Textbooks

The textbooks used in this analysis are MegaGoal Student Books 1-4 composed by Manuel Dos Santos, and MegaGoal Student Books 5-6 composed by Manuel Dos Santos and Jill K. O’Sullivan. MegaGoal Student Books 1-6were selected because, firstly, these textbooks were published in 2011 and 2012, so they are the most recent publications among the available English textbooks for secondary education levels. Secondly, they are one of the series of English textbooks recommended by the Thai Ministry of Education for grade 7-12 compulsory courses(Bureau of Academic Affairs and Educational Standards, 2015). Lastly, not only are these textbooks used in Thailand but they are mainly designed for use in both ESL and EFL classrooms worldwide. The outline of MegaGoal Student Books 1-2(Santos, 2012a, 2012b) is explained as follows:

1. There are 16 units. At the end of Units 4, 8, 12, and 16, there is a section called “Expansion” which consists of exercises on grammar, reading and writing.

2. In each unit, there are 10 sections which are: Listen and Discuss, Pair Work, Grammar, Pronunciation, Listening, About You, Conversation, Reading, Writing, and Project

The outline of MegaGoal Student Books 3-6 (Santos & O’Sullivan, 2012a, 2012b; Santos, 2012c, 2012d) is explained as follows:

1. There are 12 units. At the end of Units 3, 6, 9, and 12, there is a section called “Expansion” which consists of exercises on grammar, reading and writing.


53

2. In each unit, there are 9 sections which are: Listen and Discuss, Pair Work, Grammar, Conversation, Listening, Pronunciation, Vocabulary Building, Reading, and Writing.

Textbook Analysis There are two instruments which were developed by the researcher:

Tally Sheet on Types of Culture

Tally Sheet on Topics of Culture

The instruments were validated by three experts in the field of language teaching and revised based on their comments and suggestions. The reliability of the sheets was evaluated by using inter-rater consistency. Two individuals used the instruments and the results were compared for similarities and differences. The data collection was carried out in two steps: an analysis on types of culture and an analysis on topics of culture.

The Analysis on Types of Cultures The analysis covered all sections of MegaGoal Student Books1 to 6. After analyzing the content of each section, the types of culture were identified based on Cortazzi and Jin’s (1999) theoretical framework. The criteria for the analysis on types of culture were as follows:

1. A section mentioned countries’ names directly. 2. A section mentioned attractions or remarkable places in a particular country. 3. A section mentioned well-known people, their biographies and nationalities. 4. A section mentioned general expressions, idioms, history, and stories which are identifiable

as from that particular country. 5. A section mentioned specific norms or traditions that refer to a particular country. 6. Each section can be counted for more than one type.

The examples are shown below. (Examples from MegaGoal Student Book 1)

Figure 1

An example of a section that counted as target culture Example 1. In this section of the book, the conversation is about what people are doing. It contains phrases which form part of an English speaker’s general expressions such as ‘What’s up?’ and ‘checking out’ which are used mainly in English native speaking. Therefore, the frequency of target culture was increased by one.


54

Figure 2

An example of a section that counted as international culture

Example 2. In this section of the book, the reading passage is about Lapland: the Home of Santa Claus which is situated in Finland. Finland is not included as a target-culture country because English is not considered as the first language. In addition, it is not included as an Asian-oriented-culture country as geographically it is not in Asia. Santa Claus’s nationality, according to the reading passage, is Finnish. Therefore, the frequency of international culture was increased by one.

Figure 3

An example of a section that counted as Asian-oriented culture Example 3. In this section of the book, the reading passage mentioned the best and most renowned Chinese basketball player called Yao Ming. According to the criteria, this section observed Asian-oriented culture because it mentioned a well-known person and identified their nationality. Therefore, the frequency of Asian-oriented culture was increased by one.


55

Figure 4

An example of a section that counted as all three types

Example 4. In this section of the book, the discussion is about routines of people around the world including Canada, Mexico, USA, Brazil, England, Spain, Egypt, India, and Japan. Therefore, the frequency of target culture, Asian-oriented culture and international culture were all increased by one. The Analysis on Topics of Culture The MegaGoal Student Books 1 to 6were analyzed. In each book, there are 16 units including “Expansion” sections which consist of grammar, reading and writing exercises. Cultural content and topics, including subtopics, were identified and analyzing in accordance with Diaz-Rico & Weed (2006) and Snow (1996). Examples are shown below.

Examples from MegaGoal Student Book 1

Figure 5

An example of a section that was counted as a part of daily life

Example 1.This Expansion is about The Caribbean and travel in The Dominican Republic. Therefore, the frequency for travel, under the topic of daily life, was increased by one.


56

Figure 6

An example of a section that was counted as a part of interacting

Example 2.This Expansion is about general conversation and introducing oneself and others. Therefore, the frequency for chatting, under the topic of interaction, was increased by one.

Figure 7 An example of a section that was counted as a part of the nation

Example 3.This Expansion is about countries, nationalities and capital cities around the world. Therefore, the frequency for nation issues, under the topic of the nation, was increased by one.

The data obtained from the Tally Sheets on Types of Culture and the Tally Sheets on Topics of Culture were analyzed by calculating frequency and percentages that represent the types and topics that appear in the textbooks.

Results and Discussion The first research question focused on the types of culture in each textbook. Figure 8 presents the summary of types of culture in each textbook.


57

Figure 8

Types of Culture in English Textbooks (percentage)

It can be seen from Figure 8 that target culture is the most popular at 64.61% followed by international culture at 22.87% and Asian-oriented culture at 12.52%. With reference to target culture, MegaGoal Student Book 1 and Book 6were found to have the highest percentages of all the books in the series. Interestingly, target culture had significantly the highest frequency of all books, followed by international culture and Asian-oriented culture, respectively. In the past, there was a belief that all cultural content used for learning English should be derived from its target cultures. Kiely (2015) and McKay (2003) stated that English teachers usually use the cultural content that comes with the textbooks; this provides few opportunities for students to explore other cultural perspectives. As a consequence of globalization, teaching English is not aimed at imitating native speakers but aims to equip learners with the ability to communicate effectively. To be more precise, the coming ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), where English is considered as a working language among ASEAN countries, represents a significant sign that we have to not only understand our culture but also learn and accept others by communicating in English (Hanley, 1999). In reviewing the results of the study, it revealed the interesting fact that target culture received the highest frequency. The reason for this is that each unit contains grammar and pronunciation exercises which have to refer to the target culture. This finding was consistent with Yuen's (2011) findings on textbook analysis. Even though the textbooks were developed for commercial purposes, providing a variety of cultural content is unavoidable as it plays significant role in language learning. This study, in accordance with Greil's (2004) study, suggests that cultural content in the language classroom should be broad and interesting, as well as introducing students to exploring the world, learning about and understanding the differences between people (McKay, 2000). Notably, there was a difference between Student books 1 to 3, which were used in lower secondary levels and Student books 4 to 6, which were used in higher secondary levels. Books 1 to 3 presented more Asian-oriented and international culture than Books 4 to 6. That is to say that the focus on target culture varies with the level of education. It can be assumed that even the authors of this series still consider target culture as significant information that learners should acquire; which is

11.98 10.16 8.71 10.89 10.89 11.98

64.61

2.54 3.27 2.00 1.27 1.45 2.00

12.52 5.08 4.54 4.17 3.27 2.18 3.63

22.87

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Book 1 Book 2 Book 3 Book 4 Book 5 Book 6 Total

Percen

tage

Target Culture Asian-oriented Culture International Culture


58

related to McKay’s (2000) finding that teachers in non-English-speaking countries tend to use native culture/target culture while teaching. This notion contrasts with the suggestions of Byram et al. (2002) and McDonough (2002) that culture presented in textbooks should respect the learners’ culture and aim to raise their awareness of it and further to that prepare supplementary materials referring to the learners’ own culture. Moreover, the content in the textbooks also reveals the authors’ perspectives towards their own and other cultures (Hamiloğlu & Mendi, 2010). This is similar to Ahmed and Narcy-Combes's (2011) comment, that sometimes the authors present cultural content from their own perspectives which may exacerbate the misunderstanding of both teachers and students. The researcher suggests that cultures represented in English textbooks, especially used for ESL situations, should balance these three types: target, Asian-oriented, and international cultures. The second research question focused on the cultural topics in each textbook. A summary of the topics in each textbook is presented in Figure 9. Daily Life accounted for the highest frequency of the topics represented in the textbooks followed by Interacting, The Nation, Circle of Life, Creative Arts, Philosophy, Religion and Values, and Society respectively. In Daily Life, MegaGoal Student Book 2 showed the highest percentage.

Figure 9

Topics of Cultures in English Textbooks (percentage)

Very few studies mention the investigation of types of culture. The researchers found that studies mainly pay attention to types and how they are represented in textbooks, in other words they focus on countries where they originated. Evidently, Daily Life, Interacting, and The Nation are the three most popular topics in the selected textbooks. Under the topic of Daily Life: Daily Schedule and Travel are most mentioned in the textbooks. However, it is interesting that the higher the level of the book, the lower the frequency of Daily Life. This finding is similar to Yuen's (2011) study that some contents are presented, for instance travel and daily schedules, with the aim of motivating learners because they are both highly relevant to

11

.01

11

.93

5.5

0

2.7

5

5.5

0

2.7

5

2.7

5

0.0

0

0.9

2

0.0

0

0.0

0

0.9

2

0.9

2

4.5

9

3.6

7

6.4

2

5.5

0

5.5

0

0.0

0

0.0

0

0.0

0

0.0

0

0.9

2 2

.75

2.7

5

0.9

2

3.6

7

4.5

9

0.9

2

3.6

7

0.9

2

1.8

3

0.0

0

0.9

2

0.0

0

0.9

2

0.0

0

0.0

0 1

.83

0.0

0 1

.83

0.9

2

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Book 1 Book 2 Book 3 Book 4 Book 5 Book 6

Percen

tag

e

Daily Life Circle of LifeInteracting SocietyThe Nation Creative Arts


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learners’ lives. On the other hand, Laohawiriyanon and Liu's (2013) finding, which categorized culture in to ‘Big C’ and ‘Little C’, that the textbooks present a large number of ‘Little C’ culture, especially values; however, it lacks other common ‘Big C’ culture such as food, holidays, lifestyles, customs, hobbies and gestures/body language. It can be concluded that when starting to learn English, the author may try to make some connections between learners and the content in the textbooks, so the topics about their lives such as daily routines and travel seem to immediately relate to their lives. That is to say that Daily life seems to be a topic for beginners. It is interesting that the sub-topic represented in the textbooks most frequently was ‘Function in Communication’ which encompasses making predictions about the future, expressing opinions, describing and discussing common problems, asking for and giving advice, confirming information, describing abilities, retelling an event, expressing feelings, giving reasons, and making comparisons. Obviously, the textbooks focused more on communication in a variety of situations rather than any one particular cultural topic. It is likely that the textbooks’ writers expect learners to use and apply language in different situations. Furthermore, the textbooks aim to develop the communicative competence of learners through language functions. The researcher agrees that these topics and sub-topics are relevant to learners’ lives and might increase learners’ motivation; however, teachers should, on the other hand, bring learners’ local culture into the classroom. As learners in EFL situations generally acquire English in the classroom and there are few opportunities to use English outside the classroom, providing a variety of cultures including their own culture to learners will motivate them, widen their worldview and raise cultural awareness together with developing their language skills. Interestingly, the higher the level is, the more function of communication is highlighted. Though the researcher agrees that language teaching should focus on function in communication, textbooks should provide a variety of topics in order to motivate learners. Noticeably, the topic of ‘Daily Life’ is used in every book, but the topic of ‘Society’ is overlooked and mentioned only a few times. The researcher suggests that the variety of topics chosen should be consistent in a series and gradually developed from the first book (book 1) to the last one (book 6). Because language and culture are inseparable (Brown, 2014; Eli Hinkel, 1999; Tang, 1999), learners should learn language and explore the culture at the same time. Genc and Bada (2005) support the idea that culture in language classroom is beneficial for learners in terms of raising language skills, cultural awareness, and positive attitudes towards the differences of people from other cultures. In summary, English language learning should incorporate cultures including target culture, source culture (in this study Asian-oriented culture), international culture, and a variety of topics relating to those cultures. Even though the textbooks provide various types and topics of cultures, it still might not be enough for learners to develop their communicative competence, language skills, increase their appreciation of the world or improve their understanding of the differences between people from other cultures.

Pedagogical Implications For the pedagogical implications, the researcher believes that this study will be useful for educators and teachers at secondary education level; making them aware of the components of culture in the textbooks they are using in school (Byram et al., 2002). Kiely (2015) mentioned that most teachers stick to all content in the textbooks because they believe that the book covers all the appropriate content and provide useful cultural information for them. Learners may need more relevant cultural information which might help them understand people from different cultures. In order to fulfill the needs of learners, teachers should provide more opportunities to expose learners to different cultures. Thus, they should provide extra cultural activities, and add more content on Asian-oriented culture and international culture because the textbooks are written for commercial purposes and aim to be


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applicable in as many countries as possible around the world. Therefore, they might not be able to include only Asian-oriented culture in the textbooks. Also, teachers should supplement the lessons that deal with the ASEAN community and intercultural communication, as well as plan to deal with some cultural shocks that might happen to their students, as the types of culture in these selected textbooks generally focus on target cultures which may not similar to their own culture. Nault (2006) suggests teachers may make use of the Internet to explore other resources such as English language newspapers, images, videos, television programs, and radio programs from other countries. By customizing lesson plans in order to develop understanding of cultural differences among students (McDonough, 2002); cultures represented in textbooks and language classrooms will not only provide several examples of cultures worldwide, but also enhance cultural understanding and raise cultural awareness among learners.

Recommendations for further study The study was limited in several ways. First, the study focused on only one series of textbooks for students. The teachers’ handbooks and other supplementary materials were not included in this study. Thus, the instructions and supplementary materials were not analyzed. Second, with a small sample size, caution must be applied, as the findings might not be transferable to other series of English textbooks. Moreover, there is no English textbook used at secondary education levels written and published by Thai authors or organizations, and authorized by the Ministry of Education in Thailand. Thus, the researcher suggests that further study may assist textbook publishers who are responsible for developing textbooks for Thai learners to be used at secondary education level, and also for commercial purposes.

Biodata: Raveewan Viengsang is now a Ph.D. student in English as an International Language (EIL) program at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. Raveewan Viengsang holds her B.Ed. (1st class honors) in Secondary Education, majoring in English and M.A. in EIL from Chulalongkorn University. Her research interests are language assessment literacy, classroom-based assessment, language teaching and learning, and material development. She can be reached at [email protected]. Chansongklod Gajaseni is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn Univerity. She received her Ph.D. in Second Language Education and Teacher Education from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She can be reached at [email protected].

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A Study of the Use of English in Thai Songs: Intelligibility of English Inserted in

Thai Popular Songs

Jutharat Nawarungreung Thammasat University, Thailand

As an international language, English is used as a medium in a variety of settings such as music and entertainment. The number of non-native English speakers is continuously increasing around the world. People often use English for communication when they speak different mother tongues. Communication between non-native speakers and native speakers, as well as among non-natives themselves, leads to a wide variety of different types of English. This can lead to problems of intelligibility. Principally, this research has aimed to determine the comprehensibility of English inserted in Thai popular music. The research comprised four groups of participants: Thais, non-native English speakers who are not Thai citizens, native English speakers and lyricists. The research tools included song lyrics, music videos, interviews, and a questionnaire. The study shows that those who attained the highest level of understanding of the English words used in Thai songs were Thais, followed by non-native English speakers who are not Thai. The lowest level of understanding was among native speakers of English. The songs showed a positive aspect of World Englishes. Even though English in Thai popular songs was different from Standard English, participants could understand it.

Keywords: Attitudes, English in Thai songs, intelligibility, popular music, World Englishes

ในฐานะภาษาสากลของโลก ภาษาองกฤษใชอยางแพรหลายในหลายดาน เชนสอบนเทงตาง ๆ นอกจากน จ านวนของผใชภาษาองกฤษทไมใชเจาของภาษานนมจ านวนเพมขนตามล าดบ ผใชภาษาเหลานใชภาษาองกฤษเพอการสอสารระหวางกน เนองจากมภาษาแมทแตกตางกน การสอสารระหวางผใชภาษาองกฤษทไมใชเจาของภาษากบเจาของภาษา รวมไปถงการใชภาษาองกฤษในกลมของผทไมใชเจาของภาษาเองนน กอใหเกดการใชภาษาองกฤษในหลายรปแบบ ความแตกตางนเอง เปนจดเรมตนของระดบความเขาใจทตางกน งานวจยนจงมงคนหาระดบความเขาใจภาษาองกฤษทผสมอยในเพลงไทยสากล โดยแบงกลมผมสวนรวมออกเปน 4 กลม คอ ชาวไทย ชาวตางชาตทไมใชชาวไทย เจาของภาษาองกฤษ และนกแตงเพลง เครองมอในการวจยนคอ เนอเพลง มวสควดโอ การสมภาษณ และแบบสอบถาม ผลของการวจยพบวา ผมสวนรวมการวจยมระดบความเขาใจภาษาองกฤาทตางกน โดยทชาวไทยเขาใจภาษาองกฤษในเพลงไทยมากทสด ตามชาวตางชาตทไมใชชาวไทย และเจาของภาษาองกฤษ ตามล าดบ การใชเพลงในการศกษานแสดงใหเหนดานบวกของความหลากหลายทางภาษาองกฤษ แมวาภาษาองกฤษในเพลงไทยสากลจะตางไปจากภาษาองกฤษแบบมาตรฐาน แตผมสวนรวมกสามารถเขาใจได

Literature Review


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This study sets up a specific focus aimed at exploring the level of intelligibility of English in Thai songs by native speakers of English, non-native English speakers who are not Thai and native Thais. To understand the scope of this study, a framework has been established for demonstrating how English language users are classified and how their language competence has been acquired. This is followed by an analysis of concepts of intelligibility, pronunciation, nativization and attitudes. The frameworks of this study are based on the researcher’s observation and knowledge of music and the English language. Due to the limitations of studies of English in Thai popular songs, the researcher aims at fulfilling this gap.

Kachru’s model of World Englishes English is considered a global language (Crystal, 2003). It is the most important language in the world whether it is used as a first, second or foreign language. Native speakers alone cannot claim ownership of the language anymore (Bryson, 1990). Rushdie (1991, cited in Crystal, 2003) shared the same perspective by explaining that the English language “ceased to be the sole possession of the English some time ago.” This handover of ownership, thus, results in the varieties of English which are referred to as “World Englishes”. As a lingua franca English today is used for different purposes:

English for academic purposes (EAP)

English for specific purposes (ESP)

English as a second language (ESL)

English as a foreign language (EFL)

Its role has changed over time. At present, the number of non-native English speakers is larger than the number of native English (Crystal, 2003). The reasons for this include the development of technology and media, innovation and globalisation. Kachru’s (1989) model classifies the types of English language users and language acquisition of English in each circle. The model classifies the types of language users as native English speakers, non-native English speakers who are not Thai (represented by Asian participants as users of the outer circle in this study) and native Thais (represented by the expanding circle). The model can be summarized as shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1: Kachru’s model of World Englishes (Kachru, 1989)


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The inner circle represents native English. It is used in daily life in all contexts and settings. Six countries fall into this circle, namely, America, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. The outer circle refers to English as a second language and is used among non-native English speakers whose countries were formerly colonized by Great Britain. The role of English in this circle is as an official language for government functions, business and trade. Examples of countries in this circle include India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and South Africa. The final and by far the largest circle is the expanding circle. Here, English serves as a foreign language among non-native English speakers; just like in the outer circle, but also in specific settings such as the classroom and workplace. Language users in this circle have limited access to a native English environment. For instance, they speak English only in the classroom or workplace. Examples of the countries in this circle include China, Germany, Japan and Thailand. Kachru’s model of World Englishes is used to classify participants by the type of language user that they are: native in the inner circle, non-native in the outer circle and non-native in the expanding circle.

Intelligibility

Scholars define intelligibility using various concepts (Derwing & Munro, 1997; Nelson, 1995; Smith & Nelson, 1985). Intelligibility is the level of understanding of language users who have different mother tongues when they communicate with each other. The factors that relate to intelligibility include clarity, explicitness, lucidity, comprehensibility, perspicuity, and precision. The concept comprises intelligibility, comprehensibility and interpretability. Intelligibility refers to the recognition of words and utterances. Comprehensibility is defined as the meaning of words and utterances, whereas interpretability is conceptualized as the perception and understanding of the speakers’ intentions (Smith & Nelson, 1985). Intelligibility ranges from a low to a high level of understanding (Lu, 2008). To obtain intelligibility, an individual needs competency both linguistically and socially. Linguistic features such as phonology and grammar may affect intelligibility. In addition, social competency varies according to the situation of who is communicating and how much we want to understand (Lu, 2008). Intelligibility in this study, therefore, refers to a listener’s understanding of a speaker’s message at a certain time in a certain context and focuses on the word level. Varieties of English are unique to each speaker and setting. Language users from one country may not be able to understand language users from other countries. This gap inspires scholars to conduct research to see which features allow language users to understand each other. Intelligibility is difficult to identify. Scholars have focused their studies on pronunciation, especially on words, because it is more concrete to assess in terms of percentages. In order to understand each variety, familiarity is a key factor. Kirkpatrick and Saunders (2005) reveal that students in Australia who had experience with Singaporean English understood the variety better than those who had not encountered it. The features that help students improve intelligibility need to be considered more deeply than just basing intelligibility on native speakers. Intelligibility is commonly assessed using the transcription of utterances produced by non-native English speakers. A researcher transcribes selected utterances and assigns a listener to write down what they hear. After that, all answers are compared with the actual utterances of the native English speakers. The correct answers are calculated to determine the degree of understanding. This method is widely used to assess the intelligibility of non-native English speakers (Burda, et al., 2003; Burda & Hageman, 2005; Munro & Derwing, 1995).


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Pronunciation – The importance of intelligible English pronunciation Scholars define pronunciation of a language in many ways. Hornby (2001) stated that pronunciation is the way in which a particular person pronounces the words of a language. In this study, pronunciation refers to a linguistic feature of sound when a person pronounces the words of a language. According to Crystal (2003), English is no longer used merely among native English speakers but has become a language of communication for language users around the world. Intelligible pronunciation is, therefore, important among language users as it makes communication easier whether with native or non-native English speakers. Morley (1991) supports this by saying, “Intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communication” (p. 488). Unclear pronunciation is difficult to understand. Whether using advanced vocabulary or grammar, pronunciation is still difficult. Scholars see that intelligible pronunciation creates a first impression. People normally notice pronunciation before grammar or vocabulary. People enjoy talking to each other if good pronunciation is involved in the conversation. Intelligible pronunciation is an advantage. For example, people who speak like a native are perceived as being educated (Giles, 1970). Practicing native English pronunciation means that you competent enough to communicate with other language users. Practice is the only way to obtain intelligible pronunciation. It leads people to pronounce with clarity and confidence. There are many ways to practice pronunciation such as through movies, news, and songs. It is difficult to predict where and when people might prefer the use of native English. For example, if a workplace prefers native sounding English, a person can communicate in English immediately. In contrast, people who speak non-native varieties of English may take more time to adapt themselves to a specific environment that prefers native English (Jones, 1988). Even though native English intelligibility is essential, varieties of English are also important to understand. People should be accurate using both native and varieties of English in order to achieve effective communication with native and non-native English speakers in every situation. Unintelligible pronunciation prevents people from understanding each other. The aim should be to remove this issue at all levels so that native and non-native English speakers can effectively communicate with each other. In general, pronunciation is an important element of effective communication (Breitkreutz, et al., 2001; Derwing, 2003; Rajadurai, 2001). Research on perceptive skills has revealed that pronunciation is one of the most difficult parts of a language to study. In the past, researchers avoided study in this field because it was difficult to investigate and assess. There was a paradigm shift when the use of English became widespread throughout the world. The number of English users greatly increased and significantly shifted from native English speakers to non-native English speakers (Crystal, 2003). Also, communication between native English speakers and non-native English speakers has been rising. Scholars have responded by focusing more on the study of pronunciation. The majority of the studies of pronunciation are contrastive analysis between English and another language (Kapper, 1992; Kenstowicz & Suchato, 2006; Khamkhien, 2010; Richards, 1969; Tsukada, 2006; Tsukada & Roengpitya, 2008; Wei & Zhou, 2002). Contrastive analysis provides details on why and how sounds in a language are different from others. For example, the absence of triphthong sounds in Chinese led Chinese people to be unable to pronounce English triphthong sounds appropriately. This problem may confuse native English speakers when they are speaking with Chinese people. This is similar to the case of English and Thai which are from different language families, Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan, respectively. These languages differ in terms of alphabetical characters, sentence structure and pronunciation. Previous contrastive analysis studies focused on varieties of English (Tsukada, 2006; Tsukada & Roengpitya, 2008). The results of those studies revealed that each language is unique in various ways,


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especially accent and pronunciation. Studies of English and Thai confirm these differences. In early studies, researchers studied pronunciation features of non-native English speakers to see how they pronounced English and how their pronunciation differentiated them from native English speakers. For example, Richards (1969) studied pronunciation features of Thais who lived in New Zealand and found that interference of different phonetic symbols in both languages caused different pronunciation of English for Thais. Unfortunately, research during the first period only focused on investigation of linguistic features. The researchers did not present any solutions or suggestions for further studies. At the beginning of this century, researchers still studied the pronunciation of non-native English speakers but focused more on details. It was possible that English played a greater role in daily life such as communication devices and as a medium of teaching in education. Wei & Zhou (2002) studied factors that led to problems in English pronunciation by Thai students and revealed that factors such as consonant clusters, loanwords, and the characters of Thai sounds were the main reasons that Thai students pronounced English differently. This can cause problems when Thais communicate with native English speakers or non-native English speakers who are not Thai because their conversational counterparts may confuse or misunderstand a message. Even though English and Thai belong to different language families, it is interesting to study how the pronunciation of each language differs. This makes it possible to observe the effect on communication between native English speakers and non-native English speakers and Thai native speakers. The study of language based on the lyrics in music is an interesting new path to explore and it serves as a natural source of language. Due to the limitations of previous studies of English in Thai songs, this study aims to fill the gap. Details in the following parts are divided into three sub-sections: consonants, consonant clusters and vowels. Consonants and consonant clusters are touched upon, plus the nature of initial and final positions, and the characteristics of voiced and voiceless sounds. Vowels include monophthong, diphthong and triphthong. In the previous section, tables of English and Thai sounds revealed different characteristics. Some features that occur in English are non-existent in Thai and vice-versa. Lack of sounds in one language creates a problem of pronunciation in another language. Table 3 shows the English consonant sounds that do not exist in Thai. The study of consonants relates to initial and final positions, plus voiced and voiceless sounds and mainly focuses on two issues, substitution and the discrimination of sounds. The most popular sound that researchers have studied is /v/. The sound /v/ is a voiced labiodental fricative sound. This sound can create a problem for non-native English speakers. The /v/ sound is familiar to native English speakers but not to some non-native English speakers. The /v/ sound is replaced with different variants depending on the first language of the person using it and the position where it occurs. For instance, Japanese people substitute /b/ when pronouncing /v/ such as in the words “vast” and “very” (Carruthers, 2006; Ohata, 2004). Generally, speakers of East Asian languages cannot differentiate between the /v/ and /b/ sounds. Hide and Van de Poel (2002) stated that the Chinese language has no dental voiced fricatives. As a result, Chinese people substitute the /w/ sound for the /v/ sound in the initial position and /f/ for /v/ in the final position. Chunsuvimol and Ronakiat (2000) studied the phonetic realizations and stylistic variations of /f/ and /v/ sounds of Thai university students. Their study revealed that /v/ has three variants [v], [w], and [f] in the initial position and five variants [v], [f], [b], [p], and [ø] in the final position. Speakers of Southeast Asian languages tend to substitute /w/ for /v/ when it occurs in the initial position. For example, Thai speakers pronounce “very” as “wery” (Chunsuvimol & Ronakiat, 2001). In another study, Ukachoke (2005) revealed that grade 10 Thai students also replaced /w/ for /v/ in the initial position and /f/ for /v/ in the final position.


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In the Thai context, research on the pronunciation of /r/ was conducted by Chunsuvimol (1993). The writer discovered that Thais’ pronunciation of /r/ was either as an /r/, /ɹ/ or /l/ in prevocalic positions and consonant clusters, and they dropped /r/ in consonant clusters. The finding is similar to the study of Hirunyupakorn and Chaimano (2014) who studied Thai pronunciation of only the sound /r/ with specific examination of the association between the speaker’s English proficiency and how the /r/ sound was pronounced. Their findings indicated the effects of proficiency and the contexts where /r/ occurs in sound production. Regarding all studies on substitution of unfamiliar sounds, the researcher sees that the most plausible reason is the lack of a sound in a mother tongue that may cause people to substitute sounds from their first language. Not only did the researchers conduct studies on the substitution of sounds, but some of them also investigated the discrimination problem of certain sounds. All previous studies are in accordance with Flege and Hillenbrand (1987) who explained that speakers of a target language seem to pronounce unfamiliar sounds in a target language with familiar or equivalent sounds from their first language. Apart from the /v/ sound, /θ/ is another phoneme that creates a problem for non-native English speakers. /θ/ is a voiceless interdental fricative sound. It is familiar to native English speakers but may not be familiar to non-native English speakers, particularly speakers of the Thai language, where this sound does not exist. In English, /θ/ can occur in the initial position such as “think,” in clusters such as “three,” in the middle position such as in “author,” and in the final position such as “cloth.” Non-native English speakers may therefore replace /θ/ with /t/ or /d/ sounds in these positions. Khirin (2011) studied the ability of language users to pronounce the /θ/ sound. His study revealed that the participants with high English language experience can pronounce the /θ/ sound correctly. On the other hand, respondents with less English language experience replace /θ/ with /t/. Not only are the above two sounds difficult for certain non-native English speakers, but /ʃ/ and /tʃ/ must also be considered. These sounds are also non-existent in the Thai language. The /ʃ/ sound is often replaced by /tʃ/ (Smyth, 2000), /tɕh/ in Thai (Kanokpermpoon, 2007) or /t/ in the final position (Wei & Zhou, 2001) whereas /tʃ/ is substituted with the /tɕ/ sound (Kanokpermpoon, 2007) or /t/ in the final position (Wei & Zhou, 2001). In the case of Thai language users, Wongsiripaisan (2005) investigated the pronunciation of /ʃ/ by assigning participants to read passages and words out loud. She found that pronunciation of the /ʃ/ sound while reading individual words was more accurate than while reading passages. Surprisingly, the participants substituted /ʃ/ with /tʃ/ more than with the /tɕh/ sound that is more often used in the Thai language. Similarly, Olome (1998) studied pronunciation of /ʃ/ by Thai language users while reading words. The study revealed that /ʃ/ occurring in the initial position was correctly pronounced more than in the final position. Both studies prove that the position and style of assignment influence /ʃ/ pronunciation. An important factor is that the Thai language cannot have the /ʃ/ sound in the final position. Also, the participants pronounced /tʃ/ more than /tɕh/, because /tʃ/ is closer to /ʃ/. Meanwhile, /tɕh/ was selected for some words because it is nearly equivalent to /ʃ/ and it exists in the Thai language. In terms of voiced and voiceless sounds, English and Thai have different sounds. For example, Thai only has the voiceless final sounds /p/, /t/, and /k/ while English has these three voiceless sounds plus their counterparts as voiced sounds /b/, /d/, and /g/, respectively. The lack of voiced sounds in the final position also leads to substitution (Yangklang, 2006). In addition, the grammatical structures of the languages are different, especially in the construction of plurals and past tense sentences. Thai language adds words to indicate time and the quantity of a thing, whereas English adds sounds at the end of words. For instance, -s is added at the end of a verb to indicate a third person single subject or to a noun to identify a plural noun. When Thai language users pronounce these sounds, they normally silence them. ‘Suits,’ for example, is pronounced only as ‘suit’ in Thai language because there is no final /s/ sound (Moore & Rodchue, 2005).


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Researchers have found that Thai language users exhibit varying degrees of accuracy pronouncing consonant clusters. In the study of Mano-im (1999), it was easiest for participants to pronounce a nasal followed by a stop /-nt/ sound. They also produced a nasal followed by fricative /-ns/; a lateral followed by a stop /-lt/; a nasal followed by an affricate /-ntʃ/; a stop followed by a fricative /-ks/; and a fricative followed by a stop /-sk/; respectively. The participants used methods of deletion, replacement and insertion to handle these sounds. English loan words are considered a problem for Thai English speakers. Korsuwan (2001) studied the assimilation of English loan words by Thai speakers. It was found that the problem of pronunciation occurred from background knowledge. Most Thai speakers determined accuracy by imitating the phonological patterns that they had heard. The study indicated that consonant sounds, vowel sounds and clusters were problematic for Thai learners especially final cluster consonants such as /l/ and /ch/. Most Thai speakers substituted familiar sounds for difficult English sounds by creating their own rules of pronunciation. Pronunciation of vowels raises many other issues. Park’s (2010) study of Koreans revealed that mother tongue influences vowel pronunciation in English, especially diphthongs that are non-existent in Korean. In this study, /ai/, /au/ and /ɔi/ are nearly equivalent to Korean vowels in terms of length of diphthongs such as ‘surrounding,’ ‘society’ and ‘employment.’ Korean English speakers, therefore, have fewer problems pronouncing these three sounds. The rest of English diphthongs created difficulty for them as they could not find a near equivalent in Korean when pronouncing in English.

Nativization Nativization refers to “an emergence of linguistic features in new varieties of English across the globe that are categorical” (Richards, 1982). In this study, nativization refers to the use of language/dialect in new settings in terms of words, phrases, sentences, pronunciation and accents, which have been influenced by other languages/dialects. A new formation can use, for example, a sentence structure from one language/dialect and vocabulary from another. Thai-English comprises Thai sentence structure and English words with or without change. It is believed that nativization leads to the birth of a variety of English styles as it creates distinctiveness from other English styles in the world. Nativization can be seen at different levels of linguistic analysis such as phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics (Adegbija, 2004). Kannaovakun (2001) categorizes six types of nativization. They comprise truncation, hybridization, conversion, semantic shift, reduplication and word order. Truncation is a word-formation process of a shortened word in form but that remains unchanged in meaning. For example, firmหวใจเลยวาใชเธอ (Confirm my heart it’s you). ‘Firm’ in this context

comes from ‘confirm.’ Its form is shortened but the meaning is the same as in English. Hybridization is a combination of one language with another part of a different language. For instance, hugทไดไหมอยากไดจงออมกอดเธอ (Can I hug you? I want to have your hug). On the contrary, conversion is a word that appears in

a sentence with different parts of speech from the original. For example, ไมเหนตองsadอะไรอะไรมากมาย (No

need to be sad that much) shows that ‘sad’ is a verb in this context even though it is an adjective in the original native context. Semantic shift refers to a meaning of a word that is changed from the original native context. For instance, chill chillไดไหมรไหมดวงใจฉนปลว (Can we chill chill? You know my heart is flying). ‘Chill chill’ in

this context comes from ‘chill out’; however, the meaning has totally changed. ‘Chill out’ in native English context means ‘to go out and relax’ whereas ‘chill chill’ in this context means ‘to take it easy.’ Reduplication is the repetition of a word in the same sentence. For example, อยากม


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someonesomeoneกมมอฉนเวลาไปไหน (I want to have someone holding my hand everywhere) shows

repetition of the word ‘someone’ in the same sentence. Word order, finally, refers to a change or modified order. For instance, มองเธอคนนนทlook hi-so (Look at that person who looks hi-so) shows that ‘look

hi-so’ is a rearrangement of a noun plus an adjective which is a Thai sentence structure. This is different from English native context where the adjective comes before the noun. Nativization mainly appears in non-native environments. It occurs most frequently in Kachru’s expanding circle (Mollin, 2007). Nativization in non-native speaker situations is believed to be different from the native context. Cohen (2005) has shown that lexical level is one of the obvious parts occurring in Mongolian English. For example, ‘serious’ in English became ‘intense’ in Mongolian English. This kind of nativization normally happens in Mongolian English but it might have been seen differently from American English.

Attitudes Attitudes are reactions that reveal an individual’s thoughts or ideas on a particular issue. Scholars define attitudes in many different ways. Some believe that attitudes are linked to beliefs and behaviors. Others think that they relate to feelings. Allport (1961) referred to attitudes as “the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology.” Early scholars believed that attitudes related to feelings. Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) claimed that attitude was “a state of feeling continuously constructed by individual experiences, which finally leads to perception towards an object or situation of which a person is related to.” Attitudes deal with a person’s feelings and are needed in order to judge a particular issue. This is similar to Mantel-Bromley (1995) who views attitudes as “a distinctive evaluation of the thoughts and emotions of people toward their surroundings.” Attitudes are responses to a particular issue that include viewpoints, objects and people (Ajzen, 1988). Attitudes are based on the experience of a person towards a certain thing being judged that affects their point of view (Fazio, 2007). Attitudes are comprised of three components. Wender (1987) and Baker (1992) have proposed similar elements including cognition, affection and behavior. Cognition refers to a person’s belief or knowledge about a particular situation, person or object. Affection is an emotional response to the surroundings that reflect a person’s feeling such as love and hatred. Behavior is a person’s actions towards a certain thing or situation. For example, parents with a positive attitude towards English send their children to a bilingual or international school to acquire English as a second or foreign language. Scholars have proposed more specific components of attitudes towards language. Gardner (1986) and Lambert (1980) mention two types: instrumentational and integrative orientation. Instrumentational orientation is the motivation for acquiring a language for social achievement, personal success or economic benefit. For example, a person learns a language to find a good job. On the other hand, integrative orientation is the motivation to learn a language to communicate and become part of the community. For example, a person learns a language for communication with people from other parts of the world. Integrative orientation tends to be more successful than instrumentational orientation because people have motivation and encouragement to study a language. Scholars first conducted research on the attitudes of non-native English speakers towards native English. The research revealed that native English received positive attitudes because the language users preferred to use it. The following studies present the circumstances of earlier research. The first group of studies generally stated that language users preferred native English to non-native styles. However, the researchers did not state which native variety they preferred. Schmied (1985) explained that native English was preferable to other varieties of English even though the language users struggled to achieve a native English level. Some people think that varieties of English are


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inappropriate for communication with native English speakers. Young and Faux (2012) state that non-native English speakers try to find fault in their use of English but they accept native English. In Asia, most people prefer native English. Hong Kong and Japan are examples of this point. Chan (2013) studied the attitudes of Hong Kong students concerning native and non-native English. The students understood both accents but preferred native English especially in formal settings such as written tasks. A study by Tokumoto and Shibata (2011) similarly revealed that Japanese students preferred native accents even though they were aware of other accents and pronunciation. In some countries, however, people prefer native English because they have limited access to varieties of English. In Finland, for example, students lack sufficient access to varieties of English as practiced in commercial textbooks. Finnish is an isolated language and so in essence they are far away from varieties of non-native materials (Kopperoinen, 2011). Additionally, communication in native English demonstrates social status. In Germany, people prefer to communicate with native speakers in English even though they could speak German. Anyone who can speak English is viewed as being well educated in Germany (Hilgendorf, 2007). The second group of studies clearly presents which variety of native English people prefer. Undoubtedly, British and American English receive the highest preference. Ladegaard (1998) studied the attitudes of Danish secondary and university students about British English (Received Pronunciation, Scottish and Cockney English), American English and Australian English. Received Pronunciation received the most positive attitudes in terms of personal integrity, social status and attractiveness. Furthermore, Ladegaard found that British and American English were more identifiable than Australian English. Javella, et al. (2001) and Nejjari, et al. (2012) also found that the highest preference was for British English. Javella, et al. (2001) explored the attitudes towards English of advanced Danish learners who listened to Irish, British and American English accents. British English was the favorite among the varieties presented. Learners were most comfortable with British, followed by American English. Similarly, Nejjari, et al. (2012) investigated attitudes towards the intelligibility of the British English accent, slight Dutch English accent and moderate Dutch English accent. They found that the British English accent was the most intelligible. In Asia, most people also prefer British English. Evan (2010) studied the perceptions of Chinese students towards native English and found that British English received the most positive perception as a model and standard of English. It is embedded in people’s minds that British English is the best model to follow. In former colonies, British English also receives positive attitudes such as in Sri Lanka (Bernaisch, 2012). Some studies revealed that British and American English accents receive equally positive attitudes. Xu, et al. (2010) studied the attitudes towards the varieties of English before the 2008 Olympic Games in China. Their study revealed that British and American English were favored over Chinese English. Zhang and Hu (2008) studied the attitudes towards British, American and Australian English of advanced Chinese ESL students. The results showed that British and American English received more positive attitudes than Australian English due to the comfortableness and naturalness. Both varieties were used as a medium of teaching rather than Australian English in China. In America, American English is preferred. For example, Bresnahan, et al. (2002) explained that the Hispanic English of immigrants was available but those immigrants preferred American English because it was attractive and intelligible. The study of Wiebesiek, et al. (2011) on attitudes towards South African Indian English disclosed that people acknowledged this spoken variety of English, however, they preferred standard English because it suggested a good education and social status. This is similar to McKenzie (2004) who showed that Japanese students held more positive attitudes towards standard Scottish English than the Glasgow vernacular due to clarity.


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McKenzie (2008) investigated Japanese college students on six standards of English: two American (mid-west and southern US), two British (standard Glasgow and Glasgow vernacular) and two Japanese English (moderate and heavily accented). American English received the highest score for attractiveness followed by British and Japanese English. Southern US and Glasgow vernacular, however, were considered higher than the pairs of each accent due to social status. The trends of the study of attitudes have changed from non-native English towards native English aspects and to non-native English itself as people become more aware of varieties of English. The following section discusses various studies that demonstrate local varieties and teaching preferences. Sari and Yusuf (2009) disclosed that all non-native English speakers in their study accepted their own English when talking with others because it was non-native English just like theirs. Even though they still thought that Standard English should be used, they agreed that if people understand each other, regardless of which variety is used, this qualifies as successful communication. Therefore, teachers should take varieties of English into account. Kang and Rubin (2012) explained that students preferred to study with non-native English teaching assistants because they felt more relaxed than with native teachers. Students cooperated more with the assistants, created solidarity within a group and tended to be friendlier than with teachers. Bian (2009) discovered that Chinese college students held different attitudes toward varieties of English. Even though Standard English is preferred, students questioned how they could acquire native-like accents. They also stated that intelligibility should be considered when assessing spoken English and should not take influence of mother tongue into consideration. Some studies have provided suggestions for creating positive attitudes. Abidin (2012) stated that students in Libya have negative attitudes towards learning English because they are not aware of the importance of English, they lack any need for English, and it is not a compulsory subject. The researcher suggested that students might see the positive side if their needs were assessed before conducting a class. When students were involved in what they needed, they had more positive attitudes. The educational system itself can lead to negative attitudes towards the English language. When the education system in a country does not focus on English, students find it unnecessary to learn. However, students must learn English so that when they become adults they will be able to communicate with others. Both factors led them to express significantly negative attitudes towards learning English (Karahan, 2007). The level of familiarity has a direct influence on attitudes. People tend to prefer Standard English because they are familiar with it. For example, students use commercial textbooks and materials which are based on native English, mainly British and American. Standard English receives high preference in terms of social status. In contrast, people are more aware of the varieties of English nowadays. Attitudes towards language differ due to the aspects of language usage and qualifications of language itself. People do not use native English all the time. Varieties of English may be accepted amongst non-native speakers due to solidarity, for instance. As a result, attitudes towards language depend on which aspects are under consideration.

Methods

Participants The participants were deliberately selected. The research started with the circulation of an e-mail invitation to all the participants on the contact list. When a participant accepted the invitation to participate, their names were listed and divided into three groups: native English speakers; non-native English speakers who are not Thai; and native Thais, according to Kachru’s

Nawarungreung, J. The Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication Vol. 2, Issue 1, January-June 2016, pp.

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model of World Englishes. Three people were randomly selected from each group to be representatives of their respective groups. The number of participants was established at three per group because the participants must listen to all the songs. The researcher had to ensure that they could attend the entire listening session without interruption. Working with a small number of participants allowed the researcher to spend an adequate amount of time with each person to gather in-depth information on all aspects of the research. Purposeful selection was useful so the researcher could ensure that no data loss occurred during the study. The researcher could control the variables such as types of language users, and effectively manage the time used interviewing participants. Twelve selected people participated in the study. Nine of the participants were part of the general audience and three were professional lyricists. The general audience participants included native English speakers, non-native English speakers who are not Thai, and native Thais. All three of the lyricists were native, male Thais. Each one was a representative from a singing contest program. They had been working with those singing programs for more than ten years. The following section lists the participants’ qualifications and exposure to Thai language, culture, and people in detail. The native English speaker participants The native English speaker participants were the representatives of language users in the inner circle according to Kachru’s model of World Englishes. The participants included a British person, an American and a Canadian. They were two females and a male. Their ages ranged from twenty to sixty years old and their educational background varied from a college graduate to master’s degree. Their professions were an immigration officer, a marketing officer and a student. The workplaces of the British and the American participants had native Thai staff employed. The British participant had been working in Thailand for three years whereas the American participant had resided in Thailand for six years. The Canadian student was the only participant who had never been to Thailand and had had no contact with Thai language and people. The British and American participants considered their Thai proficiency to be at the pre-intermediate level as they could understand and communicate in Thai at a certain level such as greetings and ordering food whereas the Canadian participant did not understand Thai at all. The non-native English speakers who are not Thai participants The non-native English speakers who are not Thai participants represented the language users of the outer circle of Kachru’s concept of World Englishes. They included a Chinese person, a Vietnamese person and a Singaporean with one female and two males. Their ages were from fifteen to fifty years old. Their educational backgrounds ranged from high school to master degree. They were an interpreter/translator, an engineer, and a student. The Chinese participant was an exchange student in Thailand on a year program. She had been working for a Thai government sector in China. The Vietnamese participant was also an exchange student in Thailand on a year program. His school employed native Thai teachers. Both were currently pursuing Thai language in their home countries. The Singaporean participant had no contact with Thai language and the people except for a short visit for personal or business purpose. The Chinese and Vietnamese participants assessed their Thai language proficiency as upper intermediate. They could communicate in Thai during official meetings and in a Thai class, respectively, plus interact with native Thais in their daily lives. The Singaporean participant had no knowledge of Thai except for a greeting word, hello.


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The native Thai participants The native Thai participants were representatives of the language users of the expanding circle of World Englishes. The participants’ ages were from fifteen to sixty years old. Their educational backgrounds were from high school to master degree level. Their occupations were an interpreter/translator, a programmer, and a student. Two of them were employees of international organizations where English was used as a medium of communication. The third one was a student attending a bilingual program at a Thai school. All of them assessed their English proficiency as upper intermediate level. All could communicate in English in daily life at work and in school. The lyricists Three lyricists were also included in the research for in-depth information and comparison of thoughts as song composers. The lyricists were all male, native Thais. They were representatives from each singing program used in this study. Their ages were between thirty five and forty years old and each had completed undergraduate level education. They were professional lyricists of Thailand with more than ten years of experience in song composition. All three of them had worked for the host companies of each singing contest program from the beginning when the programs were launched. Exposure to the Thai language, its culture, and people by the participants Exposure to the Thai language, its culture, and people were three of the factors of that contributed to familiarity and to the level of understanding of the participants. Obviously, in this study, the level of familiarity of the native Thai participants was very high. The Chinese participant had close exposure to the Thai language, its culture, and people because she was an exchange student in Thailand on a one year program and lived with a host family. After she completed the exchange program, she continued learning Thai at a school in China. She also maintained contact and practiced Thai with native Thais through e-mails, WeChat and QQ. At the time of this research, she was working for a Thai government organization in China. She watched Thai television programs and movies and listened to Thai songs on a regular basis. She visited Thailand at least twice a year for personal and business purposes. In total, she had been in contact with the Thai language, culture, and people for fifteen years. The Vietnamese participant also had close exposure to the Thai language, its culture, and people because he was an exchange student in Thailand on a one year program. He had studied and lived in Thailand with a host family for one year. When he returned to Vietnam, he took extra Thai courses at school and also learnt by himself through reading Thai books and speaking with his Thai teachers. He kept in contact and practiced Thai with native Thais through Skype and Facebook video calls. At the time of this research, he was enrolled in Thai courses at school. At his school, there were Thai exchange students studying with him. This meant he had frequent contact with the Thai language, its culture, and people. He kept in contact with his Thai friends through Line video calls. He sometimes watched Thai television programs, Thai movies and also listened to Thai songs. He visited Thailand once a year. In total, he had been in contact with the Thai language and its culture for three years. The Singaporean participant was the only one of the non-native English speakers who were not Thai participants who had had no exposure to the Thai language, its culture or people. This participant had a few Thai neighbors in his community but they used English as a medium of communication. His visit to Thailand was for a short period of time for personal business purposes.


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Similarly, the Canadian participant was the only native English speaker participant without exposure to the Thai language, its culture or people. This participant had no Thai citizens living in his community and had never visited Thailand. The exposure to the Thai language, its culture, and people of the American and the British participants was similar to the Chinese and the Vietnamese participants. The American participant had been residing in Thailand for six years. Her workplace had Thai staff employed. She practiced Thai language with her colleagues. She could make daily life conversations such as greetings and ordering food. However, she could not read or write Thai language. Her Thai language proficiency was considered pre-intermediate level. The British participant had been working in Thailand for three years. Her company also had Thai staff employed. She occasionally communicated with her Thai colleagues in Thai. Her Thai language proficiency was considered pre-intermediate level. She could not read or write Thai. Exposure to the Thai language, its culture, and people, proficiency in Thai, and familiarity were the major factors in the participants’ comprehension. The more the participants were familiar with the Thai language, its culture, and people, the more they understood the use of English in Thai popular songs. Data Collection The first step was to retrieve all the newly composed songs from the three song contest websites between 2001 and 2014. All the songs that contained English were selected for the study. In total, out of nine hundred and forty six songs only two hundred and fifty two songs contained English. From those songs, seventy words from sixty nine songs were finally selected for study. Those seventy words from sixty nine songs were categorized into six groups of words after the revision of the pilot study results. The first group of songs employed words that were understood by native English speakers. The second group employed words understood by non-native English speakers who are not Thai. Similarly, the third group of songs contained words understood by native Thais. The fourth and fifth groups contained words that were not understandable to native English speakers and non-native English speakers who are not Thai, respectively. The final group of songs employed words that had undergone a process of nativization. That is to say, participants could provide correct pronunciation but not correct meaning due to differences in context. Each participant was introduced to the purposes of this study and was assured of confidentiality before activities were conducted. Each participant listened to seventy words from sixty nine songs. Each song was played twice. The participants were asked to write down the words that they heard and to provide the meaning of those words to ensure they totally understood the words. The participants were then required to watch the music videos of those songs. Each music video was played twice, without subtitles. After the end of each song, they were asked to write down the words they heard and provide the meaning of those words. This was done on a separate piece of paper from the audio-only listening. The next phase was to interview the participants. Each of them was asked the initial relevant questions. The final step was to distribute questionnaires to the participants. Each of them was asked to complete and return the questionnaire to the researcher within a week. Data collection of the lyricists was based on interviews with them. The interviews applied the same criteria as with the other participants.


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Data Analysis After retrieving all the information, data analysiswas conducted. It was also divided into data analysis of the participants and data analysis of the lyricists. The first phase was to transcribe all seventy words from sixty nine songs. Those words employed the linguistic features such as consonants, consonant clusters, vowels, voicing, and nativization. Comparison of native English and native Thai pronunciation presented similarities and differences. The second phase was to check the answers of each participant from the listening comprehension through audio files and also from music videos. The answers were grouped into types of understanding as discussed in the data collection section. This made it possible to determine which words the participants accurately understood. Correct and incorrect answers might reveal other factors of comprehension. After that, the researcher compared the answers of each participant to see whether audio files and music videos were factors in understanding. If the participants scored higher with music videos than with audio files, it might be possible that actions might help them understand better than just listening to audio files only. The researcher then grouped the participants’ points during the interviews into categories and provided examples of each category retrieved from the participants. This revealed participants’ attitudes towards the use of English in Thai popular songs. The final phase was to group the participants’ points from the questionnaires and to list examples from each category. This step might seem similar to the interviews, but the grouping of the questionnaires was based on the questions listed on the questionnaire and not by points raised by participants. Information from the interviews with the lyricists was grouped into categories. Examples from each category were collected in the same manner as the interviews with the participants.

Content analysis Content analysis is a research technique to describe the situation of a study (Berelson, 1971). Research tools are reliable and results are valid if using content analysis (Krippendorff, 1980). In this study, content analysis was used to measure the reliability of the research tools and to ensure the validity of the results. Content analysis was used to retrieve information from the categories of listening comprehension. Categories used in the study were divided into six types. The first type included words understood by native English speakers such as check, enjoy and like. The second type included words understood by non-native English who are not Thai, such as care, surprise and want. The third type included words understood by native Thais such as air, happy, and share. The fourth type included words that were not understandable to native English speakerssuch as ball, everything and sure. The fifth type included words that were not understandable to non-native English speakers were not-Thaisuch as charge, feel and mouth. The final group included words that had become nativized in the Thai language such as ‘ver’ from ‘over’, ‘ber’ from ‘number and ‘in’ from inner. Information was also drawn from categories that the interviews and questionnaires were placed into. The main categories were divided into positive and negative. The positive ones were grouped into five sub-types. The first one was “English is modern” such as: “เวลาทไดใชภาษาองกฤษในบรบทไทย มนดทนสมยมาก (When I am using English in Thai context, I feel it is modern)”, “พอมใครทกวารองเพลงภาษาองกฤษได รสกวาตวเองอนเทรนดมาก” (When I have been told I can sing in English well, I feel in trend), and “I

am comfortable to use English in my language. It is modern.”


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The second sub-type was “English shows education.” People who could use or sing in English had good educational background such as “ภาษาองกฤษบอกระดบการศกษาได (English can tell education

background)”, “I am proud of using English. You know, it means good education to me”, and “In my

country, English classifies us from another. It is about educational level.” The next sub-type was that “people learn new vocabulary from mixing English into a song.” The other sub-type was that “mixing English was more understandable than a local language” such as the word “care.” The final sub-type was “English opened the world” such as “It is good to see Thai people are more open to the world” and “I think that foreigners, like me, understand what you are conveying to us. It is not 100% understandable, but, yes, I say I understand.” The negative side was divided into three sub-types. The first one was that it “ruins language and identity” such as “The language can be ruined from listening to mixture of English in a local language.”, “Identity can be lost from absorbing this kind of music” and “I think about correct pronunciation, no matter it is native-like or local dialect.” The second sub-type was “inappropriate pronunciation” such as “I feel it is not ok for some singers. They sing and pronounce English and Thai incorrectly to me. For example, “ท” should be

pronounced as /t/ but 99% pronounce it as /ch/ like “เธอ”. When they sing in English, they are

supposed to pronounce “t” as /t/ but they sing as /tj/, a combination of /t/ and /j/. I do not know why they sing this way. I do not know how they are trained.”, “I think mixture of English and Thai may lead to misunderstanding due to deviated pronunciation” and “It can build a bad habit of Thai people to use incorrect pronunciation and even grammar.” The final sub-type was “prevention of beauty of music” such as “English should be composed in English; Thai should be composed in Thai. Music should be composed in a language of a target audience. If not, beauty of melody is gone.”“I feel it is humorous having more than one language in a song. I do not know the intention but it is strange to me” and “You have to pay attention to elements of each verse rather than listen for relax.” However, content analysis in the main study showed more types than stated in this part because participants expressed more points during the interview and also raised new points on the questionnaire.

Results and Discussion

The study revealed that the participants had different degrees of understanding of the English in Thai songs. Native Thai participants attained the highest level of understanding, followed by native speakers, followed by non-native speakers who were not Thai. The most important factor in understanding was familiarity or frequency of contact with Thai people and the language.

Exposure to Thai language In this study, the native Thai participants have daily contact with their own language. Therefore, they understand English that has been employed within the Thai language better than the other groups. By listening to the track once; native Thai participants provided all the correct answers. The native English speakers in this study had regular contact with Thai people and its language because they worked in organizations with native Thais or they had business contact with Thai people. No matter how regular it was, native English speakers could understand the use of English in the Thai language at a high level. They provided all the correct answers after the second


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time of listening except for some words that had undergone nativization such as ‘o’ as a truncation of ‘over’ and ‘ber’ as a truncation of ‘number.’ Non-native English speakers who were not Thai demonstrated the weakest understanding of English in Thai songs. The participants who could communicate in Thai understood the English used in the Thai songs better than those who had less frequent contact. In this study, the participants who had regular contact with Thai people and its language were the Chinese and Vietnamese. All of them were exchange students in Thailand for a year and were actively learning Thai. Some were working with native Thais in their home countries. In addition, they watched Thai television programs and spoke to Thai people regularly. It can be seen from their number of correct answers that they understood all the words after the second time of listening. However, some meanings were still not understood even when they were used in different contexts such as ‘o as a truncation of ‘over’ and ‘mem’ as a truncation of ‘remember.’

Linguistic features In contrast, different linguistic features between English and Thai were the factors that trigger incomprehensibility. In this study, different linguistic features included consonants, consonant clusters, vowels, and voicing. Thai English speakers face difficulties with certain consonants and consonant clusters. Thais often substitute nearly equivalent sounds in the Thai language for certain English sounds that phonetically cannot occur in the final position of a Thai word. For example, the /l/ sound was not understandable to the participants who had limited contact with the Thai language and its people. The reason is that Thais frequently use the /n/ sound to replace it. Thai language cannot allow the /l/ sound in the final position. They, therefore, substitute the /n/ sound to pronounce English words ending with the /l/ sound. Consequently, a word such as ‘ball’ may often be pronounced as ‘bɔ:n’ by a Thai English speaker. In terms of vowels, the differences occurred with monophthongs and diphthongs because native Thais use a substitution strategy for both. For instance, monophthongs are replaced by diphthongs such as /o:/ for /oʊ/ in the word ‘condo.’ Finally, voicing presented some level of misunderstanding. Some voiced sounds were replaced by voiceless sounds in Thai such as /f/ for /v/ in the word ‘love.’ The Thai language has no voiced sounds; this contributes to pronunciation and communication problems.

Nativization An additional linguistic feature explored in this analysis was nativization. Eight words that have become nativized in the Thai language occurred in the song lyrics. These include ‘ber’ from ‘number;’ ‘celeb’ from ‘celebrity;’ ‘chill’ from ‘chill out;’ ‘in’ from ‘inner;’ ‘mem’ from ‘remember;’ ‘o’ from ‘ok;’ ‘spec’ from ‘specification;’ and ‘ver’ from ‘over.’ It was clearly observed that the participants who understood pronunciation might not understand the meaning in context. The reason for this is that native Thais use truncation, conversion and the semantic shift processes to nativize words. Truncation ranked in the top position such as “เอาเบอรไปแลว กตองใช รบผดชอบกนซะบาง” (You have my

(num) ber and must use it. You must take responsibility). Conversion was also found in the study

such as “อยามาท าหนาเวอร เพราะเธอไมใชคน ๆ นน” (Donot make your face that ver because you are not that

person). Semantic shift found such as “รไหมไปเจอใครๆ แตใจเหงาอยบอกตวเองใหชลๆ หนอย กท าไมไดเลย” (You know I

meet many people but I am still lonely. I told myself to chill chill but I cannot).


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Attitudes During the interviews, the participants revealed both positive and negative attitudes towards the use of English in Thai songs. They stated that regular contact with Thai people and the language helped them understand the English in the Thai language more easily. Many participants believed that the use of English by people of another languages implied that those people were modern and educated such as “เวลาทไดใชภาษาองกฤษในบรบทไทย มนดทนสมยมากอยางเวลารองเพลง” (When I am using

English in Thai context, I feel it is modern like when I am singing.) Similarly, “รสกวาตวเองดมการศกษา เวลารองเพลงทเปนภาษาองกฤษ” (I feel I am educated when I sing in English).

Some participants believed that songs were good for language learning. They stated that songs should be used in classrooms to create enjoyable setting for students. Teachers should encourage students to choose songs themselves and share them with their friends. In doing so, there are motivated to learn a new language such as new vocabulary acquisition. That is to say, songs bring English closer to their lives. It is also a natural way of learning a language such as “Songs are a tool to encourage people to learn English”. In addition, teachers should be aware of the varieties of English and should try to add the varieties to materials such as textbooks and the classroom as much as possible. This helps students realize that there are different types of English; it raises their awareness, and exposes them to different types of English such as accents, dialects, pronunciation and sentence structure. It is beneficial to students because it is unpredictable who students will encounter and communicate with in daily life. If they meet native English speakers, but they speak English with their own characteristics, the interlocutors may not understand them and the conversation may be a failure. In contrast, if they understand native English, they can accommodate themselves to their conversational counterparts well. Not only will communication be more successful, but it will also make a positive first impression. However, negative attitudes should also be taken into account. Even though songs are good for language learning and teaching, they may have other impacts as well. For example, song selection should match the students’ language proficiency. If not, students may get bored and lack motivation to learn. In addition, unclear pronunciation by Thai singers may affect students’ pronunciation in daily life and lead to unsuccessful communication or create problems during conversations. To sum up, it could be seen that the songs had positive elements. In World Englishes, the focus was mainly on the differences between the varieties of English and Standard English. However, this research revealed that even though the use of English in songs was different from Standard English, people could understand it as in the consonant sounds in the initial position.

Conclusion and Recommendation The whole study has presented different levels of understanding of the use of English in Thai popular songs that each group of participants holds. Frequent contact with the Thai language was the main factor of familiarity and language acquisition. Participants who were in frequent contact with the Thai language, its culture and people understood the English used by Thais better than the ones who had less contact with the Thai language and its people. The other factors related to understanding were linguistic features – consonants, consonant clusters, vowels and voicing – that are different between English and Thai. The more differences of


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linguistic features the participants knew, the more they understood the use of English in Thai popular songs. In contrast, if the participants had limited knowledge, their understanding was also limited. Thais use replacement strategies for consonant sounds in the initial and final positions, vowel sounds and voicing quality. They also use insertion and omission strategies for consonant cluster sounds. These strategies lead to differences in the use of English in the Thai language which leads to different levels of understanding. The more the differences are close to native English and the participants’ mother tongues, the more the participants understood. Nativization was also a linguistic feature found in this study. Nativized processes include truncation, conversion, and semantic shift. Truncation was mainly observed in this study because the majority of words that have undergone the nativization process are shortened from the original words in English. Conversion and semantic shift happened at a quarter each type. Participants held positive and negative attitudes towards the use of English in Thai popular songs. In terms of positive attitudes, they viewed it as modern and educated when mixing English in Thai popular songs and the language. The ability to communicate in English is preferred in Thai society because it indicates that a person is modern and educated. Participants also expressed negative attitudes towards the use of English in Thai popular songs and its language. They said that the mixture of English in Thai popular songs ruined the beauty of the language and also its identity. The mixture of English in Thai popular songs created a new type of language that was neither native English nor native Thai. As a result, it ruined both languages. The lyricists revealed that they inserted English into Thai popular songs because of the producer’s perception of the singer’s physical appearance and characteristic. However, the lyricists think that insertion of English into Thai popular songs helps language learning such as vocabulary acquisition. The participants and the lyricists expressed both similar and different viewpoints. Each person held particular perspectives depending on their experience and thoughts on a particular thing, person and issue. There are four limitations to this study. The first is that participants were positively selected. The researcher positively selected the participants to control the qualifications of the participants and ensure that they understood the aims of the study well. In addition, the researcher was able to contact them after the study was over if further discussion was needed. However, this criterion limits the results to the group of language users and cannot be generalize to the population. The researcher suggests that future researchers should expand the scope of the participants to be more general. Participants should be randomly selected from the public such as tourists. It may be more difficult to control but the results of the study would be more generalizable. The next limitation is that all lyricists are males. The researcher would suggest that the future studies should include both males and females in each category. Another limitation was that all of the non-native English speakers who were not Thai participants were Asian. The researcher suggests that future studies should include different nationalities such as from Europe and Africa. The final limitation is that the lyrics were only from 2001 to 2014 and were retrieved from three national singing contest programs. Future researchers should expand lyrics to more general settings. For example, asking participants to name songs they think have English mixed in them. It would be more generalizable to the population.


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Biodata: Jutharat Nawarunggreung is now a Ph.D. student in English Language Studies Program at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University. She can be reached at [email protected].

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Montkhongtham, N. The Journal of Applied Language Studies and Communication Vol. 2, Issue 1, January-June 2016, pp. 84-102

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Logical Spirituality: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to the Understanding of If-Conditionals in Thich Nhat Hanh’s and His

Contemporaries’ Applied Dharma Texts

Napanant Montkhongtham Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

The aim of this paper is to expose writers including English writing teachers to methods of delivering abstract spiritual messages to 21stcentury readers who are familiar with the concrete approaches of science and technology. The main focus is on if-conditionals, an outstanding linguistic feature which Thich Nhat Hanh, a leading figure of socially engaged Buddhism, adopts in his applied dharma texts. To show how if-conditionals are adopted in Buddhist spiritual texts to convey particular meanings, six written works by three applied dharma writers were selected for discourse analysis, and cognitive linguistic frameworks were applied. This paper deals with the pilot-study’s results and assumptions to be further explored in the main study. According to the pilot study, the choices of grammatical and lexical patterns within the structure of if-conditionals (i.e. tense, aspect, modality, reality status, and situation type) are in accordance with one another and the types and functions of if-conditionals. Moreover, while the if-conditionals adopted in the three writers’ works are similar in terms of types and functions, cognitive-grammar aspects, and the mental spaces created, they also show some differences in detail. In the future, Buddhist writers or writers from other fields who wish to deliver abstract or complicated knowledge can consider if-conditionals as one linguistic device to help make their texts accessible. Additionally, teachers who wish to help their students become competent communicators in the English speaking world can consider teaching if-conditionals to expose their students to effective means of message delivery.

Key Words: Cognitive Linguistics, If-Conditionals, Applied Dharma

งานวจยชนนมจดมงหมายใหนกเขยนและครผสอนภาษาองกฤษไดศกษาวธสอความหมายนามธรรมดานศาสนาใหผอานในยควทยาศาสตรเขาใจไดอยางชดเจนขนงานวจยนเจาะจงศกษาประโยคเงอนไขเครองมอทางภาษาททานตชนทฮนห

พระสงฆหนงในผน าความเคลอนไหวพทธศาสนาในสงคมยคสมยใหมไดเลอกใชในงานเขยน “ธรรมะประยกต” เพอสอสารกบผอานทวโลกผวจยไดวเคราะหประโยคเงอนไขจากหนงสอหกเลมของนกเขยนธรรมะประยกตสามทาน ดวยมมมองทางดานภาษาศาสตรปรชานเพอศกษาวาผเขยนใชประโยคเงอนไขในงานเขยนทางศาสนาอยางไรในการสอความหมายกบผอานบทความนครอบคลมผลการศกษาน ารองและการตงสมมตฐานส าหรบการวเคราะหในขนตอนตอไปการศกษาน ารองแสดงใหเหนวาการเลอกใชค าและไวยากรณในโครงสรางประโยคเงอนไข อยางกาลทศนะภาวะสถานะความจรงและชนดสถานการณนนมความเกยวเนองกนและสมพนธกบประเภทและหลกการใชงานของประโยคเงอนไข นอกจากนนกเขยนทงสามทานใชประโยคเงอนไขคลายคลงกนหากวคราะหจากประเภทการใชงานมมมองดานภาษาศาสตรปรชานและพนทในมโนทศนแตกยงมความแตกตางกนในรายละเอยดในอนาคตนกเขยนดานงานศาสนาพทธหรอนกเขยนในศาสตรอน ๆ ซงตองการสอความหมายทคนทวไปอาจเขาถงไดยากสามารถพจารณาเครองมอทางภาษาอยางประโยคเงอนไขเปนอกทางเลอกหนงทจะชวยใหผอานรบสารไดอยางกระจางมากขน ทงครผสอนภาษาองกฤษทมงสอนใหนกเรยนฝกฝนเปนผสอสารอยางมประสทธภาพในโลกทใชภาษาองกฤษสอสารเปนสอกลาง ก สามารถพจารณาการสอนรายละเอยดการใชประโยคเงอนไขภาษาองกฤษในวถเฉพาะ เพอใหนกเรยนไดมโอกาสเรยนรตวอยางวธสอสารความหมายอยางมประสทธภาพในระดบสากล


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Introduction

Life for many individuals in the 21st century revolves more and more around material and selfish wants. In this current era, individuals are increasingly relying on modern technology accompanied by a more consumerism and the accumulation of material wealth, which furthers self-centeredness and other social issues (Eitzen & Zinn, 1992; Wenk, 1999; Sullivan 2000; Coleman et al., 2002; Mooney et al., 2005; Macionis 2010; Teich 2013), such as greater competitiveness among individuals and countries, a lack of care for others, social discrimination, and environmental crises. However, Buddhism in the modern world offers one approach to handling the negative circumstances that arise within society (Sivaraksa, 1999; McMahan, 2012). Engaged Buddhism for the new millennium involves a strong commitment to action in society; it highlights “mindfulness in action” to improve both oneself and the society in which one lives (Chappell, 1999, p. 78). Nevertheless, how can people alive at a time in which technology and science dominate comprehend the abstract concepts of spirituality for action? Today technology tends to dominate the way people live and is the main means of obtaining knowledge, reasoning and the analysis of concrete evidence (Ushiroyama, 2006; Boss, 2012). According to McMahan (2012), Thich Nhat Hanh (henceforth TNH) is a writer of modern Buddhism engaged with the dominant and intellectual forces of modernity, such as scientific rationalism and psychology. He is one of the key founders of the socially engaged Buddhist movement asserting that Buddhists should have an active involvement with social issues and also highlights the significance of interconnectedness among beings (King, 1996; Wongchinsri, 1998; King 2012). According to Wongchinsri (1998), TNH’s goal of writing is to create peace in society by encouraging his readers to practice dharma and applying what they have learnt to the improvement of society. In this research the term ‘applied dharma’ was chosen to refer to the subject and aim of TNH’s work. In accordance with the way people in the 21stcentury acquire information, TNH makes use of the commitment to search for reality by empirical means and the concept of causality highlighted in Buddhism to deliver spiritual messages. The Buddhist master presents the main spiritual concepts, including mindfulness and interconnectedness, using if-conditionals to deliver the message.

Although linguistic devices have been and continue to be essential elements helping people comprehend messages and successfully communicate as pointed out in (Ferguson, 2001; Verdonk, 2002; Jeffries & McIntyre, 2010; Warchal, 2010). The linguistic and cognitive aspects have not been widely discussed among those who concentrate on religious works or scholars in the field of psychology. Furthermore, it is important to note that Buddhist meditational techniques and principles have been widely accepted as part of therapies (Follette et al., 2006 as cited in Erikson & Ditrich, 2015; Ushiroyama, 2006; Falb & Pargament, 2012; Shonin, 2013).

King (1996; 2012) and Sivaraksa (1999) discuss the trends of the Buddhist movement in the new millennium but cover neither the linguistic devices adopted in applied-dharma texts nor the cognitive-linguistic aspects related to how the audience understands particular applied-dharma concepts. More specifically, other scholars focusing on TNH’s work (e.g. Wongchinsri 1998 and Raktaengam 2007) have dealt with the meanings and themes highlighted in TNH’s written works but not the linguistic devices helping the Buddhist master convey the messages of applied dharma to his international readers. Besides this, Kumar (2002), Ushiroyama (2006), Falb & Pargament (2012), and Shonin (2013) cover the concepts of Buddhism or meditation practice and the results of psychological therapy but do not deal with any linguistic devices or aspects of cognitive linguistics. As TNH’s applied dharma highlights the concepts of mindfulness, interconnectedness, and compassion; seeing how the Buddhist master delivers those significant messages can be the first step in understanding how Buddhist spiritual concepts can connect with a general audience for the


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improvement of society. In this research, if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s applied dharma texts have been analyzed in order to see how particular concepts of applied dharma are delivered to the readers of the 21st century. Moreover, to understand in more depth how if-conditionals lead to the interpretation of dharma messages and how TNH applies this linguistic device is compared with reference to his contemporaries. Research Questions

1. What are the grammatical patterns, types, and functions of the if-conditionals used in TNH’s applied dharma: The Art of Power (2007) and The Art of Communicating (2013)?

2. How can the if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s applied dharma, The Art of Power (2007) and The Art of Communicating (2013) create mental spaces leading to particular ways of interpreting spiritual messages?

3. How does TNH adopt if-conditionals in his applied dharma books that compare or contrast with his contemporaries?

Research Objectives

1. To observe how if-conditionals are adopted in spiritual texts to convey particular meanings

2. To identify particular grammatical patterns, types, and the functions of if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s applied dharma works published in the late 2000s and early 2010s

3. To address how the if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s applied dharma, The Art of Power (2007) and The Art of Communicating (2013) create mental spaces leading to particular ways of interpretation of spiritual messages

4. To ascertain how TNH adopts if-conditionals in his socially engaged dharma books that compare or contrast with his contemporaries.

Materials and Methods

TNH’s works can be divided into two main groups: (1) those focusing on Buddha’s teachings, and (2) those focusing on how people can apply dharma in real life (Wongchinsri, 1998). In other words whereas the first group highlights pure dharma principles, the second, which this research focuses upon, accentuates applied dharma or socially engaged Buddhism. Since the study raises the issue of selfishness in society, the texts emphasizing interconnectedness and focusing on compassionate communication with others were selected for discourse analysis. The chosen materials are TNH’s The Art of Power (2007) and The Art of Communicating (2013), which were originally written in English. Furthermore, to see how TNH uses if-conditionals compared to his contemporaries, the works of Ajahn Brahm (henceforth AB) and Pema Chodron (henceforth PM), who also published applied dharma books at the same time, were selected for comparison. The following four applied dharma books, by the aforementioned authors, were selected because they also use If-conditionals: (1) AB’s (2006) Happiness through Meditation, (2) PC’s (2009) Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears, (3) PC’s (2013) How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind, and (4) AB’s (2016) Kindfulness. All four books were also originally written in English.

In this research, to systematically analyze the outstanding linguistic device—i.e. the if-conditional—employed in 21st-century applied dharma discourse, the approaches of cognitive linguistics were adopted. The study focuses on the functions and effects of particular linguistic patterns. First of all, if-conditionals adopted in the selected texts of TNH were categorized based on Sweetser’s (1990) and Warchal’s (2010) frameworks. Second, to


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observe how the grammatical and lexical patterns of the if-conditionals relate to meaning construction the aspects of cognitive grammar were analyzed through the syntactic and lexical choices inside the structure of if-conditionals. This study focuses on the verb string, a central feature of the English clause highlighted by cognitive approaches to grammar (Evans & Green, 2006). Both structural and semantic properties of the verb group within the clause were explored with Radden & Dirven’s (2007) English cognitive grammar framework, Maldonado’s (2007) framework of grammatical voice in cognitive grammar, and Portner’s (2007; 2009) semantic framework of modality. Third, the model of alternative and non-alternative mental-space set-ups, developed further from Fauconnier’s (1994) Mental Spaces Theory (MST), by Dancygier & Sweetser (2005) was adopted for the analysis of how the if-conditionals create mental spaces and lead to particular ways of making meanings. Finally, all the steps mentioned above were taken for the analysis of if-conditionals adopted in the selected works of AB and PC, and the results concerning the if-conditionals used in the selected works of the three writers were compared and contrasted.

At the preliminary stage of the research, a pilot study, which this paper covers, was conducted with 111 if-clause sentences randomly taken from TNH’s (2007 & 2013) books, 39 if-clause sentences randomly taken from PC’s books (2009 & 2013), and 73 if-clause sentences randomly taken from AB’s books (2006 & 2016). The total of 111 if-clause sentences represented20% of the overall number of TNH’s if-clause sentences analyzed in the main study while 39 represented 20% of PC’s and 73 represented 20% of AB’s. The pilot study was conducted with 20% of the main-study’s material as an approach to test the research tools and explore the preliminary assumptions for further study. The Test of the Outstanding Feature

In order to see whether if-conditionals are outstandingly adopted in TNH’s applied dharma texts, an independent t-test was conducted to compare the number of if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s applied dharma and the number of if-conditionals adopted in other contemporary texts. The differences were discovered to be statistically significant. TNH’s (2007 & 2013) applied dharma texts, The Art of Power and The Art of Communicating, and Time Magazine materials written in the same periods of time were chosen for the independent t-test, because, similar to TNH’s texts, Time’s articles have been written to communicate with a general, international audience or an audience from a variety of different backgrounds, and they were also originally written in English. The t-test was used in the following two ways: (1) The t-test was adopted to see the differences between the number of if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s (2007 & 2013) applied dharma and the number of if-conditionals adopted in Time Magazine also released in the years 2007 and 2013. The contents of the entire issues was included in order to compare the use of if-conditionals in the Buddhist writer’s books with the use of if-conditionals in the magazine in various contexts and general topics, such as economics, politics, science, arts, environment, fashion, and health. (2) The t-test was adopted to see the differences between the number of if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s (2007 & 2013) books and the number of if-conditionals adopted in articles concerning ‘mindfulness’ published in Time Magazine from the year 2006 to 2014. In short, besides being compared with the number of if-conditionals in articles on general topics, the number of if-conditionals in the research material was also compared to the number of if-conditionals in articles concerning mindfulness—one of the main concepts discussed in applied dharma texts.

The independent t-test results show that on average TNH’s books (2007, 2013) contain more if-conditionals (M = 74.66, SE = 1.05) than Time (2007, 2013),M = 20.23, SE = .95. The difference is significant t(1.98) = 54.14, p< .001 and represents a large-sized effect r = .99 (Cohen 1992). Moreover, the other independent t-test results show that if-conditionals are adopted significantly more in TNH’s books (2007, 2013) than in articles concerning


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mindfulness published in Time (2006 – 2014), M = 27.90, SE = 17.92. The difference is significant t(9) = 3.54 p < .006. The effect size of the difference is r = .88 which is considered large according to Cohen (1992). The statistically significant differences shown by the t-test results confirm that if-conditionals are an outstanding linguistic tool used in TNH’s applied dharma texts. On average the Buddhist master’s books have more instances of if-conditionals than the magazine texts on general/various topics (Time 2007, 2013) and than articles concerning mindfulness released in Time Magazine from 2006 to 2014. Next, let us consider the types of if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s applied dharma texts.

Categorization of If-Conditionals

Although there are numerous different and overlapping typologies of if-conditionals in the literature, Sweetser’s (1990) and Warchal’s (2010) frameworks were found compatible to the consideration of typology of if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s applied dharma texts. According to Sweetser (1990), if-conditionals can be divided into (1) content conditionals (CCs), (2) epistemic conditionals (ECs), and (3) speech-act conditionals (SCs). According to Warchal (2010), speech-act conditionals can be subdivided into (3.1) polite speech-act conditionals (SCPs) and (3.2) relevance speech-act conditionals (SPRs). The fourth category, (4) concessive conditionals (CONs), were discussed by Sweetser (1990) but were separated into another category in Warchal (2010).

1. Content Conditionals (CCs)

In this group, ‘if’ indicates that “the realization of the event or state of affairs described in the protasis is a sufficient condition for the realization of the event or state of affairs described in the apodosis” (Sweetser, 1990, p. 114).

(1) If you are a happy couple, the children you raise will also be happy. (TNH, 2007, p. 165)

According to Sweetser’s (1990) framework, (1) means that if the real-world state of affairs includes your being a happy couple, then it will also include your children being happy. The connection between the antecedent and consequent is likely to be a causal one. In (1), your being happy can bring about your children’s happiness or enable your children to be happy, or you not being happy can in some way cause your children to be unhappy. In other words, you being happy is a sufficient condition for your children being happy.

2. Epistemic Conditionals (ECs)

Underlying this group is the idea that “knowledge of the truth of the hypothetical premise expressed in the protasis would be a sufficient condition for concluding the truth of the proposition expressed in the apodosis” (Sweetser, 1990, p. 116).

(2) If you don’t know how to take care of your body, how to release the tension in your body and give it permission to rest, you don’t love your body. (TNH, 2007, p. 48)

(2) does not emphasize a causal relationship between the event or state of affairs described in the protasis and the event or state of affairs described in the apodosis but rather a conclusion about the latter based on the knowledge about the former. (2) can be read as follows: when you know that you do not even know how to take care of your body, how to release the tension in your body and give it permission to rest, you can conclude that you do not actually love your body. The speaker, as Sweetser (1990) puts it, has a “data-base,” (117) which enables him/her to conclude that the truth of ‘you don’t know how to take care of your body, how to release the tension in your body and give it permission to


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rest’ will suffice to allow the conclusion that the proposition ‘you don’t love your body’ is also true. One of the patterns found among TNH’sECs is that the protasis shows the result and the apodosis expresses the assumed cause.

3. Speech-Act Conditionals (SCs)

“Speech-act conditionals are cases where the if-clause appears to conditionally modify not the contents of the main clause, but the speech act which the main clause carries out” (Dancygier & Sweetser 2005, p. 113). Warchal (2010) subcategorizes Sweetser’s (1990) speech-act conditionals into the groups of (1) politeness and (2) relevance. However, since there are only two politeness if-clause sentences found in TNH’s selected texts and there are no politeness if-clause sentences found in the other two contemporary applied dharma writers’ works, the politeness group will not be discussed in this study as one separate category, but rather why the politeness group is not commonly used in the applied dharma texts will be.

Speech-Act Conditionals: Relevance (SCRs)

In the case of the other subcategory of relevance if-clause sentences, as Sweetser (1990) mentions, the statement expressed in the apodosis is relevant only in the case of the proposition expressed in the protasis being true (Warchal, 2010).

(3) If we need to tell others that their perception was not correct, we can do that a few days later, privately and calmly. (TNH, 2013, p. 162)

In (3) the apodosis can be seen as a piece of advice which is relevant only when the event or state in the protasis is true. Most of the if-conditionals in this category in TNH’s materials concern giving advice as to what the reader should do in the case of a specific situation. The apodosis, which is usually a suggestion, may be an imperative or contain modal verbs, such as can, should, may, and might.

4. Concessive Conditionals (CONs)

Sweetser (1990) mentions the even-if reading of conditionals and concessive if-clauses, and Warchal (2010) also includes concessive conditionals as one type of if-conditionals. In this group, “a state of events expressed in the apodosis will take place despite the situation expressed in the protasis being the case” (Warchal, 2010, pp. 145-146).

(4) Even if you have not been able to do anything yet to alleviate the problems, just listening and showing that you understand inspires confidence. (TNH, 2007, p. 125)

Usually when you are not able to do anything to alleviate the pain, as in (4), the person facing the pain may tend to feel unpleasant. However, ‘even if’ and the context encouraging readers to truly listen and understand others can lead to the positive outcome of inspiring confidence, which is stated in the apodosis.

5. Reliability of If-Conditional Categorization

The classification of if-conditionals based on their function was validated with inter-coder reliability ensured with Cohen’s Kappa (Kanoksilapatham, 2005, 2015). A university instructor (PhD) of English for sciences and technology served as the other coder in this study. The Cohen’s Kappa coefficient or kappa value indicated high inter-coder reliability or excellent agreement.

Data Analysis


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The following sections include the analysis of the pilot-study data toaddress each research question.

(1) Research Question 1

What are the grammatical patterns, types, and functions of if-conditionals used in TNH’s applied dharma: The Art of Power (2007) and The Art of Communicating (2013)?

(1.1) Types and Functions

According to the pilot data, the type of if-conditional adopted the most in TNH’s applied dharma texts is the content conditional (CC). Out of the 111 if-clause sentences, 67 if-clause sentences are CCs. Epistemic conditional (EC) comes second at 19. Next, 15 if-clause sentences are relevance speech-act conditionals (SCRs) while 10 others are concessive conditionals (CONs). The pilot data shows that unlike TNH’s CCs focusing on the outcome of a particular state or action (e.g. ‘If you give someone the wrong medicine, that person could die’), ECs in TNH’s texts are usually used to express conclusions concerning the characteristics of particular things (e.g. ‘If you can be yourself, this is already love, this is already action’), states (e.g. the state of being successful as in ‘If we remember this, we’ve already succeeded’), causes (e.g. the cause of happiness as in ‘If a nun is happy, it is not because she has power or fame but because she knows her presence is helping a lot of people’), and definitions (e.g. the definition or quality of a true friend as in ‘If the person is so busy, doesn’t have the time, or doesn’t like tea, and you force her to sit down and have tea with you, you are not a true friend; you are not being truly loving’). Moreover, in the pilot study, TNH’s SCRs are different from his CCs and ECs in terms of their emphasis and function. Neither signifying the outcome of a protasis state/event nor signifying characteristics of particular things, states, causes, or definitions; TNH’s SCRs demonstrate what one should do in a particular situation. For example, in the statement ‘If one of you finds out the cause, that person should communicate it right away and apologize for being unskillful so that the other person doesn’t continue to suffer’ the writer discusses a practical method of handling suffering and reconciling with others. Last but not least, according to the pilot study, TNH’s CONs deal with the aspects of descriptions about particular states, characteristics, definitions, etc. as found in ECs, or suggestions as found in SCRs. However, the key element of CONs is the concessive if-reading, and in the pilot data, CONs are typically marked with ‘even if.’ For instance, in ‘Even if we no longer see that person, we can reconcile inside ourselves and the relationship can heal,’ there is a speech-act element in terms of suggestion. The speaker talks about a particular situation in which one suffers from a relationship and the person with whom one has had the relationship is already dead. Here a particular way of reconciliation is suggested with the modal can. The speaker says that it is possible to heal the relationship if one reconciles inside oneself. However, it is not simply an SCR because the aspect of concessive-if reading can also be observed here. Usually, it is unlikely that reconciliation with a dead person can occur, but the author shows how it is possible. In other words, a normal reading would be ‘the reconciliation cannot occur,’ whereas the concessive-if reading is ‘the reconciliation can occur.’ According to Sweetser (1990), concessive conditionals can be discovered in the content, epistemic, and speech-act domains; however, in the pilot study, it was discovered that TNH’s CONs could be divided into three groups: (1) CONs in the content domain (e.g. ‘Even if you’re the most talented person, even if you have real insight, if the right time has not come, you won’t be successful’), (2) CONs in the epistemic domain (e.g. ‘Even if it’s also making money, it has meaning, because it can bring well-being to the


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world),and (3) CONs in the speech-act domain (e.g. ‘Then listen to her deeply, even if what she says is complaining, reproachful, or not very kind’). As each type of if-conditional concerns or highlights different aspects, it can be assumed that when the author wishes to deliver a particular message, a particular type of if-conditional is selected. While what all the types of TNH’s if-conditionals have in common is the persuasive function: persuading readers to practice dharma or apply dharma to each moment of their lives, different approaches are taken in different contexts. For instance, when the writer persuades readers to apply dharma to their daily lives by emphasizing the positive outcomes of practicing dharma or the negative outcomes of not practicing dharma or showing the general cause-effect relationships of situations as background knowledge for persuasion, the writer adopts CCs. On the other hand, when the writer gives a definition or shows a state of what is good and what is not good to persuade the reader to make a good choice or to explain about a particular state as background knowledge for persuasion, ECs are adopted. In addition, when the writer persuades his readers to practice dharma in their daily lives to deal with circumstances, SCRs are used. SCRs are adopted probably as a way to show readers that dharma is not a completely abstract approach or something unattainable in practice. The Buddhist master illustrates practical ways to deal with particular states and situations. Furthermore, as for the final category of TNH’s if-conditionals, the pilot study provided two assumptions concerning CONs. First, CONs may be a subtle way to have readers look beyond the surface and look at possibilities, which is also important in Buddhism. Second, CONs can also be used to make readers aware of or expect the unexpected, which is another significant issue in Buddhism.

(1.2) Grammatical and Lexical Patterns of the Verb String

Tense, Aspect, and Voice

In this research, the tenses and aspects portrayed in TNH’s and the other contemporary writers’ of applied dharma were analyzed and identified in accordance with Radden & Dirven’s (2007) framework concerning simple tenses (present, past, future), complex tenses with anterior times (present perfect, past perfect, future perfect), and complex tenses with posterior times (present prospective and past prospective). As for grammatical voice in cognitive grammar, Maldonado’s (2007) framework covering four categories (active-direct, passive, anti-passives, and inverse) was adopted in this study.

Modality

Even though if-conditionals have often been associated with the label of epistemic modality (Papafragou, 2006 as cited in Portner, 2009; Fintel, 2016), the label was found inadequate for all the CCs, ECs, SCRs, and CONs used in TNH’s applied dharma texts. Portner’s (2007; 2009) framework of sentential modality was, therefore, adopted in this research. Portner (2007; 2009) divides modality into (1) epistemic modality, (2) priority modality, and (3) dynamic modality. Priority modality (PM) concerns goal-oriented modals. These are subdivided into (2.1) deontic modals, (2.2) bouletic modals, and (2.3) teleological modals (Portner, 2007; 2009).

Deontic modals are related to the social domain of thoughts or portray social obligation (Evans & Green, 2006). They deal with obligation or permission, which is also considered to be “the speaker’s directive attitude towards an action to be carried out” (Radden & Dirven, 2007, p. 233). Whereas bouletic modality concerns “what is possible or necessary, given a person’s desires,” teleological modality concerns what means are possible or necessary for achieving a particular goal (Fintel, 2016, p. 2). Similar to primary modals, dynamic modals are also related to “circumstantial modal bases” (Portner, 2009, p. 135).


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Portner (2009) subdivides dynamic modality into (3.1) volitional dynamic modality (VDM) and (3.2) quantificational dynamic modality (QDM). While VDM is comprised of (3.1.1) ability, (3.1.2) opportunity, and (3.1.3) dispositional modality, QDM is subdivided into (3.2.1) existential modality and (3.2.2) universal modality.

Reality Status

In terms of reality status, Radden & Dirven (2007) discuss four types: (1) known reality, (2) immediate reality, (3) projected reality, and (4) potential reality. According to Radden & Dirven (2007), without modal verbs, factual reality is portrayed, and present tense and past tense signify immediate reality and known reality, respectively. Where future reality is concerned or when future tense forms are used, the state or action is considered to portray projected reality. However, when some modal verbs, such as may and can, are included in the verb string, the status is called potential reality.

Situation Types

Factors influencing the type of situation concern staticity, boundedness, duration, and telicity (Radden & Dirven, 2007). First, whether a verb string is labeled as a state or an event depends on whether the content verb is stative or dynamic. States are static situations; events are dynamic situations (Radden & Dirven, 2007). A stative verb describes a situation that remains constant through time and does not concern internal change or action; whereas a dynamic verb describes a situation concerning internal change or action (Evans & Green, 2006). ‘Know’ in “We all know that our bodies have the capacity of self-healing” (NhatHanh, 2007, p. 48), for example, is stative as knowing something extends across time and does not involve change. In contrast, the content verb ‘run’ in “many of us have run all our lives” (NhatHanh, 2013, p. 26) is viewed as an event because ‘have run’ involves internal change and is, thus, dynamic. Radden & Dirven (2007) categorize states into indefinitely lasting states (ILS), temporary states, habitual states, temporary habitual states, and everlasting states. In addition, events are categorized into bounded events (which are subcategorized into accomplishments, activities, achievements, and acts) and unbounded events (which are subcategorized into accomplishing activities, unbounded activities, culminating activities, and iterative activities).

(1.3) Pilot-Study Results and Cognitive Grammar Analysis

Tense and Aspect

According to the pilot data, the present simple tense is adopted the most in the verb strings of TNH’s CCs, ECs, SCRs, and CONs while the future simple tense comes second. With regard to meaning, it can be observed that these two tenses adopted in TNH’s CCs portray generic meaning (e.g. ‘If we are able to quiet the cravings within us, we see that our true desire is not wealth or fame but happiness’) and possible future (e.g. ‘If we keep practicing like this, we can stop the cycle of transmission, and this will benefit not only us but our children and descendants’).

Moreover, according to the functions of ECs discussed in the previous section, it is not surprising to see that the present simple tense is adopted the most. When the author talks about the definition or characteristics of a state and the cause of a state, the pattern of ‘present simple tense + present simple tense’ is usually needed to portray the background knowledge and conclusion (e.g. ‘If it is a relationship that is harmonious, in which communication is good, then happiness is there’).As for TNH’s SCRs, the present simple tense also plays a significant role in both the protases and apodoses. The choice of the present simple tense is in accordance with SCR functions—i.e. to portray circumstances one


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can generally face in daily life and an action people should normally take. In addition, it is not surprising to see that the majority of CON verb strings use the simple present verb form because they are CONs in content, epistemic, and speech-act domains in which the present tense plays a significant role as discussed above.

Besides the present simple and future simple tenses, the past tense form, the present prospective, and the present perfect are also adopted in a minority of the verb strings of TNH’s if-conditionals. For example, the past tense form is adopted in TNH’s CCs ‘If three or four monks were sharing joyfully and communicating well, when that young monk tried to join in, the atmosphere of joy stopped’ and ‘If you were to see them, you would love him more, and you would love him in a way that would help him be Ananda’ to portray the narrative past and potentiality of what could be, respectively.

The present perfect verb form is also adopted in a few protases of TNH’s CCs to show the background of the outcome stated in the apodoses (e.g. outcome of a state of not having a teacher as in ‘it (the absolute truth) can make people feel lost if they haven’t had a spiritual teacher who could skillfully convey its depths to them, in a way they could take in’, and the outcome of an action of not practicing mindfulness as in ‘When we interact with another person, particularly if we haven’t practiced mindfulness of our own suffering and listened well to our own selves, we’re anxious for others to understand us right away’). The examples show that the present perfect verb form is used in the protases of CCs to highlight the negative outcome of a state that has not been realized and the negative outcome of not practicing dharma, respectively. This finding is in accordance with Hewings (1999)—i.e. the present perfect tense is adopted to express something that just happened and that affects the present situation or has a consequence for the present. However, as for TNH’s ECs, the present perfect is adopted to express generic meanings concerning definitions. For instance, in ‘If we remember this, we’ve already succeeded,’ the pattern of ‘present simple tense + present perfect tense’ is adopted to portray particular elements of the state of being successful.

Next, the present prospective tense is also employed in a few of TNH’s CC protases to link the initiation of actions or actions already in progress with positive results (e.g. ‘If you’re modeling compassionate communication at work, soon others may be interested in practicing mindful breathing, sitting, and walking with you’). According to Hewings (1999), the present prospective tense is used when we talk about “changes” and “developments” (4). Thus, it is possible that the writer may have chosen to use the progressive form in the if-clause to highlight that his readers have the potential to change the circumstances for the better. Nevertheless, the present prospective tense is adopted in TNH’s ECs to express generic meanings concerning definitions. In ‘If you think while you walk, you’re not really walking,’ for example, the pattern of ‘present simple tense + present prospective tense’ is adopted to show the meaning of true walking or what is supposed to be the quality of true walking. It can be observed that the present prospective tense is used in TNH’s EC apodoses to show negative aspects (e.g. ‘not really walking’). According to Soars & Soars (1998), the prospective verb form can express “a temporary activity or situation, not a permanent one” (19). The prospective aspect is, therefore, probably used in EC apodoses to highlight the temporariness of the negative side, which can be changed with appropriate practice. Besides being used in EC apodoses, the present prospective tense is also adopted in one EC protasis (i.e. ‘If so, that’s good food). Although the protasis is ‘if so,’ the ‘if so’ is the shortened version of ‘if we are ingesting things that grow our understanding and compassion.’ It is the background to the conclusion concerning good consumption. Soars & Soars (1998) state that the prospective verb form helps us see “the activity in progress” (19). Thus, it is possible that the present prospective tense is also used in the protasis to show the present image of what is supposed to be going on in our lives.

Modality


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The types of modality expressed in TNH’s if-clause sentences are in accordance with the types and functions of if-conditionals. To begin with, most of TNH’s CCs and ECs express universal QDM. As previously mentioned, TNH’s CCs commonly deal with generic meaning and possible future which is also associated with universal aspects, so it is not surprising to see that the majority of CCs are presented with universal QDM. The pronouns you and we, which represent the impersonal you or refer to everyone, are usually chosen to be the subjects of TNH’s if-clause sentences. Accordingly, the cases mentioned in these sentences portray the universality of people, things and their relationships. Such CCs do not portray images for merely some people or some cases but rather all people and all cases. Moreover, as for ECs, universal QDMis in accordance with the portrayals of definitions and universal characteristics, states, and causes. However, it is interesting to note that unlike the universal QDM expressed in TNH’s CCs, none of the universal QDMs expressed in TNH’s ECs are portrayed with the modal will. This is in accordance with Sweetser’s (1990) remarks concerning conditionals. Sweetser (1990) states that if-conditionals including the modal will in their apodoses or whose apodoses portray particular tenses (e.g. future simple) are more likely to be read as CCs not ECs.

It is also interesting to note that no deontic PM, bouletic PM, or dispositional VDM were found in TNH’s CCs and ECs. This is in accordance with the assumed functions of CCs and ECs for three main reasons. First, the deontic PM is usually adopted to suggest what must be done or should be done for the wellness of society while CCs and ECs do not deal with the portrayal of what one should do to handle circumstances. Second, the bouletic PM concerns an individual’s desire whereas TNH’s CCs have been discovered to mostly show generic meanings and a possible future that still relates to universal aspects and ECs deal with general definitions, characteristics, states, and causes. Third, dispositional VDM concerns the tendency of what will be according to the way someone normally thinks and behaves or the character of a particular person. Thus, not surprisingly, no dispositional VDMs were found in TNH’s CCs and ECs dealing with generic meanings and universal aspects.

However, TNH’s CCs and ECs concern the modality portraying volitional individuals in terms of ability and opportunity. Even so, this is in accordance with what CCs and ECs portray because, according to the pilot-study data, in TNH’s CCs and ECs the abilities of people in general and opportunities for people in general, rather than the abilities or opportunities of any particular individual, are highlighted. At this stage of the study it is assumed that the portrayal of the opportunity VDM in TNH’s CCs and ECs is probably a way to encourage readers to practice dharma. For example, in TNH’s EC ‘if happiness can be renewed, so can you, because you in the next moment is a renewal of you in this moment’ highlights the opportunity for people for renewal with the modal can and the comparison with the characteristics of happiness.

Next, the majority of TNH’s SCRs portray the teleological PM, which is in accordance with TNH’s SCR main function. The expression of the teleological PM is the message showing what should be done to achieve the primary goal, and the main function of TNH’s SCRs is to show what one should do to deal with a particular state or circumstance. The modal should in the apodosis of ‘If one of you finds out the cause, that person should communicate right away and apologize for being unskillful so that the other person doesn’t continue to suffer,’ for instance, expresses the teleological PM emphasizing the action one should take for the primary goal of lessening the other’s suffering. According to the pilot study, the apodoses of TNH’s SCRs portraying teleological PM either include modal verbs or semi-modals1, namely

1The term “semi-modals”is taken from Radden & Dirven (2007). They include, for example, “have to, have got to, be to, be able to, be willing to, get to, be supposed to,” etc. (Radden&


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should, can, and have to(e.g. ‘If an idea is negative, full of craving or anger, you can use mindful breathing to touch the seed that is wholesome and invite it to come up’ and ‘So if we don’t want to lie, and we don’t want to trigger a hurt, we have to be mindful of our words and find a skillful means to tell the truth) or include the pattern of imperative (e.g. ‘If it is going on around you, be aware’). In addition, let us take a look at an example of opportunity VDM expressed in an SCR (i.e. ‘If you have time, you can turn your “non business day” into a “non business retreat” that lasts a few days or a week’).

While the majority of the apodoses of TNH’s SCRs concern actions recommended to be taken to deal with particular circumstances, the content of this if-conditional is different. Despite its scarcity in the pilot data, a protasis like the one in this sentence is probably adopted to mention possibility or to encourage readers to take that particular action. It can be noted that the action whose possibility is mentioned in the protasis is the same action suggested in the apodosis, unlike all the other SCRs, whose protases and apodoses contain different verbs portraying different states/actions. In other words, while the majority of TNH’s SCRs portray ‘if you face this state/situation, do this,’ this sentence portrays ‘do this if you can.’ That is possibly why the protasis of this sentence expresses an opportunity VDM. It is interesting to find out more from the data of the main study to see whether this pattern is a minor or another major pattern of TNH’s SCRs.

Finally, the kinds of modality expressed in TNH’s CONs are also related to the domains in which the CONs are associated with. The pilot-study data shows that CONs in the content and epistemic domains commonly express universal QDM while CONs in the speech-act domain commonly express teleological PM, and these two kinds of modalities are typically expressed in TNH’s CCs, ECs and SCRs.

Voice

The majority of TNH’s CC and EC verb strings portray the active-direct voice; only a few of TNH’s CC and EC verb strings portray the passive voice while none of the TNH’s SCR and CON verb strings portray the passive voice. At this stage of the study, it can be assumed that the majority of the active-direct voice selections are in accordance with the concept of karma highlighted in Buddhism. According to Buddhism, one faces the consequences of one’s own actions, not because of any other agent. Therefore, the use of active-direct voice can be viewed as the appropriate choice for applied dharma texts. Additionally, even when the passive voice is portrayed as in the apodosis of ‘if you continue to talk, you continue to be caught in your own words,’ the emphasized theme of ‘being caught in your own words’ is even associated with your own action (i.e. ‘continue to talk’) and with your own thoughts and the words you yourself have chosen (i.e. ‘your words’).

Moreover, since TNH’s SCRs are mainly concerned with the suggestion of ‘what one should do,’ the use of the active-direct voice in SCRs can emphasize how one should be an active agent to deal with one’s situation. Furthermore, it is not surprising to see that all of TNH’s CONs use the active-direct voice. First, the active-direct voice portrayed by CONsin the content domain is to emphasize what one faces because of one’s own actions. The active-direct voice expressed by CONsin the epistemic domain can be a way to show the subject’s characteristics or states. Next, the active-direct voice expressed by CONs in the speech-act domain can be a means to emphasize what one should do oneself to deal with the particular states or situations one faces.

Reality Status

Dirven, 2007, pp. 242-243). According to Talmy (1988 as cited in Radden& Dirven, 2007), these semi-modals have “honorary modal status” (243).


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The reality status portrayed in TNH’s if-conditionals is in accordance with if-conditional functions, tense, aspect, and modality. First, immediate reality is adopted the most in TNH’s CCs and ECs to portray generic meanings. While the pattern ‘immediate reality + immediate reality’ is adopted the most in TNH’s ECs mainly highlighting genericity, the pattern of ‘immediate reality’ + ‘projected reality’ is typically adopted in TNH’s CCs to show possible future. Clearly, immediate reality and projected reality are in accordance with the use of the present tense and future tense, respectively. Besides these two kinds of reality statuses, potential reality is the third most common in TNH’s CCs and also embedded in the minority of EC verb strings. In CCs potential reality can highlight the possible outcome of particular states and actions (e.g. ‘If you are free, you can touch the wonders of life here and now’ and ‘If we keep practicing this, we can stop the cycle of transmission’) while the potential reality used in ECs can emphasize people’s potential (e.g. ‘If happiness can be renewed, so can you’).Furthermore, it can be observed that while the universal QDM is in accordance with projected reality highlighting certainty or including all the cases in general, the opportunity VDM is in accordance with potential reality by focusing on options or the possibility of what could have been or what could be.

Third, the majority of TNH’s SCR protasis verb strings portray immediate reality and the first and second most portrayed reality statuses in SCR apodosis verb strings are potential reality and immediate reality, respectively. This is in accordance with SCR functions. Clearly, immediate reality is adopted in the protases to show the general situations one can experience in real life, and these situations are background to the advice stated in the apodoses. Moreover, since SCRs are typically adopted to offer suggestions, no projected or known reality is portrayed. Suggestions better ally with potential reality; the recommended states or actions are what the reader has the potential to achieve. It is not concerned with predictive conditionals in which projected reality may be employed. Also, known reality is out of the picture here because, usually, people do not make suggestions about the past; especially when Buddhism focuses on letting go of the past and being in the here and now (Nhat Hanh, 2001, 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, 2012, 2013a, 2013b).

Fourth, TNH’s CON reality status is in accordance with the domains in which the CONs are portrayed. CONs in the content and epistemic domains portray immediate reality in the protases and express immediate reality, projected reality, or potential reality in the apodoses. This is in accordance with what was found about the nature of the content and epistemic domains emphasizing generic meanings or conclusions regarding possibility and certainty. As for CONs in the speech-act domain, immediate reality is portrayed in the protases, while immediate reality and potential reality are portrayed in the apodoses. This is in accordance with the functions of SCRs suggesting what one should do or options that one can take to deal with circumstances.

Situation Types

In the pilot study no outstanding patterns of situation type are shown in TNH’s if-conditionals; however, the pattern of ‘state(s) + state(s)’ (e.g. ‘ILS+ ILS’ as in ‘If it is a relationship that is harmonious, in which communication is good, then happiness is there’) is used more frequently than other patterns. In the main study, it would be interesting to see whether such a pattern is statistically significant in TNH’s texts, and if it is, what meaning does the pattern emphasize? Additionally, whether there are any other patterns commonly used in TNH’s texts will also be further explored in the main study.


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However, in the pilot study, we can see a glimpse of how situation types adopted in TNH’s SCRs are in accordance with the Four Noble Truths2 highlighted in Buddhism. After introducing his readers to the First and Second Noble Truths in SCR protases with both states and events, TNH presents the Path leading to the cessation of creating suffering in SCR apodoses. The situation type portrayed in TNH’s SCR apodoses relate to which of the Eight Paths has been chosen. To illustrate, in the apodosis of ‘If one of you finds out the cause, that person should communicate right away and apologize for being unskillful so that the other person doesn’t continue to suffer,’ the writer proposes ‘Right Action,’ and the situation type associated with that is an activity (communicate right away). In the apodosis of ‘If an idea is negative, full of craving or anger, you can use mindful breathing to touch a seed that is wholesome and invite it to come up,’ the Path presented is ‘Right Concentration,’ and the situation type portrayed in the apodosis is an activity (use mindful breathing to touch a seed that is wholesome) and an achievement (invite it to come up). ‘Right Speech’ is portrayed in the apodosis of ‘If the other person criticizes you, you can reply, “Darling, you are only partly right, because I also have good things in me”’ with an accomplishment (reply to the person with particular positive words). In the apodosis of ‘If it is going on around you, be aware,’ the writer presents ‘Right Mindfulness’ with an ILS (be aware). According to these examples, it can be observed that when the recommended Path concerns taking actions, such as ‘Right Action’ and ‘Right Speech,’ the situation type associated with the message can be an activity or accomplishment, all of which are bounded. The reason why the ‘bounded’ situation type (activity and accomplishment) is the choice for ‘Right Action’ and ‘Right Speech’ can be related to the fact that the writer does not focus on the ongoing part of a process but on the entire action. Moreover, when ‘Right Mindfulness’ is the focus, the situation type associated with the message is usually an ILS because mindfulness relates to the state of mind. On the other hand, ‘Right Concentration’ may involve other kinds of situation type besides ILS since ‘Right Concentration’ can be created with various actions. These are some assumptions gained from the pilot study. In the main study this point will be further explored.

(2) Contemplation on Research Question 2

In order to observe how if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s applied dharma texts create mental spaces leading to particular ways of interpretation of spiritual messages, the model of Dancygier & Sweetser’s (2005) mental-space set ups was used in this study. Although the research includes diagrams of mental spaces created by TNH’s CCs, ECs, SCRs, and CONs, which show different patterns in accordance with their functions, the limits of this paper do not allow full discussion of the four patterns. However, to summarize, CCs offer alternative spaces of different actions and different results. The alternative mental spaces offered by CCs are in accordance with the assumption concerning the functions of CCs. As previously stated, CCs are adopted to persuade readers to practice dharma; they show a negative outcome may happen as a result of not practicing. At the same time, the

2Dukkha or suffering is the First Noble Truth. In order to cease the suffering, one

must recognize the suffering first. The Second Noble Truth, samudaya, is the origin, roots, or

nature of the suffering—i.e. “we need to look deeply into it to see how it came to be” (Nhat Hanh, 1998, pp. 10-11). The Third Noble Truth, nirodha, is the cessation of creating suffering

“by refraining from doing things that make us suffer, and the Fourth Noble Truth, marga, is

“the path” leading to refraining from doing things that cause us to suffer (Nhat Hanh, 1998, p. 11). The Fourth Noble Truth is the “Path of Eight Right Practices: Right View, Right

Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Diligence, Right Mindfulness,

and Right Concentration” (Nhat Hanh, 1998, p. 11).


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message concerning a good outcome related to dharma practice is also emphasized. According to the pilot study, among all the types of if-conditionals, only CCs offer alternative mental spaces. The cause-effect relationship leads to a particular outcome, and the if-conditional also portrays the opposite way or another way which, of course, leads to a different outcome. Thus, one factor determining whether an if-conditional is a CC is to see whether it offers alternative mental spaces.

Unlike CCs, the if-clause in ECs is “primarily there to lay out the reasoning processes of the speaker and make them accessible, within that single mental space, rather than to engage in comparison between alternative spaces” (Dancygier & Sweetser, 2005, p. 118). Instead of showing alternative actions and different outcomes, TNH’s ECs in the pilot study only emphasize how the writer comes up with the conclusion about the definition or characteristics of states or people. In short, offering the opposite way for an EC is obviously unlikely.

Next, the nature of SCR in terms of mental spaces is similar to that of EC. It does not offer alternatives actions or results but rather focuses on recommended ways to cope with states or circumstances. According to Dancygier & Sweetser (2005), speakers of conditional speech acts “do not seem primarily involved in setting up alternative spaces. Rather, the antecedent is used to specify the mental-space background against which the offer (embodied by the consequent) is made” (110).

According to Dancygier & Sweetser (2005), concessive predictive conditionals are “different from other predictive conditionals in that they allow for predictions in the relevant space “in spite of,” rather than on the basis of, plausible causal connections.” However, “this depends on the validity of such normal causal connections in another contrasted space” (158). In TNH’s texts, the relevant space “in spite of” can be even more convincing with a concrete method and example offered in the context. The writer does not simply end the concessive-if reading just to get the reader’s attention but continues to propose a practical way the reader can actually apply it to real life. According to the pilot study, it can be seen that different types of TNH’s if-clause sentences create different patterns of mental spaces because of their different linguistic nature. In the following section, let us compare and contrast further how TNH uses if-conditionals with two other contemporary applied dharma writers.

(3) Contemplation on Research Question 3

According to the pilot study, there are both similarities and differences among the if-clause sentences used in the three writers’ applied dharma texts. The if-conditionals applied in the works of the other two writers can be categorized into the same groups as the types of if-conditionals found in TNH’s works, and the functions are also the same as previously discussed in Research Question 1. Interestingly, the order of the numbers of CCs, ECs, SCRs, and CONs used in the three writers’ works is the same. CCs are used the most. ECs come second. SCRs come third while CONs are the least used in the three writers’ books. In terms of cognitive grammar, the three writers’ if-conditionals are both similar and different in many ways, but to discuss these in detail would require another separate paper. To summarize, the pilot study shows that the other two writers’ choices of tense, aspect, modality, and reality status are also in accordance with the types and functions of if-conditionals. The majority of all three writers’ if-conditional verb strings use the active-direct voice, which can accentuate how all the writers focus on one’s own actions. It is also interesting to note that there is no passive voice portrayed in any verb strings of the three writers’ SCRs, which concern one’s own action to solve problems or to deal with particular circumstances. Also, the if-clause sentences applied in the works of the other two writers create the same patterns of mental spaces as the if-clause sentences found in TNH’s works. While AB’s and PC’s CCs can be applied with the alternative model, their ECs and SCRs can


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be applied with the non-alternative models. Furthermore, the other two contemporary writers’ CONs can also be applied with the model of predictions in the relevant space ‘in spite of’ and normal connections in the contrasted space.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Buddhism in the contemporary world is engaged with the dominant and intellectual forces of modernity, such as scientific rationalism and psychology. Thich Nhat Hanh (TNH), a leading figure of socially engaged Buddhism, one movement of modern Buddhism to generate peace and harmony in the society, has released a great number of English applied dharma texts to deliver the messages of mindfulness, interconnectedness, and compassion to international readers. If-conditionals are the most frequently used linguistic device in the Buddhist master’s texts. They can be divided into content conditionals (CCs), epistemic conditionals (ECs), relevance speech-act conditionals (SCRs), and concessive conditionals (CONs), and each type performs unique functions. While TNH’s CCs focus on the causal relationship between the state or event in the protasis and the state or event in the apodosis, ECs in his applied dharma texts concentrate on the portrayal of conclusions concerning the characteristics of particular things, states, causes, and definitions. TNH’s SCRs concern suggestions of what one should do when facing particular circumstances whereas TNH’s CONs portray the message of concessive if-reading, suggesting the possibility of what seems to be impossible. In the pilot study, TNH’s CONs can be divided into three categories: CONs in the content domain, CONs in the epistemic domain, and CONs in the speech-act domain. Messages expressed by CONs in content, epistemic, and speech-act domains are similar to those portrayed by CCs, ECs, and SCRs, respectively. However, CONs differ from CCs, ECs, and SCRs in terms of concessive if-reading. Despite the differences among the four types of if-conditionals, all of them have one function in common—to persuade readers to practice dharma. According to the pilot-study results concerning cognitive grammar analysis, the choices of tense, aspect, modality, reality status, and situation type are in accordance with one another and also with the types and functions of if-conditionals. Moreover, the details of the grammatical and lexical choices within the structure of if-conditionals also relate to the delivery of dharma messages. Furthermore, in terms of mental spaces, different types of if-conditionals create different mental-space patterns. While CCs create alternative mental spaces, ECs and SCRs create non-alternative mental spaces focusing on how the author comes up with the conclusion and what one should do when dealing with particular circumstances, respectively. The last type, CONs, create the ‘in spite of’ space to contrast the space of normal reading. The If-conditionals adopted in the other two contemporary writers’ applied dharma texts are also similar to those adopted in TNH’s texts in terms of types, functions, and the relationships among the grammatical and lexical choices within the structure of if-conditionals. However, there are some minor differences which can be further explored in the main study. Studying if-conditionals adopted in TNH’s, Ajahn Brahm’s, and Pema Chodron’s texts can benefit writers, English teachers, and those who are interested in communicating with a 21stcentury audience. Buddhist writers or writers of other fields who wish to deliver abstract or complicated knowledge can consider if-conditionals as one linguistic option to help make their texts accessible. Additionally, teachers who wish to help their students become competent communicators in the English-spoken world can also consider teaching if-conditionals to expose their students to an effective means of message delivery.


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Biodata:

Napanant Montkhongtham acquired her BA in English at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. Her minors were French and philosophy. After graduation she taught English at Chulalongkorn University Demonstration School (Secondary) for two years before pursuing her MA in Liberal Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. Her major was creative writing. She has been an English instructor at Chulalongkorn University Language Institute for eight years, teaching English for sciences and technology. Now she is also pursuing her PhD in English Language Studies (International Program) at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University. Her research interests include cognitive linguistics, creative writing, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics.

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