Faktor yang mendorong pelajar selatan Thailand mempelajari bahasa Melayu

This research intends to find out the factor that factor that cause student from Southern Thailand to choose the Malay Language Program as their study in the university. The researches uses in survey method and employs the survey and interview as instruments to obtain data. The research samples are 99 students from Southern Thailand who are taking the Malay Language Program at the Faculty of Language, prince of Songkhla University in Southern Thailand and at the faculty of Language University Sultan Idris, Tanjong Malim, Malaysia. The researcher works on four hypotheses that cause students from Southern Thailand to learn the Malay Language: Social Factor, Attitude, Economy and Politic. The force that encourages them to choose Malay Language Program was due to factor that relates to Attitude beside that Social Factor and Politic. The Economic Factor seems to be the weakest cause. Among the questionnaire items that get the highest percentages are “ to ensure that the Malay Language becomes the lingua franca for countries in South East Asia (93%), Fear of the Malay Language to be diminished ” (90.2%), “ to uphold the dignity of the Malay Language ” (89.9%) and “ interest to learn the Malay Language ” (89.5%). Respondents do not agree that they choose the Malay Language Program because of being convinced by friends or because of no other choice.