Journal Review: DISCOURSE STUDIES IN THAILAND by Somsonge Burusphat

Title                 :	DISCOURSE STUDIES IN THAILAND
Author             :	Somsonge Burusphat
Journal            :	Discourse Studies
Publication      :	Vol. 4, No. 4 (2002), pp. 501-510
Abstract           :	This article discusses the status of discourse studies in Thailand, including research on the Tai-Kadai, Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Hmong-Mien language families and Thai textbooks. Most previous discourse studies on the Tai-Kadai language family are focused on written forms. Theme (topic, storyline, event) and cohesion seem to be the most studied topics. In more recent years, the trend of discourse analysis has moved towards conversation, pragmatics and cognitive analysis. Few research projects have focused on sociolinguistic aspects of discourse. There are not many works on the Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Hmong-Mien language families. The topics that are of main interest are cohesion and discourse markers. Two Thai textbooks on discourse analysis and pragmatics have been found.
Goals               :	discusses the status of discourse studies in Thailand, including research on the Tai-Kadai, Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Hmong-Mien language families and Thai textbooks.
Theories          :	·         Thai textbooks on discourse analysis There are two textbooks written in Thai; these textbooks are not discourse analyses of languages. However, they deal with discourse theories or approaches which can be used as guidelines for discourse studies of any languages. ·         Discourse studies of languages of the Tai-Kadai language family Languages of the Tai-Kadai language family which have been studied include Central Thai, Thai dialects spoken in different regions of Thailand, Thai Puan, and Tai languages spoken in PR China, namely, Bouyei, Kam and Hlai. ·         Discourse studies of other language families In comparison to the languages of the Tai-Kadai language family, discourse studies of other language families are very few in number. Since this survey is notvexhaustive, there may be more theses on discourse analysis at some universitiesbsuch as Payap, Thammasat and Chulalongkorn not mentioned in this article. Discourse studies can be classified according to language family as in Table 2.
Conclusion       :	Discourse studies in Thailand consist of works on four Southeast Asian language families, namely, Tai-Kadai, Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Hmong-Mien. The contemporary Central Thai of the Tai-Kadai language family, in both spoken and written forms, has been studied extensively. Some works compare Central Thai with other languages such as Burmese, Vietnamese (Cooke, 1968) and Japanese (Jones and Diller, 1976). There are few studies on other regional dialects such as Northern Thai (Lanna) (Chalermchai, 1995, 2001; Poonsuk, 1990). Some studies deal with ancient Thai, for example, Sukhothai Thai (Cholticha, 1987, 1988), Central Thai used in the reign of Rama V (Grima, 1986), and Isan (Northeastern Thai) Inscription (1893-2466 BC) (Tasanee, Somsonge: Discourse studies in Thailand 505 1991). In addition to the four regional dialects, there are a large number of Tai Kadai languages spoken in Thailand. While there are a large number of discourse studies on Tai-Kadai languages, there are not many works on other language families, namely Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Hmong-Mien and there is no work at all on the Austronesian language family. Discourse studies in all aspects of these languages are still wide open for interested researchers. It would be interesting for a comparison of the discourse features of Southeast Asian languages to be conducted to see if there are any geographical similarities.