Indonesian Student Association in Thailand (PERMITHA)
Abstract
Headline editorials have their merit to create inventive language choices to meet a targeted discourse. This paper serves as an understanding on how news discourse can be elaborated by taking both meaning and effects of language use in the production and interpretation of a text into account. Gathering the key instrument from 139 relevant online news headlines under the discourse of Gerwani, a debarred women’s organization in Indonesia’s New Order regime from various online news websites publication year 1999-2016, this research aims to: 1) identify verbal rhetorical devices (alliteration, parallelism, testimonial, metonymy, irony, quotation out of context, rhetorical question, and antithesis) used in the headlines, and 2) elaborate the use of verbal rhetoric devices and how they serve the readers with persuasive manner toward their ideology, including beliefs, opinions, and value systems, regarding with Gerwani-related case. The analysis proved that the use of verbal rhetorical devices in online news headlines contributed to create relevance of the topic, thus, aided the readers to perceive intended meaning, which might influence the establishment of power to construct their ideology. Consequently, the use of language can never be separated in socio-cultural contexts of a particular society, driving a persuaded manner for headline-oriented and language practitioners to notice how important it is to use verbal rhetorical devices as one of incorporating attitudes in delivering messages in public sphere ensuring a variety of contents and contexts to be perceived.
