| Thai students have several difficulties in using the English passive. Among these are overuse of the English passive, incorrect coding of the passive form in English, and overgeneralization of Thai passive forms in translation. This dissertation explores the problems caused by formal and functional differences between English and Thai passives.;The second section of this dissertation deals with empirical research. Data from translation and composition tasks are analyzed to examine Thai students' understanding and use of various passive forms in Thai and English. It was found that the students tended to translate certain Thai sentence forms (the three passive forms mentioned above) into the English passive more often than other Thai sentence forms (the two active-like forms mentioned above). Furthermore, their use of the agentless passive predominated over the use of other English passive types. The results of the analyses also confirmed the existence of the relationship between students' proficiency levels and their levels of performance in English.;The third section covers the interpretation of the results of analyses and also implications for pedagogical practice and further research.;The first section of the dissertation is a review of English and Thai passive constructions. This review focuses on English passive forms used in the teaching of Thai students in English grammar classes and the emphasis function. Five Thai sentence structures which are usually translated into the English passive form are examined. They are three Thai passive types: the thuuk passive, the daayrap passive, and sentences involving topicalization without agent, as well as two active-like sentences: indefinite subject sentences and sentences containing topicalization with agent. Their forms and functions are compared to those of the English passive and two hypotheses about certain categories of Thai and English passives are formulated. |
