The Speech Act of Responding to Disappointment in Thai : A Case Study of Interlocutors with Equal Status

Abstract

Abstract

          This research aims at examining linguistic strategies which Thai interlocutors of equal-status use in the speech act of responding to disappointment and examining the relationship between the responding strategies and the factors of interlocutors’ intimacy and the effect toward hearers. The data elicited were from 400 Written Discourse Completion Tasks (WDCT). The respondents consist of 200 males (100 male students in university and 100 male workers) and 200 females (100 female students in university and 100 female workers)

          The results reveal that there are five linguistic strategies used in the speech act of responding to disappointment, namely (1) Compromising strategies (64.36%), (2) Persuading strategies (14.35%),            (3) Teasing strategies (12.11%), (4) sarcastic strategies (5.00%) and (5) bald on-record strategies (4.18%).

          In terms of the relationship between the responding strategies and the factors of interlocutors’ intimacy and the effect toward hearers, the findings demonstrate that the interlocutors’ intimacy and the effect toward hearers have an effect on adopting the responding strategies. This result indicates that most Thais avoid confrontation and use off-record strategies in conversation.