Abstract:
The study aims at analyzing political opinion articles in Thai newspapers in order to see the communicative components, the discourse components, including structure and contents, and mainly indirect linguistic strategies for political criticism. The data were collected from political opinion columns in two weekly newspapers, namely "X- clusive" in Matichon Weekly and "Sophon Ongkarn" in The Nation Weekly, and from two daily newspapers, namely "Khon Play Soi" in Thai Post and "May Het Prathet Thai" in Thairath. The articles published between January-December 2005 were selected on a systematic random basis. Totally, 199 articles were collected. Based on the Ethnography of communication analytical framework, it is found that the communicative components which these political opinion articles share in common include setting, participants, ends. act sequence, instrumentalities, norms of interaction and interpretation, and genre. The different components are setting, participants and key. The components that are related to and have influence upon the indirect political criticism includes setting, participants, and norms of interaction and interpretation. According to the analysis of discourse components including structure and contents, two structural patterns are found. The first one is three-part pattern which consists of introduction, body and conclusion. The other is two-part pattern which comprises introduction and body. The content analysis reveals that the political issues discussed in the articles cover a wide range of topics, for example the state administration, politicians' behaviors and political practices, political situations, and the people who are connected to politicians. In addition to political issues, it is found that some articles cover social and economic issues as well as miscellaneous topics. The investigation of the indirect linguistic strategies for political criticism indicates that nine strategies are employed including using verbal irony, using rhetorical questions, using metaphors, using words with connotative meanings, using proverbial expressions, using referring expressions, using speech play, using direct quotation and using implication. These indirect political criticizing strategies have different communicative functions such as disclaiming responsibility for criticism, expressing the authors' negative attitude, and highlighting the failures or malpractices of the government and politicians. Additionally, some supporting strategies are used in order to increase the credibility of the criticism.