Themes in South-East Asian Newspaper Headlines on Rohingya Issue: Critical Discourse Analysis

 ABSTRACT Language is regarded as a tool to present the ideologies of its users, including how media portray particular issue in their headlines. Rohingya has gained much attention by media, including South-East Asian newspapers. The massive clearing done by Myanmar government triggers the attention of media. Headlines are regarded as the important element of news since their jobs are to attract the readers and frame the ideologies of the readers as well as the media themselves. This paper attempts at discussing how South-East Asian media present Rohingya in their headlines. Five newspapers were involved: The Jakarta Post from Indonesia, Malaysia Kini from Malaysia, Mmtimes from Myanmar, The Nation from Thailand, and Daily Star from Bangladesh, taken during 2017. The analysis was focused on the choice of Theme in the headlines as it is the departing message of the headlines. The approach conducted was Critical Discourse Analysis utilizing the textual function of language offered by Halliday. The analysis revealed that South-East Asian media had similarities and differences in portraying Rohingya issue. The similarities were seen from the reflected ideologies, responsibility and blame, and the types of employed Themes. The difference was found in the way each media portrayed the ideologies. However, all media agreed to show their responsibility to end and solve Rohingya crisis to achieve peace and harmony amongst South-East countries.Keywords: headlines, critical discourse analysis, Rohingya  


INTRODUCTION
Rohingya case is one of the humanity issues that attracts media's attention, particularly in South-East Asia. News on Rohingya has been published for years since the case seems unfinished. The number of refugees keeps increasing and the clearing still happens until now.
Rohingya's attempt to flee to Malaysia by sea are denied by Myanmar government, thus the government called them as Bengalis and refused them as a national race (James, 2006, p. 22).
It is also reported that Rohingyas never have any type of citizen and ethnic group (Steinberg, 2010, p. 73). Furthermore, the clearing has sustained until early 2005, when "some 20.000 Muslim refugees from Myanmar still remained refugee camps in Bangladesh. Malaysia has offered political asylum to about 10.000 such persons" (Ganesan & Hlaing, 2007, p. 191). The facts mentioned previously triggers media to share information related to Rohingya in the form of news.
Online newspapers are chosen by people nowadays since they are easily accessed from their gadgets. "Newspapers function as a special tool of language to propagate agendas of different social, political, and economic pillars of power" (Lodhi, et al., 2019, p. 325). Hence, what is written in newspaper reflects not only the writers' or editors' ideologies but also the parties behind the media. Media news is described as "a news item or news report, i.e. a text or discourse on radio, TV, or in the newspaper, in which new information is given about recent events" (Dijk, 1988, p. 4). The term "news discourse" is thus preferred since media news involves the whole discourse: physical shape and its contents which has a more semantic nature (Dijk, 1988). What is interesting in "news discourse" is the choice of words as the title of news, called headlines. Reah defines headlines as "the story in a minimum number of words, attract the reader to the story and, if it appears on the front page, attract the reader to the paper" (Mapunda & Keya, 2015, p. 59). Thus, readers will catch the departing message of news from the headlines.
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) facilitates news discourse analysis by considering how texts strive for social practice (Fairclough, 1995). Fairclough proposes that careful analysis of textual form, structure, and organization at all levels is needed for text interpretation. In news discourse, the existence of headlines cannot be ignored as they portray the news summary. The departing message in headlines is called Theme. Halliday defines theme as "the initial part of a clause which gives prominence to particular information and which, in CDA terms, is often an indication of taken-for-granted or 'common sense' assumption about the nature of things" (Locke, 2004, p. 49). Finding out the Themes in news discourse can reveal newspaper's ideology since ideology is found in the discursive event itself (Fairclough, 1995).
Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) facilitates CDA by considering language as a vehicle to express people's thoughts in various ways and purposes by means of wordings (Mathiessen and Halliday, 1997). Analyzing text covers not only the linguistic feature description but also ideologies brought by language use. The choice of text features "is regarded as potentially ideological, including features of vocabulary and metaphors, grammar, presuppositions and implicatures, politeness conventions, speech exchange (turn-taking) systems, generic structure and style" (Fairclough, 1995, pp. 1-2). Halliday figures out that language functions to ideationally represent the experience of the world, interpersonally constitute social interaction between participants, and textually put the parts of text together into a coherent whole (Fairclough, 1995, p. 6).
In the textual function, the linguistic features used to signpost the speaker's meaning are Theme and Rheme. Theme is the initial part of a clause. It is the starting point for the message since it is what the clause is about (Halliday,2004). Downing and Locke (2006) add that a Theme is the communicative point of departure of the message. Eggins (2004) summarizes three types of Themes: topical or experiential, interpersonal, and textual themes. A topical Theme is the clause element in which a transitivity function can be assigned in the first position in a clause (Eggins, 2004). Participants and Circumstances as Themes in a clause are categorized as topical or experiential theme. Interpersonal theme is in the form of "the unfused finite (in interrogative) and modal adjuncts (mood, vocative, polarity, and comment). Textual theme has a cohesive function to relate clause to its context, realized in the form of continuity and conjunctive adjunct (Eggins, 2004).
Newspaper headlines are chosen as the main data since headlines serve some functions, one of which is to present the truth (Metila, 2013). However, Turner (2009) mentions that "headlines can be notoriously misleading, inaccurate, or ambiguous" (cited in Metila, 2013).
To avoid what mentioned earlier, CDA is seen as the appropriate way to conduct as it analyses the discourse to find the hidden meanings or ideologies (McGregor, 2003as cited in Taiwo, 2007. This paper focuses on figuring out Themes employed by the South-East Asian newspaper regarding Rohingya issue. The dominance of Themes employed in the news discourse can reveal how South-East Asian media regard Rohingya issue. As the case happens in South-East Asia, the researcher expects that there will be some similarities among the media. To prove the hypothesis, CDA is employed by focusing on the textual structure of text, or how the message is packaged by media. Studies on CDA have been exercised by some scholars. Umami (2013) observed the discourse devices utilized in an opinion column title on Polycarpus case. The research employed the metafunctions analysis, including the appraisal and thematic analyses. The data were taken from news features in The Jakarta Post newspaper, analyzed in terms of their micro level and macro level of analysis. The employment of topic sentence, fullness development, and coherence among paragraphs are used in the analysis. In the textual analysis, the research paid attention to the use of conjunction and theme. The use of marked theme is benefited by the writers to make the readers easier grasp the meanings and plot of the articles (Umami, 2013).
Rohingya crisis also attracted the study by Afzal (2016)  Bolte & Keong (2014) involved Fairclough's CDA to observe the representation of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants (RASIM) in three Malaysian newspaper reports. The textual analysis covering Themes reveals three main attributes to RASIM: refugee protection, people smuggling and human trafficking, and policy and national security. The paper found that the discourse in the three newspapers is influenced by its situational context and ideological differences between newspapers. RASIM is represented in a positive supporting way as the media is on the side of Malaysian government, or pro-government. Malaysia Kini is concluded to have more balanced report since it fulfills the ethics of proper journalism (Bolte & Keong, 2014).
Research on textual analysis, focusing Theme and Information parts of clauses in Arabic and English news reports was utilized by Potter (2016). The research compares how Arabic and English news presents Syrian refugees. Influenced by the different language target readers, English news reports present the 'accusation' against Syria and signpost the 'evidence' against Syria. On the other hand, Arabic news employs new information as Themes to emphasize Syria's 'cooperation'. Syria's innocence is also shown in Arabic news reports. The paper concludes that Arabic news tends to be a pro-Syria by encouraging readers to perceive Syria as an innocent victim, whereas English news favors a negative representation of Syria and encourages readers to perceive Syria as the logical perpetrator of Hariri's murder (Potter, 2016).
The papers reviewed above agree that ideology is embodied inside the wordings. The presence of news discourse welcomes linguistic scholars to criticize the representation of an issue, in this case is refugees, in various media. Headlines, analyzed in their textual functions, are designed in such a way that readers are grasped to read the news. The textual analyses of headlines, editorials, or news reports support Fairclough's claim about language, ideology, and power. The presence of discursive and social practices cannot be ignored in the analysis. News media are also capable of framing an issue and encouraging readers' emotions. Thus, the analysis of textual meanings of headlines is urgently needed. To be specific, this paper attempts at figuring out how Themes are exercised in five online newspaper headlines in South-East Asia regarding refugee case, Rohingya.

RESEARCH METHOD
This paper employed Fairclough's CDA as its approach. Fairclough argues that language is exercised to express ideology in various code, structure, system, or formation (1995, p. 71). In Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), meanings are represented into three functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions. The textual function of language provokes the reading positions 'inscribed' in texts (Talbot, 2007, p. 46). It is about how the message is There were twenty headlines chosen for each country. Thus, the number used in the third code will range from 1 to 20.
Each headline was carefully analyzed and categorized into its type: experiential, interpersonal, or textual theme (Eggins, 2004). Since all headlines were experiential, each participant or circumstance in the headline was grouped in terms of its newspaper. Since five newspapers were included as the data, the variations of Theme are displayed in a table to figure out how the wordings in each newspaper similar to and different from the others. The participants performing as Themes were thus related to the social context in which the discursive event happened. This analysis is helpful to reveal the ideologies embodied in the text.

RESULTS & DISCUSSION
The analysis shows that the observed headlines have experiential Theme, meaning the Theme in which transitivity participants are involved. However, the participants chosen as the Themes are different. The table below depicts the participants in the headlines of the five newspapers.  Vol. 12, No. 2, (2019), pp.158-174 p-ISSN: 1979   The table above displays that all of the headlines in the five countries are dominated by "responsibility" as the Theme. However, the linguistic choice in the headlines is different from one newspaper to the others. The discussion below shows proof.

Responsibility
Responsibility is the dominant ideology reflected in all media. The table below shows the type of Theme which shows responsibility. The above headlines employ "Indonesia" as the Actor. In the first datum above, Indonesia is presented to have the power to initiate the conflict resolution for Rohingya. As one of ASEAN initiators and Moslem country, Indonesia shows its responsibility to overcome the issue. The previous analysis is supported by the second headline shown above. Instead of initiating the discussion, Indonesian media also spreads the country's concrete action to carry out intensive diplomacy. REGISTER JOURNAL Vol. 12, No. 2, (2019), pp.158-174 p-ISSN: 1979  Responsibility is also seen in Myanmar newspaper headlines. However, the Themes used in the headlines which reveal responsibility are different from Indonesian headlines. In

MAL.H.2 A mercy mission to the Rohingya refugees
There is an ellipsis found in the above headline. However, the preposition to above indicates that the first phrase can be regarded as the Patient. The headline can be paraphrased into A mercy mission is given to the Rohingya refugees. The second phrase above, the Rohingya refugees, performs as the Goal. The use of lexical choice "mercy" above is to emphasize the good deeds by the government to help Rohingyans. The media put action to help the refugees as something "mercy". In other words, praise is also attached to Malaysian government.
Another type of Theme showing Malaysian responsibility is the employment of Actor.
In the Malaysian newspaper headline, the Actor is attached to the government official to show their responsibility in accordance with Rohingya crisis. Below is the datum.

Blame
Despite the responsibility represented in various linguistic features in South-East Asian newspaper headlines, "blame" is also found from the employment of linguistic features in the data. The table below points out the type of Theme showing "blame" in the headlines.  It is also strengthened by the second headline above. Malaysian media chooses the name "Suu Kyi" as the Actor who is responsible for the crisis. Blame is shown strongly in Malaysian media, referring to Suu Kyi.
In Bangladesh's newspaper media, domination is also responsibility to solve the crisis.
However, "blame" is also found in the headlines. Thailand media portrays that event as blame to the Myanmar army since Rohingyans experience unpleasant treatment by the government. The systematic clearing has continued and become more severe. The employment of "redoubling push" emphasizes the sad witness by Rohingyans.
They do not have another choice but leave the area.
Thailand newspaper media also shows its fair view of the crisis. The employment of Carrier which involves both Bangladesh and Myanmar below is the proof.

THAI.H.19 Both Bangladesh and Myanmar are responsible for the Rohingya
Blame is not only directed to the Myanmar government but also Bangladesh. The initial conflict regarding the occupation of Myanmar territory by Bangladesh is regarded as the initial conflict of Rohingya crisis. Thailand newspaper media sees this as the blame of both countries. The negotiation which should have been done a long time ago never happened. That is, why the media put both countries as the Carrier which is attached to the responsibility they have to make.
The five newspapers analyzed above reveal similar ideologies, responsibility and blame.
That finding can be understood since the South-East Asian newspapers are produced in the same spirit as ASEAN members. The presence of society cannot be ignored in discourse analysis.
Rohingya issue is seen as a shared problem by South-East Asian countries, thus the headlines presented in five newspapers reveal similar ideology. This supports Fairclough's argument that CDA can be employed to describe, interpret, and explain the language and power. CDA regards language as creating ideology and revealing concealed agendas in language that may be ideological (Montejo & Adriano, 2018 Rohingyans make effort to save themselves, which results in "blame" shown by the Theme. However, Bangladesh's media also shows responsibility by means of Actor shown in the word "Bangladesh". Similar to Indonesian newspaper headlines, Malaysian and Bangladesh newspapers are pro-government media. What their government and its representatives conduct regarding Rohingya issue is signposted in their headlines. Malaysia is also a country dominated by Muslims, while Bangladesh shares its solidarity due to the close border to Rakhine. "Blame" is embodied in Malaysian and Bangladesh media to encourage readers' emotions toward the actions done by Rohingya refugees. What triggers Rohingya crisis is covered up by the emotions framed by the media (Afzal, 2016).
Different from the four media mentioned above, Myanmar newspaper headlines are dominated by the Theme referring to responsibility by the Myanmar government. The choice of Goal refers to things done by the Government to recover Rohingya crisis, such as "refugee deal, peace, stability, and plans to repatriate refugee". The media intends to share the good points Myanmar government makes. The use of Actor and Sayer referring to the government also shows its responsibility. Similar to the other three newspapers discussed previously, Myanmar newspaper is also on the side of its government, seen from the absence of the word "Rohingya". The newspaper intends not to acknowledge Rohingya as a national race (James, 2006). The neglect of race is intentionally and systematically conducted in Myanmar.
In the last media, Thailand newspaper headlines, it is found that the media also shows its responsibility and blame toward the Rohingya crisis. However, blame is not only directed to Myanmar government, but also Bangladesh. Thailand newspaper headlines also involve ASEAN as the official association among South-East Asian countries to solve the crisis together. What is concerned in the media is the stability amongst South-East Asian countries.
The readers are encouraged to recall the spirit of ASEAN which can unite them. The conflict happens in South-East Asia is the countries' responsibility. The "neutral" position Thailand newspaper headlines show is influenced by the socio-political context in Thailand, as a country that is not affected directly by the crisis. As one of the founders of ASEAN, Thailand government is portrayed as the one mediates the conflict. The analysis emphasizes that newspapers propagate agendas of different social, political, and economic pillars of power (Lodhi, et al., 2019) CONCLUSION This research concludes the choice of wordings in the headlines can create different discursive effects to the readers. Even though the textual structures of the headlines are represented in the same type, they can bring different ideological perspectives depending on how the texts are distributed. The language choice in the headlines is capable of revealing the position of the media, whether they are pro-government or not. Language is also benefited to exercise power and encourage the readers' emotions. The event behind the case may be hidden by the emotions and actions signposted in the headlines. This emphasizes that language choice in media is socially and politically influenced by the social context. This research invites future scholars to enrich the present findings so that the studies on how media bring Rohingya issue in the world.