Paper title : Interference of Thai reduplication to quantitative

intensifier in Vietnamese spoken in Udon Thani

province, Thailand

Sub-field : Linguistics

Name of author : Mr. Songgot Paanchiangwong

Affiliation of author : Ph.D candidate, Faculty of Linguistics,

University of Social Sciences and Humanities,
Hanoi National University, Viet Nam

E-mail address : Songgot_p@yahoo.com

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Interference of Thai reduplication to quantitative intensifier in Vietnamese
spoken in Udon Thani province, Thailand

Udon Thani, a province in the northeastern of Thailand, is the place where

contains of the biggest Vietnamese community in Thailand (Sophana: 2005, 10).
These Vietnamese immigrants came from all three regions of Vietnam with around
46,700 people in 1945 because of the World War II (Khachatphai: 1978, 10). At this
present time, there are three generations of Vietnamese immigrant living in Udon
Thani province. They still communicate to each other in Vietnamese, even though
some of them are now living outside the community. They live in Thai language
society; they work with Thais, so that Thai language might be involved directly in
their daily life. Because of living as in bilingual community, a change has occurred
with a quantitative intensifier in Vietnamese. This paper will present how it is
changed.
Thai reduplication is one of several methods to show an expression in Thai.
There are two kinds of reduplication in Thai: directed reduplication, and adapted
reduplication. The directed reduplication is that a repeated word is the same in
pronunciation as an original word. The repeated word of this kind can be changed in
tones. The adapted reduplication is that a repeated word must be changed by adding
some phonemes or some words in order to make it smoothly or beautifully
pronounces. The directed reduplication generally is consisted of two words, but the
adapted reduplication can be consisted of more than two words (Srijaroong
Boonchua: 1998, 148-153).
Although there are so many words of Vietnamese being as quantitative
intensifier, the words “rất” [⏐Φt35] and “lắm” [la&m35] (they mean “very”) seems
to be two words widely being used to express quantity. The word “rất” [⏐Φt35]
always be placed before modifier (“rất” + modifier), the word “lắm” [la&m35]
always be placed after modifier (modifier + “lắm”) (Dinh Van Duc: 2001), such as:
“rất đỏ” [⏐Φt35] [d 323] (“rất” + modifier) “very red”
“đỏ lắm” [d 323] [la&m35] (modifier + “lắm”) “very red”
The directed reduplication in Thai is only one kind of Thai reduplication
always unexpectedly occur as an interference to Vietnamese spoken in Udon Thani
province, Thailand. This kind of Thai reduplication is widely used as a colloquial
language by Thais; such as “แด้ง แดง” [δΘΝ35] [δΘΝ33] “very red”.
Interference of Thai reduplication to quantitative intensifier in Vietnamese has
occurred when Vietnamese living in Udon Thani province speak Vietnamese within
their community. They unexpectedly use the directed reduplication of Thai to replace
quantitative intensifier in Vietnamese, such as they say “Sao hôm này chị mặc áo dó
đỏ thế hả chị?” (Why do you dress in very red today?) actually thay should say “Sao
hôm này chị mặc áo rất đỏ thế hả chị?”. This is a kind of interference called
syntactic interference, it appears when patterns from language A carried over into
language B or when patterns of language B are interpreted in term of patterns of
language A (Ilse Lehiste: 1998, 15). This phenomenon does not only occure with
Vietnamese living in Udon Thani province, but it also occure with Vietnamese who
are living in others provinces in Thailand because they are living within Thai
language society. Language contact takes place between speakers of different
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languages in contact situation. In order for communication to take place, the
Vietnamese immigrants living in Udon Thani province must arrive at a certain degree
of comprehension of Thai language and must acquire a degree of facility in producing
utterance between language, some of them may have become bilingual.

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