เมฆถาวรวัฒนา, ทัศนีย์ [Mekthawornwathana, Thasanee] (2010). การวิเคราะห์ความหมายแบบครอบคลุมของคำสำคัญทางวัฒนธรรม “ไม่เป็นไร” “เกรงใจ” และ “ขอโทษ” ในภาษาไทยตามแนวทฤษฎีอภิภาษาเชิงอรรถศาสตร์ธรรมชาติ [A Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to the study of the comprehensive meanings of the cultural key words maipenrai, krengchai, and khotot in Thai]. PhD thesis, Chulalongkorn University.
Written in Thai.
This study aims to investigate the denotative, pragmatic, and social meanings of three key words in Thai: ไม่เป็นไร maipenrai, เกรงใจ krengchai andขอโทษ khotot; to formulate these meanings in terms of cultural scripts, to compare and contrast the cultural scripts of the three key words, and to show the characteristics of Thai culture reflected in the cultural scripts.
The results reveal that ไม่เป็นไร maipenrai has three denotative meanings, viz. ‘not affected’, ‘acceptable’ and ‘do not worry’. It has four pragmatic meanings, ‘consoling’, ‘refusing’, ‘forgiving’ and ‘responding to thank you’. It has two social meanings, ‘varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants’ and ‘varying according to the formality of the situation’. The results show that speakers use ไม่เป็นไร maipenrai more when talking to participants who are close to them than when talking to participants whom they are not familiar with, and when talking in informal rather than formal situations.
เกรงใจ krengchai has three denotative meanings, ‘respect’, ‘afraid that other people would feel unsatisfied’ and ‘afraid that what happened might bother others’. The word เกรงใจ krengchai has three pragmatic meanings, ‘accepting’, ‘refusing’ and ‘thanking’. It has two social meanings, ‘varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants’ and ‘varying according to the formality of the situation’. The results show that speakers use เกรงใจ krengchai more when talking to participants whom they are not familiar with than when talking to participants who are close to them, and when talking in formal rather than informal situations.
ขอโทษ khotot has two denotative meanings, ‘I’m sorry for what I have done’ and ‘excuse me’. It has four pragmatic meanings, ‘apologizing, ‘introductory device’, ‘attention-getter’, and ‘leave-taking device’. It has two social meanings, ‘varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants’ and ‘varying according to the formality of the situation’. The results show that speakers use ขอโทษ khotot when talking to participants whom they are not familiar with or who are close to them, and when talking in formal and informal situations, but with different variants.
