THAI IDIOMS : AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING IN CURRENT THAI SOCIETY

Abstract

     Thai idioms are derived basically from valuable knowledge and concepts of the older generations, and they have been being propagated for a long time until now. However, most people do not understand the meaning of the words found in most Thai idioms, and they even do not understand the meaning and the origins of those idioms. I was then interested in doing research on the understanding of Thai idioms among the public. This research was carried by letting the sampling group of 100 students fill in questionnaires of 152 Thai idioms each.

            The findings revealed that more than 70 percent of the participating students do not understand the word meaning exploited in 40 idioms. Moreover, they do not understand the meaning of 52 idioms, and they do not know the origins of 63 idioms. Surprisingly, there are 60 idioms that the participants have never either heard of or ever encountered. This is due to the fact that nowadays those idioms are not regularly used since most people do not understand the meaning of the words and the idioms themselves. More importantly, both idiomatic lexis and idioms themselves do not fit well within the society at present. To preserve the Thai idioms not to disappear for the next Thai generations; therefore, everyone should exploit them in our daily conservations.