| The major purpose of this study was to identify the metaphorical language used in the Thai eleventh and twelfth grade literature textbooks. A secondary purpose was to compare Thai and English metaphors.;The following procedures were followed: (1) the Thai tropes used in the selected Thai literature textbooks were identified, (2) the tropes were classified by topic, (3) English translations were made, (4) the trope types were ranked according to their relative frequency, (5) comparisons were made of selected Thai and English metaphors.;The conclusions of this study were: (1) There are 85 topics of Thai tropes used in the eleventh and twelfth grade literature textbooks. The topics range from "Age" to "Words." There are two main divisions of the sources of the Thai tropes: tropes drawn from nature, and those drawn from human life. (2) Twelve types of tropes occur in the textbooks. The most frequently occurring tropes are hyperbole (20.00%), allusion (17.52%), and abstractionistic (12.37%). They represent 49.89% of the total metaphors found. The other types of tropes in rank order are: humanistic (9.66%), inanimate (9.00%), animal (8.37%), metonymy (8.11%), sense (6.44%), personification (4.51%), synecdoche (2.83%), animistic (1.15%), and litotes (.13%). (3) The most frequently occurring tropes representing 69.6% of the total number are derived from "Kings-Royalty" (37.6%), "Beauty-Endearment-Preciousness (21.2%), and "Longing-Passion-Rage" (10.8%). (4) Comparisons of the Thai and English metaphors revealed striking similarities in the descriptions of "Emotions." Other similarities occurred in "Endearment and Preciousness" and "Melancholy." Many differences between the Thai and English figurative language are accounted for by religion, mythology and politics. Therefore, most Thai tropes that were categorized under "Buddhism", "Hindu Mythology" and "Kings-Royalty" were not comparable to English metaphors.;The sample was composed of two standard Thai eleventh and twelfth grade literature textbooks published and prescribed by The Thai Ministry of Education. |
