Abstract:
Death Penalty has been one of the controversial issues in Thai society. According to the previous studies, most of the Thais support death penalty. It is hypothesized that they might somewhat be influenced by discourses surrounded them. Thus, this thesis aims to study the relationship between language and representations of death-row inmates and executions in Thai newspapers by using the theory of linguistically oriented CDA. The data elicited are from 6 Thai daily newspapers including Thai Rath, Daily News, Matichon, Kao Sod, Khom Chad Luek and Siam Rath from 1996 to 2009. The analysis of semantic macro structure reveals that the death-row inmates are represented as law-breakers who severe crimes. Therefore, they deserve death penalty. Moreover, the structure of cause and effect is use in the text to present the concept Karma in Buddhism. The analysis of texts reveals that there are 5 linguistic strategies adopted to construct representations including (1) lexical selection (2) idiom (3) presupposition (4) narratives and (5) intertextaulity. These devices represent death-row inmates as a law-breaker, a ruthless person, an immoral person, an incompetent person, a recidivist and a sinner. Meanwhile, executions are represented as legal, watertight, frightful, humane and retributive. Finally, the analysis of context indicates that the socio-cultural factors that have influence on the texts are the teachings of Buddhism and the concept of collectivism in Thai society, law enforcement, the war on drugs policy, the campaigns against death penalty by NGOs.