Language Politeness and Civic Values in Malaysian Facebook Discourse

Abstract

The rapid expansion of social media has transformed public discourse, positioning digital platforms as important spaces for civic engagement and the expression of social values. In Malaysia, Facebook is widely used by government agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), public figures and news organisations to communicate with the public. Although previous studies have explored online communication from linguistic and technological perspectives, limited attention has been given to the role of language politeness in fostering civic values within digital discourse. This study investigates how language politeness is manifested in Malaysian Facebook discourse and examines its contribution to promoting civic values. A qualitative content analysis was conducted using purposive sampling method on 12 purposively selected Facebook texts from year 2020 to 2022 representing four categories of users: government agencies, NGOs, public figures and news organisations. The limitations of the study involve the use of selected text sources that have specific contexts and language features, thereby restricting the reproducibility and generalizability of the findings to a broader population and context. Data were analysed using ATLAS.ti through thematic coding and cross-source comparison. The findings identify five recurring themes of language politeness: language sounds, etiquette, organized, meaningful utterance and promised actions. These themes consistently function as communicative strategies that encourage ethical behaviour, reinforce social responsibility and promote respectful online interactions. The findings demonstrate that language politeness extends beyond interpersonal communication and serves as a sociolinguistic mechanism for cultivating civic values in digital environments. This study contributes to digital discourse and sociolinguistic research by providing empirical evidence that language politeness plays a significant role in promoting civic engagement and responsible digital citizenship in multicultural societies.