English in thai tourism
global English as a nexus of practice
pp. 57-76
in: Language and literature in a glocal world, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
This chapter explores some of the glocalization practices of Thai English, an emergent variety of English within the expanding circle of Englishes, as a lingua franca in Thailand. Implementing the initial stages of a nexus analysis, this paper explores some perceptions that Thai speakers of English have of this variety and, in so doing, explores some of the identities and attitudes that Thai speakers have of Thai English. In order to illustrate how this variety is used, the linguistic landscape of Thai tourism is examined to denote instances of use as well as the identities and subject positions (Davies & Harré, 1990) which are reflected in the linguistic landscape. This analysis serves as an initial step in analyzing the nexus of practice that makes up Thai English, arguing that Thai English is a spoken variety that is relative to the number of subject positions that speakers take up to it.