Language Attitudes Toward Global Englishes Among Thai Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The purposes of the study were to investigate the participants’ language attitudes toward Global Englishes among 330 undergraduate students from the two different faculties at a university in the eastern part of Thailand. It also compared statistically different students’ attitudes toward Global Englishes between males and females, students’ different majors, students’ different IE (International Experience), and different students’ parents’ English ability. A questionnaire was used to collect the data, consisting of two sections: 1). Student’s demographic data; 2). Attitudes of Undergraduate Students toward Global Englishes. The second section was divided into three components: affective, behavioral, and cognitive. The findings revealed that the Thai undergraduate students held medium attitudes toward Global Englishes and they had an inclination to keep open minds about accepting, speaking and using English or varieties of English; they did not have different attitudes toward Global Englishes between males and females. Also the results indicated that the participants from different majors not only had different beliefs and thoughts about Global Englishes, but they also had different inclination to speak and use English or varieties of English. Moreover, the results revealed that the participants whose general knowledge about English or varieties of English had been affected by their international experience more or less; and the participants whose emotional or feeling segment of language attitudes was related to their parents’ English ability.

Keywords: language attitudes, Global Englishes, undergraduate students

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-33-04

Publication date: November 30^th 2020