Center of Excellence in Southeast Asian Linguistics
Pavadee Saisuwan

Selected Publications

Pride in Asia: Negotiating Ideologies, Localness, and Alternative Futures

This Element provides a transregional overview of Pride in Asia, exploring the multifaceted nature of Pride in contemporary LGBTQIA+ events in Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. This collaborative research that combines individual studies draws on linguistic landscapes as an analytical and methodological approach. Each section examines the different manifestations of Pride as a discourse and the ways in which affordances and limitations of how discourse facilitates social, political, and cultural projects of LGBTQIA+ people in Asia, illustrating both commonalities and specificities in Asian Pride movements. Analyzing a variety of materials such as protest signs, t-shirts, and media reports, each section illustrates how modes of semiosis, through practice, intersect notions of gender and sexuality with broader social and political formations. The authors thus emphasize the need to view Pride not as a uniform global phenomenon but as a dynamic, locally shaped expression of LGBTQIA+ solidarity.

The embodiment of modern Thai masculinity in skincare advertisements

As male endorsement in advertising continues to expand, and alternative forms of masculinity emerge in Asia and elsewhere, this article asks how skincare advertisements in Bangkok participate in these worldwide trends and how dif- ferent forms of masculinity are represented and embodied in such advertising. The article analyses skincare advertising signs – banal sexed signs that form a significant part of Bangkok’s linguistic landscape – through the lens of social semiotics. The analysis reveals the use of both a more stereotypical form of mas- culinity associated with male heterosexuality and the ‘new man’, a masculinity associated with a ‘softer’ personality and Asian beauty trends. Important com- ponents contributing to the latter image include depictions of ‘feminine touch’ and multilingual texts. The findings illustrate how the new man serves as an important marketing tool, promoting not only a particular masculinity but also a modern, middle-class lifestyle.

Attitudes towards Thai-English code-switching among Thai speakers in Generation

Despite the increasing importance of English both in Thai society and worldwide, the appropriateness of code-switching practices has been a controversial issue among Thai speakers, especially those in Generation Y whose attitude runs the gamut from acceptance to rejection. Thus, this paper examines Thai speakers in Generation Y’s attitudes towards

Linguistic variation and social dynamics in languages of Southeast Asia

Language is inextricably linked to daily human life as a social phenomenon. Therefore, social dynamics bring about ongoing linguistic variation. Using traditional and experimental methods, research here aims to look at how the linguistic variation of Southeast Asian languages relates to a dynamic ways of life, attitudes, and societal fluidity.

Singapore: Nationism and language choice

This research aims to study the language situation in Singapore, both in the scope of linguistic landscape and translation. The study of linguistic landscapes provided us with a broad perspective of the language situation in Singapore. Signs from the government sector and public sector are analyzed through scripts as appearing

Language choice in Thai newspapers and magazines

The Thai language has been used as the main language in the domain of newspapers and magazines in Thailand for a long time. However, global changes have brought more important roles of English as a lingua franca in Southeast Asia and worldwide. English has inevitably become increasingly important in Thai

Conversational dominance in Thai male and female speech

This research focuses on the comparison of sequential conversational dominance and participatory conversational dominance in Thai male and female speech. Thesse aspects of dominance are regarded as a controlling action. Therefore, this research hypothesizes that male speakers will exhibit more sequential successful controlling action (SSCA), the action of answering the