English Loanwords and Transliterations in Thai Fan Tweets and Their Rendering in English by Automatic Translation

Abstract

Fan tweets vividly reflect fan register, a distinctive variety of digital language marked by creative and culturally embedded linguistic practices. Among its most salient features in Thai is the use of English loanwords and transliterations. The present study investigates 172 instances of English loanwords and transliterations drawn from two datasets of Thai fan tweets (June 2024-May 2025 and April-May 2026), examining their forms, functions, and rendering in English by automatic translation tool of Twitter (X). Five forms are identified: direct loanwords, semantic extensions, transliterations, hybrid compounds, and clippings and abbreviations, serving five functions: lexical gap filling, in-group identity marking, expressive function, economy of expression, and prestige and modernism. The study further examines how these items are rendered in English by automatic translation, identifying four translation strategies, namely, back-translation, naturalisation, substitution, and deletion, alongside two mechanisms underlying mistranslation: orthographic ambiguity and semantic misinterpretation. The findings demonstrate that while automatic translation can facilitate interlingual and intercultural fan communication, it continues to struggle with the orthographic instability, fan-specific meanings, and pragmatically embedded language use that characterise English loanwords and transliterations in Thai fan tweets, posing barriers to pragmatic equivalence and highlighting the need for developers to address variant spellings, community-specific semantics, and pragmatic context.