Comparatives Study of Kinship Terms in Thai, Vietnamese and

Indonesian Language

Norma Pawestri

Language Center, International Relations Department, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta,

Indonesia 11480

Keywords: Kinship Terms, Comparative Language Study.

Abstract: In social interaction, addressing someone is crucial as it show several social functions such as: recognition of

the social identity, the social position, the role of the addressee and of the interrelations between the addresser

and the addressee. A linguistic area that pays attention a lot in these social functions is “addressing terms”. In

order to use addressing terms, some factors such as the social status or rank of the other, sex, age, family

relationship, occupational hierarchy, transactional status, race or degree of intimacy are to be considered.

What to be done in this research were comparing the addressing terms specifically Kinship terms, in Thai,

Vietnamese and Indonesian. The data of kinship terms words were obtained from a native speaker of each

language. Each terms used in the 3 main areas of kinship terms namely main family kinship terms, extended

family kinship terms, marital relations or in law kinship terms were compared. By using descriptive qualitative

method, the phenomena of differences between kinship terms among the languages is later to be explained. It

was found that generally speaking, Thai and Vietnamese society seem to be more hierarchical than Indonesia.

In Thailand and Vietnam, family members have different names depending on their gender, seniority, age or

maternal or paternal side, and even relationship to the male line. There are however many similarities and

differences between these languages in some aspects such as: age and seniority, paternal and maternal side,

matrimony status, gender and politeness.

1 INTRODUCTION

In order to communicate with others, addressing

someone is crucial and it reflects several social

functions such as: the recognition of the social

identity, the social position, the role of the addressee

and of the interrelations between the addresser and

the addressee (Liu, X., Zhang, L., & Zhang, 2010).

There are several things we have to take into account

in using addressing terms, such as: the social status or

rank of the other, sex, age, family relationship,

occupational hierarchy, transactional status, race or

degree of intimacy.

The modern system of addressing terms in many

Asian countries are developed on the basis of ancient

or traditional system, inherited the tradition of

honorific titles and self-depreciatory titles, and

discarded many address terms which designated class

relations in feudal society. Compared with Asian

Countries, English-speaking countries have less

complicated address terms. In the system of address

terms, kinship term is the most important one that has

the closest relation with people, as it describes how

people refer to relatives by direct or indirect blood

and marriage and generally fall into four groups: main

family kinship terms, extended family kinship terms,

marital relations or in law kinship terms. Later,

kinship terms in the 3 languages of ASEAN countries

namely Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese were

studied due several reasons.

First, not only Thai plays the important role as the

official language of the Kingdom of Thailand, this

language is also spoken by 69.5 million people across

Indochina sub-region from India, southern China,

northern Myanmar, Laos, Thai, Cambodia, to North

Vietnam. Second, as for Indonesian Language, it is

chosen for the fact that Indonesia is the fourth most

populous nation in the world, and one of the most

linguistically complex one. Its ethnic groups speak

more than 500 languages and of this Malay, renamed

Bahasa, was chosen to be the sole national and

official language. Third, Vietnamese is chosen as it is

spoken around by 59 million people, not only those

who live in Vietnam and the neighbouring countries

Pawestri, N.

Comparatives Study of Kinship Terms in Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian Language.

DOI: 10.5220/0010005200002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 211-215

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

211

such as Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, but also in the

United States (600,000) France (10,000), and to a

lesser extent in Canada, Australia, Senegal, and Cote

d'Ivoire.

In this paper, we mainly discuss kinship terms, as

they are classified using differences in genealogical

referents of kin terms. Kinship terms in different

speech communities are worth study. They are likely

to be different because different languages have

different linguistic resources to express what is

culturally permissible and meaningful. Kinship

systems convey important social information, but the

problem of the cultural meanings and correct

translations of kinship terminology has proved to be

intractable. To a great extent, this is because kinship

terms represent the competing realms of social and

genetic relatedness; thus, it cannot be assumed that

two or more persons for whom ego uses a single term

are socially indistinguishable. One method used by

anthropologists to avoid bias is the development of a

precise descriptive language. For example, when a

father and his brother are referred to by the same term

within a kinship system, the anthropologist may

express the position of father’s brother as “a male

agnatic relative of the ascending generation.”

Though many investigations have been conducted

to study kinship terms in different languages, South

East Asian languages has received tertiary attention

for rigorous studies. As a result, the present study is

an attempt to investigate the choice of address terms

by Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese speakers.

General aim of the present research is to study and

analyse Kinship terms in the 3 ASEAN countries. To

be more specific, this study aims to answer the

following questions: 1. What are the different in the

terms used in the kinship terms of the 3 languages? 2.

How these terms reflect social values of the people in

the 3 countries.

2 METHODOLOGY

What to be done in this research were comparing the

addressing terms specifically Kinship terms, in Thai,

Vietnamese and Indonesian, hence we can describe

the “phenomena” of differences between the three

languages. The data of kinship terms words were

obtained from a native speaker of each language. I

then tried to compare each terms used in the 3 main

areas of kinship terms namely main family kinship

terms, extended family kinship terms, marital

relations or in law kinship terms. By using descriptive

qualitative method, the phenomena of differences

between kinship terms among the languages is later

to be explained.

3 BASIC CONCEPT OF

ADDRESSING TERMS AND

KINSHIP TERMS

The concept of address terms has long been an issue

of interest in linguistic studies, especially in

sociolinguistics. Many linguists have provided the

terminology and definitions to decipher phenomena

involved in addressing or naming other persons. To

Afful (Afful, 2006), addressing terms refer to the

linguistic expression by which a speaker designates

an addressee in a face-to-face encounter. Dicey’s

(Dicey, 1996) defines addressing terms as a speaker’s

linguistic reference to his/her interlocutor(s) is clearly

a very broad one so he made further divisions. He

gives an obvious linguistic classification of

addressing terms by their parts of speech, into nouns,

pronouns, and verbs which are further classified in to

‘bound’ and ‘free’ forms. Bound morphemes are

those integrated into the syntax of a sentence and free

forms are those not integrated in this way.

Proper use of address terms allows people to

identify themselves as part of a social group while an

inappropriate choice of address ceases good

interaction. They function as an indicator of

interlocutors’ social status as well as their social

distance, showing their emotions to the other side and

a means of saving one's face (Akindele, 2008). Apart

from the linguistic definition of addressing terms, it is

just as important to elucidate on the social function

and meaning of addressing terms. As Murphy

(Murphy, 1988) has elegantly put it, addressing terms

are socially driven phenomena.

Studies of addressing terms generally focus on

eliciting and comparing the systems of classification

or taxonomies of address systems in each language.

They also attempt to relate address terms to the socio-

cultural context or situations in which address terms

may occur. In other words, the study of addressing

terms is based on the sociolinguistic perspective

“addressing behaviour”. The main idea of this view is

that the way in which an addresser correctly uses and

selects address variants suitable for the addressee in a

given context, and variations in forms and uses of

address terms, reflects the relationship between the

addresser and the addressee, depending on the

differences in age, sex and social status.

Previous research carried out by linguists supports

the idea that addressing behaviour is normally

BINUS-JIC 2018 - BINUS Joint International Conference

212

influenced by social factors and linguistic

backgrounds. The classic and most influential study

of the differences in second-pronoun usage in several

European languages, which has become a model of

address term study is by Brown and Gilman (Brown,

R., & Gilman, 1960). They found that the use of

“familiar second pronoun T” and “polite second

pronoun V” was governed by two social features:

“power semantics” and “solidarity semantics”. Many

linguists who have studied address form systems have

also found that the use of address forms was based on

other social factors and linguistic background such as

demographic characteristics, age, sex, social class,

religious prohibition, economic status.

Ugorgi (Ugorgi, 2009) investigated politeness

strategies of address forms in Igbo, a national

language in Nigeria. The result showed some

different degrees of politeness between family and

social communication. He also concluded that age is

the most dominant social variable in Igbo families.

Mühleisen (Mṻhleisen, 2011) studied the forms of

address in Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles. She

stated that forms of address in the Caribbean are part

of a complex politeness system developed as a result

of the socio-historical conditions of the cultivation

system, transferred and continued from the West

African and European cultural and linguistic

traditions, as well as new innovations. The study

indicated that the plural form is used either to express

the plural addressees or positive and negative face

addressing. In any situations, the plural form is used

as a politeness device for instance to express

vagueness or indirectness when a speech act could be

otherwise interpreted as face-threatening. Hosseini

(Hosseini, 2009) focused on the way power

distribution is realized verbally by the two opposing

sides in the thesis defence sessions regarding

politeness principles. Nanbakhsh (Nanbakhsh, 2012)

examined the correlation between language use

(particularly address terms and pronouns), politeness

norms and social structure in contemporary Iranian

society.

Aliakbari and Toni (Aliakbari, M., & Toni, 2008)

categorized different types of address terms different

contexts, as (1) personal names, (2) general titles, (3)

occupation titles, (4) kinship related terms, (5)

religious oriented expressions, (6) honorifics, (7)

terms of intimacy, (8) personal pronouns, (9)

descriptive phrases and (10) zero-address terms.

4 KINSHIP TERMS IN THAI,

INDONESIAN AND

VIETNAMESE

4.1 Main Family Members (Blood

Related)

Main family members usually consist of father,

mother, brother, and sister. For the words father and

mother, there are no difference concept between Thai,

Vietnamese and Indonesian Language. For siblings

relationship, Indonesian Language only has 2 words

“kakak” means elder siblings (brother or sister) and

“adik” means younger siblings (brother or sister) but

Thai and Vietnamese has different words for siblings

relationship which is depend on the gender of the

siblings, and whether the siblings are elder or younger

than us. Thai use the word, “Phi” refers to older sister

or brother, and it again specified with “chai” to refer

to the male sibling and “sao” to refer to the female

sibling. Meanwhile, in Vietnamese to refer to older

sibling, it is more specific with the use of “ahn” for

older brother, and “chi for other sister and the word

“em” used to refer younger sibling. The gender of the

addressee then specified again with the use of “trai”

to refer male sibling, and “gai” to refer to female

sibling. It can be concluded that Indonesian

addressing terms referring to sibling relationship take

concern only on age gap from the speaker, while in

Thai and Vietnamese both age gap and gender play

important role in the society.

Figure 1: Kinship terms (main family members).

4.2 Wider Main Family Members

(Blood Related)

In wider family members, there are usually our

parent’s parents (grandmother and grandfather), our

Comparatives Study of Kinship Terms in Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian Language

213

parent’s siblings (aunt and uncle) and their children

(cousin), our sibling’s children (niece and nephew).

For parent’s parents and Indonesian Language has

only the word “kakek” to refer parent’s father

(grandfather) and “nenek” to refer parents mother

(grandmother) whether it is from maternal or paternal

side. In contrary, Thai and Vietnamese differentiate

both grandmother and grandfather whether they are

from maternal or paternal side. For parent’s siblings,

Indonesian Language has the word “paman” to refer

our parent’s brother (uncle) whether it is from

maternal or paternal side and whether it is elder or

younger than our parents and Indonesian Language

has the word “bibi” to refer our parent’s sister (aunt)

whether it is from maternal or paternal side and

whether it is elder or younger than our parents. While

Indonesian language consider only the gender of

parent’s sibling like in English, Thai and Vietnamese

seems to be more complicated. Not only considering

the gender, to address parent’s siblings, Thai also

consider whether they are older or younger from our

parents. Vietnamese, being more detailed than Thai,

even also consider whether they are from maternal or

paternal side.

Figure 2: Kinship terms (wider main family members).

4.3 In Law Relationship

Indonesian seems to be less complex when it comes

to “in law relationship”. Indonesian Language has the

term “mertua” to refer our spouse parents (our parents

in law). Vietnamese use the word “bo vo” to refer to

father in law and the word me vo to refer to mother in

law. Indonesian language use only the terms “ipar”

which means siblings in law to be added to the word

“kakak” (elder siblings) and “adik” (younger

siblings) to explain “in law” siblings relationship

without specify in the gender, whether we are the wife

or the husband or whether they are older or younger

siblings of our spouse. Vietnamese is a bit more

complex, since here they differentiate “in law” sibling

relationship based on the gender, and whether they

are older or younger than our spouse. Thai meanwhile

seems to be the most complex one since they divided

the “in law” sibling relationship based on the gender,

whether we are the wife or the husband or whether

they are older or younger siblings of our spouse, and

whether we are the wife or the husband in our

relationship. Here, we can see how gender and age

status play important role in Thailand, and play less

role in Indonesia.

Figure 3: In law relationship.

5 CONCLUSION

Addressing terms are a key to social concepts and

human relationship in a society. Different degrees of

status difference or intimacy need the choosing of

different forms of address. The connotations of Thai,

Indonesian and Vietnamese addressing terms are all

different and each gets different stylistic or emotional

BINUS-JIC 2018 - BINUS Joint International Conference

214

implications, and rules for their usage are quite

complex and they are also affected by a series of

social factors. In general Thai and Vietnamese society

is more hierarchical than Indonesia. This may not be

obvious to people new to Asian or Thai Culture but it

is shown both in terms of how people are addressed

and in terms of how people interact. In Thailand and

Vietnam, unlike in the West, family members have

different names depending on their gender, seniority,

age or maternal or paternal side, and even relationship

to the male line.

REFERENCES

Afful, J. B. A. (2006) ‘Address terms among university

students in Ghana: A case study’, Journal of Language

and Intercultural Communication, 6(1), pp. 76–91.

Akindele, D. F. (2008) ‘Sesotho address forms’, Linguistik

online, 34(2), pp. 3–15.

Aliakbari, M., & Toni, A. (2008) ‘The realization of address

terms in modern Persian in Iran: A socio-linguistic

study’, Linguistik online, 35(3), pp. 3–12.

Brown, R., & Gilman, A. (1960) The Pronouns of power

and solidarity, Style of Language. Edited by T. A.

Sebeok. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Dicey, E. (1996) ‘Forms of address and terms of reference’,

Journal of linguistics, 33, pp. 255–274.

Hosseini, M. (2009) ‘Adab va ghodrat “neshangarha-ye

zabani mokhalefat dar jalesate defa az payan nameh

(Politeness and power: opposing verbal markers in the

thesis defense session)’, Journal of language research,

1(1), pp. 79–100.

Liu, X., Zhang, L., & Zhang, Y. (2010) ‘Study on

Addressing Terms and Relevant Culture in America

and China’, Journal of Language Teaching and

Research, 1(5), pp. 753–756.

Mṻhleisen, S. (2011) ‘Forms of address and ambiguity in

Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles: Strategic

interactions in a postcolonial language setting’, Journal

of pragmatics, 43, pp. 1460–1471.

Murphy, G. L. (1988) ‘Personal reference in English’,

Language in society, 17, pp. 317–349.

Nanbakhsh, G. (2012) ‘The role of social context, intimacy

and distance in the choice of forms of address’,

International journal of social language, 148, pp. 5–18.

Ugorgi, C. U. C. (2009) ‘Reflections on address politeness

in Igbo family’, The international journal of language,

society and culture, 27, pp. 54–62.

Comparatives Study of Kinship Terms in Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian Language

215