Criminal or Naive? News Headlines on Young Offenders in the Japanese and Thai Press

By Chavalin Svetanant.

Published by The International Journal of the Humanities

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Article: Print	$US10.00
Article: Electronic	$US5.00

The discourse of mass media is considered as a site of power, a site of social struggle and a site where language is apparently transparent. Media institutions usually ‘naturalize’ things and disguise themselves to be as neutral as possible. They attempt to show that they reflect states of affairs disinterestedly and that they give the whole perception and arguments.

In the recent studies of ‘sociopolitical’ discourse analysis where language, ideologies and power relations are closely examined, ‘youth’ has been viewed as one of the powerless and disregarded social groupings. This article takes critical approaches to discourse by extensively employing Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis and van Dijk’s sociocognitive approach as a theoretical framework to explore the relationships between language use, discourse practice and the sociocultural practice of news headlines on young offenders in Japanese and Thai press in order to provide an explanation of how media’s headlines on young offenders are produced, how they are interpreted, and how they reflect and manipulate the attitudes toward young offenders in Japanese and Thai society as a system of social domination.

It can be remarked that language use in Thai newspapers has created a considerable negative viewpoint on young offenders by having strong connection with the social contexts and have psychological influence on the people in a society consequently while Japanese newspapers tend to focus on different issues and use more neutral linguistic strategies.

Keywords:	Language, Linguistics, Discourse, Media, Newspaper, Press, Power, Youth, Delinquency, Critical Discourse Analysis, CDA, Japanese, Thai

International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 6, Issue 6, pp.129-136. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 568.935KB).

Dr. Chavalin Svetanant

Associate Lecturer, Department of Asian Studies, Division of Humanities, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Dr. Chavalin Svetanant is a full-time associate lecturer at the Department of Asian Studies, Division of Humanities, Macquarie University. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Cultural and Regional Studies (Japanese Linguistics) from Kyoto University in 2000 and 2003 respectively. Her research concerns “Language”, “Thought” and “Culture” in comparative semantic system and cultural contexts. Her major publications include A Comparative Study of Heart and Mind–related Words in Thai and Japanese (2001), Yasashi: An Adjective with Emotive Connotation (2002), Word History of ‘kreng (2003), Japanese Tea and Sa-ke in Thailand, Collection of Articles on Japanese Food and Beverage in Thailand (2005), Ancient Japanese Literature in Thailand and Introduction of Ancient Thai Literature (2005), Good or Evil?: Perspectives from Japanese Proverbs and Expression. (2006), Cultural Conception of “Ki” and “Kokoro: Linguistic Perspectives on Japanese and Thai Mentality (2007), A Half-Century in Thai Studies, Book Translation from Michi wa Hirakeru: Tai Kenkyu no Goju Nen written by Yoneo Ishii(2007), The State of Japanese Studies in Thailand (2007).

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