THE MIXING AND NATIVIZATION OF ENGLISH IN THAI RAP SONGS

Abstract

This article aimed to study the use of English-language mixing in Thai rap lyrics by collecting data from 20 songs published on YouTube between 2019 and 2023, each with at least 10 million views. A total of 445 English-language tokens were identified and analyzed according to the framework of Ho (2007). The most common category was phrases, with 141 tokens (31.68%), followed by lexical words with 121 tokens (27.19%), and the least common was short forms with 4 tokens (0.90%). According to the framework of Kannaovakun and Gunther (2003), reduplication was the most common pattern, with 13 tokens (59.09%), followed by truncation with 8 tokens 36.36%), and semantic shift with 1 token (4.55%). The findings indicated that the use of English-language mixing in Thai reflects linguistic influences and blending within Thai society.