Constructing Identities of Transgender Women in Thailand’s English-Language News: Critical Discourse Studies

Abstract

This study employs critical discourse studies (CDS) to investigate the construction of transgender identities through the linguistic representation of social actors in English-language Thai news, exposing the ideological link between language use and social stratification. This study adopts a comparative qualitative design, analysing 108 news articles published between 2019 and 2024 from a mainstream news outlet, the Bangkok Post, and a local news outlet, the Pattaya Mail. This comparative approach utilizes van Leeuwen’s (2008) social actor representation framework to identify how linguistic choices differ across socioeconomic contexts. The findings reveal that the most prevalent strategies in the Bangkok Post are formalization, specifically the use of the honorific ‘Ms’ with surnames, and functionalization based on high-status professional roles.   These strategies construct a sanitized elite identity, granting legitimacy contingent     upon economic success. Conversely, the Pattaya Mail most frequently employs informalization through nicknames or the Thai diminutive ‘Nong,’ and physical identification that focuses on bodily attributes. This constructs a local deviant identity, framing transgender women through pejorative labeling and marginalizing them as objects of spectacle or crime. This study concludes that linguistic stratification in Thai outlets reinforces a class-based hierarchy of conditional acceptance, where dignity is dictated by socioeconomic status.