This study was designed to investigate the factors that impact the possibility of maintaining ‘informativity’, how the information in the text is fresh and unpredictable for acceptor, of Korean bodily idiomatic expressions when transferring to Thai and show the category of their counterpart types in Thai for the efficiency of teaching Korean bodily idiomatic expression to Thai learners. As the processing of highly informativity text is more interesting because it requires greater cognitive ability, it the most desirable to transfer Korean idiomatic expression to Thai idiomatic expression to maintain informativity. However, the thought and concept implied in the Korean expression might not always appear in idiomatic expression pattern in Thai and it becomes the critical role in transferring the idiomatic expressions to the Thai.
Therefor, to analyze the possibility of maintaining ‘informativity’ of Korean bodily idiomatic expression when transferring to Thai, the Korean bodily idiomatic expressions were classified into ‘idiomatic expression expressing emotional and psychological attitude’ and ‘idiomatic expression expressing act, circumstance and existence’ and each classify was classified into ‘positive disposition’, ‘neutral disposition’, and ‘negative disposition’. Korean bodily idiomatic expressions used as the subject of analysis in this study were extracted from the database of ‘Basic Korean Dictionary’ compiled by the National Institute of Korean Language. It includes 789 idiomatic expressions with 74 external physical parts and 21 internal physical parts. To find the corresponding idiomatic expressions in Thai, Thai dictionary of ‘Thai Royal Institute’ and ‘National Electronics and Computer Technology Center’ were selected as the main reference resources. The findings of this study according to the patterns of Thai counterparts of Korean bodily idiomatic expressions focussing on informativity considering Korean and Thai similarity and dissimilarity are as below.
1. There is a lot of Korean bodily idiomatic expressions that the counterpart pattern when transferred to Thai are idiomatic expression pattern. This characteristic shows the same thought and concept of the people in two countries. This counterpart pattern refers to the ‘informativity’ maintained pattern that leads to the effort to predict the information implied in the idiomatic expressions and makes the idiomatic expressions aquisition more interesting.
2. The idiomatic expressions with informativity maintained can be classified into ‘same form-same meaning type’ and ‘different form-same meaning type’. ‘Same form-same meaning type’ is the corresponding type that the source domain showing thought and concept of Korean people implied in the idiomatic expressions can be absolutely maintained when transferred to Thai. In the other hand, thought and concept of Korean people implied in the idiomatic expressions can not be maintained when transferred to Thai by ‘different form-same meaning type’. The idiomatic expressions with ‘different form-same meaning type’ were found in the highest percentage in this study.
3. Korean bodily idiomatic expressions that the counterpart pattern is ‘different form-same meaning type' can be classified following the factors that impact the variety of the counterparts in Thai.
4. Among Korean bodily idiomatic expressions that the counterpart pattern is ‘different form-same meaning type’, ‘bodily word substitution pattern’ and ‘predicate substitution pattern’ were worth noticing. Especially, among ‘bodily word substitution pattern’, the substitution of ‘heart’ when transferring Korean bodily idiomatic expressions with several bodily words were found.
5. Among Korean bodily idiomatic expressions, the counterpart pattern of non-idiomatic expressions was not found for ‘idiomatic expressions expressing emotional and psychological attitudes’ but for ‘idiomatic expressions expressing act, circumstance and existence’. This shows the gap of Korean and Thai in term of expressing thought and concept by idiomatic expression pattern. The expressions that required other patterns besides idiomatic expressions when transferring the Thai will affect the informativity downgrading.
6. Among informativity maintained pattern, idiomatic expressions with negative disposition were found much more than ones with positive and neutral disposition. Meanwhile, ‘idiomatic expressions expressing emotional and psychological attitudes’ was found that can be totally transferred to Thai idiomatic expressions.
7. When transferring Korean bodily idiomatic expressions to Thai focusing on informativity, it’s necessary to consider the gap between two languages. Especially, considering only the importance of maintaining the structure of expressions may cause the error of acquisition. The idiomatic expressions in Korean and Thai with ‘same form-different meaning pattern’ were found in this study. This kind of expressions can easily lead to the error by the interference of mother tongue. Therefore, the setting of its exact counterpart is important.
8. The existence of bodily word in two languages equally is one critical role in setting counterpart. In case there is no equivalent of bodily vocabulary in Thai, attribute of Korean bodily vocabulary can play the important role to seek for the appropriate counterpart in Thai focusing on informativity. In this study, ‘five viscera’, ‘the neck part of one’s head’, ‘side or wing’ are the vocabularies the counterpart in Thai with idiomatic expression pattern can be sought by its attribute. By using attribute of vocabularies, majority of Korean bodily vocabulary could be transferred to Thai idiomatic expression which the informativity was maintained.
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