ABSTRACT
In his article, Chetana Nagavajara traces the history of speech acts in Thai life, the latter characterized, for many centuries, by the preeminence and ubiquity of orality and performance. Beginning with his own childhood exposure to oral storytelling through his grandmother before addressing the Stone Inscription of King Ramkhamhaeng, dated 1285 AD and widely known as the first written literary work in the Thai language, the author proceeds to probe the importance of returning through the ages to the dominant works of literature that followed in later centuries, coming full circle with an analysis of the performative speech acts in our media-dominated age, particularly in social media, and reflecting on the role of language in the long-drawn anti-government protests that led to the military coup of 2014. The author concludes that memory, restoration, reinvention and innovation ultimately conspire to buttress the sense of cohesion that helped the Thai survive many threats to their nationhood, including that of colonialism.
