The awareness of mandarin and the maintenance of Yunnan dialect of Chinese among Chinese Thais in Lat Krabang, Bangkok

Abstract

There are a large number of Chinese Thais living Lat Krabang, Bangkok. Most of them are native speakers of Yunnan dialect of Chinese and migrated from Yunnan, China. They have become Thai citizens and also speak Thai fluently. Today it has been observed that Mandarin seems to play the most important role in the business of Lat Krabang. Therefore, this study aims to investigate what language (Thai, Mandarin and Yunnan dialect) is chosen for communication in the family, friendship, neighborhood, school, work and market domains and to interpret the degree of awareness of Mandarin and the maintenance of Yunnan dialect among Yunnan Chinese who live in Lat Krabang. The data was collected from observation, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires about language choice in various domains and language proficiency self-evaluation. The results of the study show that Thai is the most preferred language in friendship, school and market domains; Yunnan dialect is used most in family and neighborhood domain; and Mandarin is used most in work domain. As for the use of Mandarin, its use is increasing from the old to the young generations. In addition, the young generations, who tend to take Mandarin courses, have a higher Mandarin ability than old generations. It may imply that Chinese Thais in Lat Krabang have a strong awareness of Mandarin. With regard to the maintenance of Yunnan dialect, the youngest generation still use it a lot in family domain, and almost half of them have the excellent level of Yunnan dialect capability. It may be speculated that Yunnan dialect as the mother tongue of Yunnan Chinese in Lat Krabang will not disappear in a short time. However, the maintenance is likely to decline because choice and ability of Yunnan dialect shows a gradual decreasing trend from generation to generation.