A Study on Language Use of Chinese Thai in Chachoengsao Community of Thailand

Almost every language is influenced by other languages in one form or another to different degrees because of language contact all over the world. The evolution of language is mainly the different language change because speakers take the linguistic features of target language into the mother tongue or bring the linguistic features of their native language into the target language in the process of language shift. Language borrowing, code-switching, code-mixing, language interference and language integration are the results of language contact.Thailand is a multi-ethnic country where the exchanges between nations are accompanied by language contact. Compared with Chinese people living in other Southeast Asian countries, the degree to which Chinese Thai people are assimilated by the local people is the highest in Thailand; the Chinese Thai have completely integrated into the mainstream of Thai society in politics, economy, culture and all other aspects of life. At the same time, in the process of integrating into Thai society, the language use also has undergone tremendous changes.In this study, according to language contact theory of sociolinguistics, a lot of linguistic data was collected from the typical family with four generations, represented by the Adison, with sociolinguistic research methods of interviews, observation and questionnaire applied. And then the author analyzed the data obtained quantitatively with the mathematical statistics methods and the help from several softwares such as SPSS and Excel (2007).It is found that language use is undergoing evolution with the long-term contact between Chinese Thai and Thai people. The Thai language has become the communication language in daily life, but Chinese language still has the strong vitality. There are some differences between the language use of different generations and on different occasions since Thai language is the main language in public places and the Chinese language is usually used in the families. With the fast development of China, Chinese learning has been turning into a fever in Thailand, and to some extent, the recognition towards mother tongue adopted by Chinese Thai has also been improved, they don’t give up the double roles of Chinese language as a practical tool and national feeling inheriting. Chinese Thai still have a positive and optimistic attitude towards the Chinese language.Language is an important carrier in the process of group developing, the study of Chinese Thai’s language use can help people know the evolution of language use of Chinese community and help the oversea Chinese integrate into local life harmoniously.Due to the limitations of the present study, the findings and conclusion of this thesis are rather preliminary, which requires further research at a more general level.