The Signification of the term “Youth”: From Language Determining Thought to Thought Determining Language

Abstract

Youth is often defined by age, physical nature, psychological characteristics, and social roles. People in society normally perceive and describe youth as having specific characteristics of this age group, without questioning when the word “youth” officially appeared as a vocabulary in Thai documents, and what socio-cultural factors influence the formation of youth identity in Thai society. This article, therefore, aims to reveal that the term “youth” began to be widely used in history during the period of the policy of modernizing Thailand in a Western way. Such socio-cultural contexts have contributed to the construction of youth identity through the discursive practices of various social institutions, and the signified identity has continued to influence the cognition of people in Thai society about the term “youth” later on. As the term has been used as a stock of meaning for creating the common concept of youth in society, its meaning is still linked to historical discourses on the development of Western education, the popularity of Western cultural products, and the state’s measures to maintain peace and order, which have played a role in creating the signification of youth since the beginning. The term “youth” is a case that emphasizes to trace the origin of a term that arises from discursive practices, which can yield the description for the concepts of “language determining thought” and “thought determining language”, as the both phenomena are still related as long as social institutions must maintain their discursive power.