An analysis of criticising strategies in social media / Siti Khadijah Omar, Nor Syamimi Iliani Che Hassan and Hairunnisa Mohammad Nor

The use of social media platforms for obtaining up-to-date information and sharing personal opinions has made them a rich source of data for linguistic research. Hence, this study aims to investigate the strategies used by Malaysians to express criticism online. Drawing on earlier research on criticism in everyday situations, this study explored how Malaysians expressed political criticisms amidst Malaysia's 15th General Election. Data were procured from a local Malaysian English newspaper’s Facebook page. The study found that the criticism realisation strategies in the 180 Facebook comments can be grouped into two primary types: indirect strategies and direct strategies. For indirect criticism realisation, Malaysians would most frequently employ the “hints” strategy to criticise whereas they would most frequently make explicit expressions of disagreement, disapproval or dislike in their direct criticisms. This study also found two new indirect strategies - making compliments to and asserting support for opponents as other means to criticise. This study has offered insights into Malaysian social media users’ preferences to assert criticisms especially regarding the political context.