Speech Acts in Campaign Posters of the 2023 Chiang Mai University Student Representative Election

Abstract

This research aimed to classify the types of speech acts and examine language use in the campaign messages of candidates for the Chiang Mai University Student Representative Election in 2023. A total of 38 campaign statements were collected from posters published on the official Facebook page of the Student Council. The study applied John R. Searle’s (1969) Speech Act Theory as the analytical framework. The findings revealed that the candidates used four types of speech acts: 1) commissives (27 occurrences, 71.06%), such as promises and self-nomination statements 2) representatives (7 occurrences, 18.42%), such as factual descriptions 3) expressives (3 occurrences, 7.89%), such as expressions of caution 4) directives (1 occurrence, 2.63%), such as invitations. No declarations were found in the data. Moreover, most speech acts appeared in an indirect form, lacking explicit expressions of illocutionary intent. The researcher thus carefully interpreted the acts based on contextual and theoretical cues. This pattern reflects the political communication style of the new generation of students, who favor flexible and indirect language use over overt persuasion.