South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Literature As A Form Of Resistance Against British Colonial Rule In India, Ebada Wasiuddin

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis concentrates on literature during India's battle for independence from the British Empire. These publications look at the outcomes of Europe's intent to colonize and its impact on the marginalized, colonial subjects down to the personal level. Delving into the tragic reality of colonialism and investigating its impact as portrayed in the novels selected, this thesis argues that the selected texts operate as resistance literature subverting the colonial discourse in retrieving South Asian culture and history. This project explores specific forms of resistance within the tropes of memory, history, and gender to pose a larger question of decolonial futures …

Japan For Example – National Character As The Driving Force Of National Progress In Thai Conservative Writings About Japan, David M. Malitz

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

Japan has been considered a role-model for the successful pursuit of ‘progress’ or national development in Siam/Thailand since the late 19th century. As this article shows, the Japanese exemplar played a significant role in Siamese/Thai political discourse, with three of the kingdom’s most important conservative thinkers – King Vajiravudh, Luang Wichit Wathakan, and Mom Ratchawong Kukrit Pramoj – writing in detail about Japanese history and interpreting Japanese battlefield and economic successes as the outcome of the national character of the Japanese. In contrast, the role of political institutions and institutional change in shaping human decisions and actions has been largely …

Liberating Thai History : The Thai Past In An Asian Century, Arjun Subrahmanyan

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

The nationalist plot of modern Thai history stresses the kingdom’s exceptionalism as the only un-colonized state in Southeast Asia and highlights the steadiness of unbroken monarchy. Critics of the established narrative by contrast argue that Siam/Thailand bore many similarities to neighboring satellites of the Western powers that subordinated traditional authority and hence was a “semi-colony” of the West rather than a truly independent state. This paper argues that the semi-colonial view remains a better frame to study modern Thai history and that semi-coloniality produced a hybrid political culture among an educated new generation born around 1900. The young generation forged …

Prince Wan Waithayakon’S Attempt For Rapprochement With The People’S Republic Of China At The 1955 Asian-African Conference At Bandung, Wiraj Sripong

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

After the end of the Second World War, newly emerging nations were being divided up geopolitically into ideological camps – the so-called “Free World” led by the United States and the ‘Communist Bloc’ under the leadership of the Soviet Union. At the same time, there was rising demands for self-determination by national leaders who did not wish to commit exclusively to either ideological camp, as they perceived this to be a form of neo-imperialism. A leading group within this third way of thinking was the Colombo Group. In the midst of this intense three-way struggle, post-war Thailand under the leadership …

“Anarchy” Against “Order” : French Elite Perception Of The Conflict In Manchuria, Alexandre Barthel

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

The fall of the French empire in Asia is directly linked to the Second World War and France’s policy of appeasement that preceded it. The issue of France’s attitude to the invasion of Manchuria is important for understanding what French policy in East Asia was during the 1930s. For these reasons, this article intends to show the attitude of French political leaders and how, unable as they were to condemn the aggressor, Japan, it led to the policy of appeasement pursued by all French governments with regard to Japan during the rest of the decade. To do so, this article …

Revisiting Pan-Asianism In The Decolonization Of The Indo-Pacific : Inspiration, Order, And Democratization, Wasana Wongsurawat

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

No abstract provided.

“Asia For Asians” : Revisiting Pan-Asianism Through The Propaganda Arts Of The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Andre Magpantay

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

The slogan “Asia for Asians” has been a central concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and propagated by Japan as it imperialized parts of East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania. Without bias to the resulting historical developments and realities, Pan-Asianism is revisited through the propaganda arts and materials proliferated by the Empire of Japan towards its agenda of a unified Asia. Aided by knowledge of art history and criticism, six specifically chosen propaganda arts are analyzed using theories of image analysis drawing from the works of Guillermo (2001), Bartmański, Alexander, and Giesen (2012), and Ross (2002). …

From Proto-Southwestern Tai To Modern Lanna Tai : Implications From The 16th-Century Phonology, Shinnakrit Tangsiriwattanakul

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This study established the relative chronology of sound changes in the Lanna Tai language from Proto-Southwestern Tai to Modern Lanna Tai dialects. The 16th-Century Lanna Tai phonology, as documented in the Sino-Lanna Tai Manual of Translation, was compared to Proto-Southwestern Tai and Modern Lanna Tai dialects to differentiate pre-16th century and post-16th century changes. Based on this chronology, Lanna Tai can be divided into three stages: Old Lanna Tai featuring the loss of uvulars and changes in consonants; Early Modern Lanna Tai exhibiting tone split, loss of voicing contrast and vowel acquisitions; and Modern Lanna Tai dialects showing changes …

A Corpus-Based Study Of The Reflexive Form Tua-Eng ‘Self’ In Thai, Theeraporn Ratitamkul

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This paper aims to investigate semantic and syntactic characteristics of the reflexive form tua-eng ‘self’ in Thai and analyze reflexive constructions within the framework of Cognitive Grammar, adopting van Hoek (1995, 1997)’s approach. To observe how the reflexive appears in actual usage, 500 instances of tua-eng were collected from the Thai National Corpus (tnc). The reflexive is examined in relation to its antecedent regarding animacy, structural proximity and grammatical positions. Moreover, frequently encountered reflexive constructions are identified. The study claims that the prototypical reflexive construction in Thai is one in which the antecedent serves as a subject and tua-eng as …

Independence Or Interdependence? : The Thai Self-Construal As Reflected By Linguistic Evidence, Natthaporn Panpothong, Siriporn Phakdeephasook

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

Self-construal can influence the ways people in distinct cultures think, perceive and interact with others. To date, scholars still present different arguments on the prominent self-construal of Thais. The present study aims at examining Thai linguistic data including proverbs, sayings, cultural key terms and interactional data in response to the question of whether Thai culture places emphasis on independent or interdependent perspectives of the self. The findings reveal that Thai sayings, proverbs and cultural key terms reflect both independent and interdependent self-construals. Yet, those that stress interdependency outnumber independency. As for interactional practices in daily exchanges, the usage of pronominal …

Burmese Nissaya Literature : A Mainstream Monastic Education Learning Method And Its Salient Features, Ven. Pannabhoga Herngseng

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

In some of the earliest Buddhist literature found in Myanmar, a type of translation in which each Pali word is followed by its relevant annotative interpretation, known as nissaya, can be found. Previous studies (Tin Lwin 1961; Pruitt 1992; McDaniel 2008; Clark 2015) only examined what a nissaya is and to what literary genre nissaya literature belongs. In this paper, I will explore the various ways in which Burmese nissaya literature evolved into a mainstream monastic learning method, its role in the monastic education in Burma in particular, and further investigate whether the nissayas can be applied more generally …

“Dream Boy” And “Hotmale”, Joey Andrew Lucido Santos, Pavadee Saisuwan

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

Gender and sexuality have gradually become the focus of more semiotic landscape research, however, studies relating specifically to sex tourism spaces are limited and with those in the Thai context even more so. Therefore, this paper examines the discursive construction of Phatphong 2, one of the famous destinations for sex tourism in Bangkok among male homosexuals, as queer space. Drawing on code preference and inscription (Scollon and Scollon 2003) and visual social semiotics (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996), we analyze the linguistic and semiotic resources in sexed signs. Findings reveal that Englishization, particularly the terms “boy” and “Bangkok” in shop …

The Kin-Ship, Zheng Moham Wang

Comparative Woman

This is a group of two English poems the author composed separately in 2019 and 2021 about the imaginary scenes of his grandpa and mother from a Iu-Mien family of Southeast Asia and Southwestern China. The group was submitted to the upcoming Kinship volume of the Comparative Woman journal of Louisiana State University.

Military Study Abroad As Thailand’S Foreign Policy Between The 1930s–1940s, Thep Boontanondha

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

The need to modernize the armed forces motivated the Thai government to send a large number of soldiers to Europe to learn military during the absolute monarchy. Sending soldiers to study abroad, on the other hand, had become a part of national diplomacy seeking to balance power between the powerhouse states. After the Revolution of 1932, the new government likewise made an effort to preserve its stability by dismissing many royalist soldiers. As a result, it demanded many sophisticated soldiers, who relied on the new government. Hence, many soldiers had dispatched to observe and study military tactics abroad. On the …

Palace, Prison, Park Or Palimpsest? The Contested Heritage Of The Former Palace Of Chiang Mai, Worrasit Tantinipankul

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This paper investigates the contestations between state and local actors over the interpretation of a state prison built in the grounds of the Chiang Mai palace, known as Wiang Kaew. Engaging with postcolonial approaches to heritage interpretation, this paper argues that the local movement calling for the removal of the prison in favor of a public park represents an effort to reclaim local Lan Na history and identity from the national past. Using the critical heritage concept of “authorized heritage discourse” (Smith 2006), I show how central Thai authorities—including the Fine Arts Department and the Buddhist Sangha—have privileged nationalist interpretations …

A Corpus-Based Study Of The Order Of Adjectives In Japanese Antonym Sequences: The Role Of Markedness And Frequency, Phornthip Nithithanawiwat

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This study investigates whether the order of adjectives in antonym pairs (e.g., ii ‘good, warui ‘bad’) in single sentences of Japanese follows principles of markedness and whether the more frequently used antonym is more likely to be used first. Based on data collected from the Tsukuba Web Corpus, the results of the study were that both markedness and frequency equally influence the order of antonym pairs. This study suggests that markedness plays a role in determining the ordering of adjectives in antonym pairs. Additionally, it was found that markedness affects the order in terms of factors of positivity and magnitude.

Thai Actors And Their Methods Of Characterization, Thanyarat Praditthaen, Prit Supasetsiri, Porawan Patayanon

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This article discusses findings from interviews with 26 Thai actors on their methods of characterization. It was found that Thai actors have two concepts regarding their style and beliefs towards acting: (1) good acting naturally portrays normal characters in a realistic manner, (2) a major component of acting is ‘becoming the character.’ Participants reported needing a character’s actions to be logical, and therefore need to thoroughly analyze a character so they can completely transform into the character. Methods of characterization were found to be consistent with approaches in the works of Stanislavski. This is in part due from Pantoomkomol (1995)’s …

Images Of Thai Women In Thai Travel Magazines, Permtip Buaphet

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This research on the portrayal of women in Thai travel narratives aims to analyze the structure and components of these narratives and examines the language strategies used to present the images of Thai women within the context of travel magazines by combining textual analysis with visual methodology. Altogether 313 narratives from 48 issues of Vacationist, Travel around the World, Neekrung and Osotho magazines published between June 2018 and May 2019 were collected. The study reveals that the meanings of travel and the images of Thai women in the travel magazines through the use of language strategies are formed …

Tai Dam Diaspora Consciousness And Routes Of Migration : An Analysis From Funeral Manuscripts, Pichet Saiphan

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

The objective of this study is to analyze Tai Dam funeral manuscripts called Kwam Bok Tang or Kwam Song Phi Khuen Mueang Fa. It is a comparative study conducted among Tai Dam or Lao Song in Thailand and Tai Dam in northwestern Vietnam. The texts reveal that Mueang Lo, Nghĩa Lộ in Vietnam, is the place of origin where the first community was established. It illustrates that the Khwan, the spirit or essence of life of the deceased, will be sent from the current settlement back along the route of migration to Mueang Lo before ascending to …

The Brigands’ Song Among The Ngạn People In Northern Vietnam, David Holm

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

The Ngạn people are a small local population of Tai-language speakers now living in the eastern districts of Cao Bằng province in northern Vietnam. They are said to be descendants of mercenary soldiers hired by the Mạc royal court during the 17th century. It is the aim of this article to investigate where they came from, using Vietnamese and Chinese ethnological studies, on-site fieldwork and analysis of song texts, supplemented by information from a ritual text and a family register. My conclusion is that the original homeland of the Ngạn was in the Youjiang River valley in west-central Guangxi. Numerous …

Comitatives And Instrumentals In Thai : A Diachronic Typological Perspective, Vipas Pothipath

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

Languages can be divided into three types with respect to the encoding of comitatives and instrumentals: identity, differentiation and mixed (Stolz, Stroh and Urdze 2013). Diachronic data from Thai dating from 13th to 21st centuries ce suggests that these three language types correspond to the three stages of development of the relation between the two categories in Thai, which progress as follows. Between the 13th and the mid-18th centuries, Thai employed the pattern of identity. In general, the preposition dûaj ‘with’ was the relator for the two categories. Later, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Thai displayed …

Rethinking The Panata To The Nazareno Of Quiapo, Wilson Angelo G. Espiritu

Theology Department Faculty Publications

Filipino Catholicism’s hallmark is its festive and colorful celebrations of popular piety; which exhibit the Catholic faith’s embeddedness in people’s lives and culture. One of the most renowned Filipino devotions is rendered to Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno of Quiapo; Manila. The devotion of making a pledge to the Nazareno; known as panata; is commonly understood as a sacred promise that must be kept in return for a request that is granted. In this paper; I propose a theological reading of panata performance that unites devotion to the Nazareno and commitment to the wellbeing of others. This interpretation aims to orient …

The Ghadar Movement In Thailand, 1914–1917: Overseas Indian ‘Rebels’ And Their Multinational Asian Assistants, Pimmanus Wibulsilp

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

The Ghadar Movement was an effort by a group of overseas Indians from diverse diasporas around the Indo-Pacific region to set up an armed revolution to free India from the grip of British colonialism. This work mainly argues that Thailand was not merely functioning as a passage of the Ghadarites from abroad to return to India through its borders, but instead that different parts of the country were harboring their various clandestine and seditious missions. These activities were not only carried out by the overseas Indians travelling from abroad, but also by many “local Indians” in Thailand who turned themselves …

Music Icons, Allegories And Symbolic Representation : Iconological Analysis Of Thai Murals Along The Mae Klong Riverside, Traitrung Ploymong, Poonpit Amatyaku, Narongchai Pidokrajt, Manus Keawbucha

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This article examines the Thai music iconology – with a focus on the instruments and ensembles and their symbolic representations – of monastery murals along the Mae Klong riverside. It also investigates how Thai music iconology links to broader views on Thai music, including those from Buddhism, culture, and social realms. Thirty-eight murals from the Ayutthaya period to the King Rama V period were selected for analysis. Improvised tools from Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2020) inter-semiotic, multidimensional approach and Panosfky’s (1962) concepts of iconography were employed in the data analysis. Additionally, an in-depth interview was conducted with key informants, including …

Locke’S Distinction Between Primary And Secondary Qualities As Partly Correlated With Kant’S Account Of The Thing In Itself, Puttipong Oungkanungveth

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

In this research, I propose intertwined arguments regarding John Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Firstly, I will show how Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities causes several problems of perception. Secondly, I demonstrate how such problems affect how we might see this distinction in a way that partially supports Kant’s concept of the thing in itself. To begin, I provide a brief history of the topic before delving into Locke’s description of empiricism and interpreting his writing on primary and secondary qualities. Next, I discuss the problem of primary qualities, considering …

A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On Covid-19 From The New York Times And China Daily, Yulin Mai, Andrew Jocuns

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

A multimodal critical discourse analysis of The New York Times and China Daily’s news reports of Covid-19 was conducted to identify the ideologies in Covid-19 news reports. The Covid-19 pandemic was divided into three phases: China’s anti-pandemic phase, first global outbreak, and second global outbreak. The nyt and cd’s Covid-19 news reports not only conveyed facts but also served different ideologies which shifted over each phase. Both the nyt and cd news media employed lexical devices, images, and metaphors to convey different ideologies, shaping people’s perceptions of the pandemic and government measures to control it. The nyt’s Covid-19 reporting …

The Offering Of Begging Bowls By The Four Lokapālas : Its Literary And Visual Representations In South Asia, Natchapol Sirisawad

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This research paper aims to analyze a selection of visual representations regarding the offering of begging bowls to the Buddha by the four Lokapālas and their relationship to literary sources in South Asian art and discuss the significance of the story. This article reveals that these representations have always been popular in Gandhāra. The important components of this story relevant to the depictions include (1) the tree where the Buddha sat, (2) offering of the four bowls, (3) merging of the bowls, (4) presence of the two merchants, and (5) presence of other deities. However, a close one-to-one text-image relationship …

Classifying “Lao” Ethnic Languages Spoken In Central Thailand Using Tonal Criteria : A Case Study Of “Chachoengsao Lao”, Warunsiri Pornpottanamas

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

In the linguistic literature on the languages of ethnic Lao in Thailand, labels such as “Lao” or “Lao Wiang” are often used to identify local dialects as Lao varieties. This study examines patterns of tonal splits and mergers in the linguistic varieties spoken by the so-called “Lao” ethnic groups in Chachoengsao Province, Thailand, to re-identify and reclassify the so called “Lao” languages collected from 124 participants at 50 locations. This study used the tone box concept (Gedney 1972) as a basic tool to analyse tonal patterns. The results indicate that the “Lao” ethnic languages of Chachoengsao can be classified into …

Colonial Translation Turned Vietnamization: Phạm Quỳnh And The Discourse Of Transculturation, Camellia Pham

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

Vietnam during French colonialism (1861-1945) was a site of hybrid enunciations that displayed tensions with multiple languages (Chinese, Vietnamese, French) and multiple scripts (classical Chinese, Nôm script, Quốc Ngữ, and French) while existing under the influence of various powers (the Nguyễn feudal dynasty, the French colonial government, and the nascent Democratic Republic of Vietnam). The array of choices reflected a state of confusion in which every decision made by Vietnamese translators was inherently political. This eccentric hybridity is well exemplified in translations by Phạm Quỳnh 范瓊 (1892-1945), a late Nguyễn dynasty monarchist and early French colonial collaborator.

My paper …

Culinary Globalization In Delhi: Filipino Sushi Chefs As Cultural Intermediaries, Jozon A. Lorenzana

Department of Communication Faculty Publications

Culinary globalization in Indian cities has resulted in new patterns of food consumption and production. Aside from the increasing presence of global franchises such as Costa Coffee, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, local and foreign entrepreneurs have established restaurants that offer various national cuisines. In Delhi, for example, Japanese-themed restaurants cater to the city’s growing appetite for new culinary experiences. So far our knowledge of culinary globalization in Indian cities has focused on consumption: How emerging gastronomic patterns relate to identity formations. The production of cuisines as part of the city’s culinary globalization is rarely explored. In this paper; I …