Abstract:
This thesis aims to study the relationship between the representations of misbehaving monks and the linguistic strategies in online news discourse adopting the approach of Critical analysis Discourse Analysis. The data was collected from 3 news websites: www.sanook.com, www.thairath.co.th, www.khaosod.co.th. In total, 495 news published during 2016 2020 were collected. The analysis reveals that 7 linguistic strategies are used to construct the representation of misbehaving monks including the usage of reference, transitivity, lexical selection, narratives, presupposition, intertextuality, and rhetorical questions. The predominant linguistic devices are those that clearly highlight the negative images of the misbehaving monks, such as using evaluative words emphasizing negative connotations to refer to the monks ; using words that convey a serious tone to severely condemned the monk ; and using words to describe the event in detail, etc. Three main representations constructed by these linguistic strategies include: 1) misbehaving monks as those who behaves extremely inappropriately for being a monk namely committing seriously against the laws and/or the dhamma discipline or Vinaya, being obsessed with desire, passion, lust, carelessness, being unable to abandon the secular way, deceiving people and seeking for self-advantages ; 2) misbehaving monks as those who caused damage to society and Buddhism ; and 3) misbehaving monks as those who deserves to be blamed, condemned and expelled from Buddhism and the realm of monks. Regarding the discourse practice, it was found that the negative representation of misbehaving monks is related to the purposes of the mass media which include to report events, to attract the attention of readers in order to generate income, and to condemn the wrongdoings of the misbehaving monks in order to uphold the importance of Buddhism and the Sangha as a whole. Negative news of the Buddhist monks can create news worthiness, The distribution on online media enable the wide audience to easily access these news. As for socio-cultural practices, the social and cultural factors involved include laws, rules and regulations of the Buddhist monks, concept of roles and duties of monks, and contemporary events regarding misbehaving monks that affect the news discourse production. It is found that the representation of misbehaving monks in the news discourses seem to contribute to maintaining the importance of Buddhism and the Sangha Institute as a whole by showing that they are free from the disgrace of the misbehaving monks. However, the mass media have not raised serious awareness about the causes and solutions to the problem. Ultimately, such problems still recur in Thai society. The analysis of these news reveals the power of the media to select, judge, evaluate and highlight the negative representations of misbehaving monks to create selling points which is beneficial to the media. It is anticipated that this study will help create an awareness on the power of discourse and the powerful roles of the media.