455
As can be seen in Table 2, Guides E and F seemed to have their Thai English consonant
sounds compared to Guide A. They similarly pronounced the two words – “three” and “belonging” –
as the way other Thais often do. The English fricative sound /
ș
/ is not found in Thai, and it is difficult
to pronounce. Though the nasal sound /
ƾ
/ is shared by both the Thai and English consonants, the two
guides still got used to uttering this sound as it is in Thai which is similar to the sound /k/ in its final
position. These two words were mostly pronounced in the Thai way throughout the trips. Further, the
lateral sound /l/ seemed to appear in the very Thai way as it came into three words pronounced by
these two guides. The nasal sound /n/ is more easily uttered by Thais than the lateral sound /l/
because of the place and manner of articulation, so this habit influenced the two guides’ spoken
English. Another sound was uniquely pronounced by Guide F, specifically, the word ‘change’, because
of his difficulty in articulating the affricate /
d
ݤ
/. Similarly, Guide A actually had a few problems with
the fricative sound /s/. However, his pronunciation of the word ‘bird’s nest’ without this fricative sound
may be because of his misunderstanding of the grammatical form of this word. Interestingly, Guide J
did not show the Thai consonant sounds influencing her oral English.
Table 3: Vowel Sounds of the Tour Guide of the Mesolectal Level of Thai English
No.
The
English
Sound in its
Phonetic Symbol
Thai English Vowel
Sounds in Words
and their Phonetic
Description
Excerpts
RP Vowel Sounds in
Words
and
their
Phonetic Description
1
Monophthongs
/e/
Yoursoul
/ j
ࠪ।ढ़
s
ࡡ
l/
One thing, you have a lot of sands in yoursoul (Guide A)
Yourself
/j
ࠪ।ढ़
s
࠱
lf/
/
ԥ
/
Arrange
/
࠱।ढ़
re
ࡁ
n(d)
ࡩ
/
After that, I will arrange to transfer you to the hotel. (Guide
F)
Arrange
/
ढ़
re
ࡁ
n(d)
ࡩ
/
/
ݞ
/
Other
/
ޖ
ࠨ
ð
ԥ
(r)/
For information and the other details for everything for
travelling about what can you do on Similan Nation Park,
ok. (Guide F)
ݞޖ
ð
ԥ
(r)
2
Diphthong
/
ܼԥ
/
Pair
/p
࠱।
/
-How to walk on the pair? We walk like V shape like this.
(Guide J)
Pier
/p
ࡁ
/
3
Triphthong
/au
ԥ
/
/
ढ़
hu
ԥ
/
-Five Zero. One and half hour from pier to Similan. You
see over there, that is Bon Island or Talu island. (Guide E)
-Ok, …..get to the first stop on Similan Nation Park around
one hour and fifty minute,…. (Guide F)
/
ढ़
a
ࡡ
/
Similar to Table 2, Guides E and F outstandingly articulated the triphthong /
au
ԥ
/ as they got used
to doing it like what the other Thais do – the consonant sound /h/ was still not uttered as another
vowel. Moreover, Guide F still showed his Thai English vowels in the monopthongs
/
ԥ
/
and
/
ݞ
/
while the
others did not. Indeed, most Thais utter the final position of the consonant cluster ‘self’ as ‘sel’, but
Guide A articulated the vowel sound /
e
/ fast so that it became the vowel sound /
ࡡ
/. Further, only
Guide J showed the Thai English diphthong /
ܼԥ
/ as many other Thais did because the word ‘pier’ was
often pronounced similarly as the Thai word /pair/.
(2)
The suprasegmental level
The guides’ spoken English conveyed two aspects of the suprasegmental level – stress and tone.
These elements contribute to Thai English phonology; they enrich the way Thai people stress English
words and adapt them into their Thai accent with Thai tones. Both are presented below.
