Writing an introduction

Linguistic Strategies in Applied DHAMMA Discourse of New Generation Monks

Suchart Piboonworasak, Ph.D.(Candidate)
Faculty of Arts
5480526722

Stage 1

          When we talked about "Dhamma", Thai society will respect and adhere Dhamma as the essentially way of life of the Buddhists. Sirikanjana et al. (2546: 9) said that Dhamma in Buddhist religion propagate many principles since basic such as the five precepts and Dhamma to attain the maximum or the sorrows entirely. Dhamma or the teachings of the Buddha, Thavisakdi (2553) divided into two major parts, namely the truth is the fact that the nature and ethics is a system of values or way of life and social way that lead to achieve the truth. Both of those two parts are support each other.

               "Dhamma" is a hortatory discourse one based on the concept of Longacre. (Longacre 1983) The hortatory discourse by that concept considers the importance of the character (agent orientation) without the need for sequencing, that was before - after (contingent temporal succession), but focused that how the agent should behave such as advice, persuasion. Therefore, "Dhamma" is organized in such a persuasive discourse types because Dhamma is intended to emphasize the action or Buddhists to practice. Dhamma is powerful, energetic and have the potential to communicate, convince the Buddhists to conform doctrinal by various priests, which is considered to play an important role, empowerment and social status than Sacrament general. It also counts as a person who is entitled by right to convey doctrinal Buddhism in order to spread Buddhism wide and deep roots in the community for a long time.

              Dhamma discourse is a type of discourse that is required in order to apply styles and contents of a variety for the modern era from the past to the present. Because of the social, economic and technological progress rapidly, especially in social globalization, various elements of society must adapt itself to comply with such prosperity, Dhamma discourse is the same.

               From that reason, at this present, many new generation monks such as V.Vajirametee, Phra Phaisan Visalo, Phra Maha Sompong Talaputo, Chutipanyo and Kittimetee, whose living amid rapidly changing global society, have begun to adapt to convey such Dhamma discourse guidelines including communicate Dhamma through multiple channels as in active Buddhist monks for the globalization's era. This way of communication can hosts to the Buddhist majority, with less time to Buddhism and also inherit Buddhism and help solve problems in life to Buddhists as well.

               The change of the format to convey Dhamma of new generation monks will use the "media" is an important mechanism for active Buddhism. This would be to apply Dhamma discourse is consistent with the key elements of Dhamma discourse components, including contents, methods and various communication channels. So we call that "applied Dhamma" or "applied Dhamma discourse".

Stage 2

               There have been few studies of applied Dhamma discourse in English and Thai by aspects of the social sciences, sociology and linguistics. For English studies, we found a couple papers, Ladwig (2006) presented a paper on Applying Dhamma to Contemporary Society: Socially-Engaged Buddhism and Development Work in the Lao PDR. and Pernot (2006) also presented a paper on "The Rhetoric of Religion". For Thai Studies, we found many papers that studied about applied Dhamma,  Jinda (2549) studied about the narrative strategies and philosophy based on the Dhamma's writings of Dang-Trin, Teinlek (2551) studied about reading behavior, utilization and satisfaction with the Applied Dhamma book of people in Bangkok, Sattayapan (2551) studied of the work of "Dang-Trin" in Buddhist literature as the popular culture, and finally, Chailimpamontri (2554) studied about Buddhist approach to the application in the daily lives of adolescents: a case study of Satein Dhamma Sathan.

Stage 3

               Although much work has been done to date, more studies need to be conducted to applied Dhamma. The studied also did not appear "applied Dhamma" aspects of the interdisciplinary fields. Which includes the study of linguistics, communication and social sciences by studying five new generation monks of the hosts with media three categories, including factors of communication and social and cultural influence the choice of language and medias before.

Stage 4 

               The purpose of this study was to investigate the linguistics strategies, Dhamma topics and Dhamma contents in applied Dhamma discourse of new generation monks that seem to convey and spread through social media, including print, online and audiovisual media that these applied Dhamma are acceptable and access to a large number of Buddhist society. The study will include the relationship between the linguistic strategies and contextual communication. This study based on discourse analysis (DA) approach by using applied Dhamma's data of five new generation monks which are the most popular nowadays including V.Vajirametee, Phra Phaisan Visalo, Phra Maha Sompong Talaputo, Chutipanyo and Kittimetee produced through the three media's categories of mentioned above.


Stage 5

               Applied Dhamma discourse of new generation monks propose many Dhamma topics which are truths and morals and many Dhamma contents. Those different types of content applied from the principles in the Holy Scriptures. The objective is to provide easy to understand Buddhism and apply these principles adapted to the lifestyle of their own, peers and others. In addition, linguistics strategies in applied Dhamma discourse of new generation monks offers a variety of both similar and different together. Moreover, linguistic strategies in applied Dhamma discourse of new generation monks related with several contexts such as linguistic communications with the audiences or linguistic strategies and messages.