Realization of Criticism in Political Discourse and Its Impact on Advance Threats and Polite Language

The political constellation in the last few years has left a problem in the enforcement of democracy in the country. This is due to the fact that the discourse in the political space takes place in a tight and harsh competitive form that creates conflict in the community. Democratic parties such as Pilkada, Pileg, and Presidential Election not only function as a means of conveying the vision, mission, and programs to be carried out, but more than that as an arena for arguing, criticizing each other negatively, both among politicians and fellow supporters. Therefore, this study aims to reveal the realization of criticizing politicians in the discourse of political contestation and how it impacts on facial threats and language politeness. This study uses a qualitative-descriptive approach and content analysis methods and is based on the socio-pragmatic-semantic grand theory. The results showed that: (1) based on the style used, politicians were more dominant in using cynicism and sarcasm; (2) whereas based on the strategy of his derivation, politicians are more dominant in using straightforward methods without further ado. That is, criticism that is expressed by politicians tends to be realized as a negative evaluation in an explicit way or directly targeting the weaknesses and ugliness of the candidates by using sarcastic and cynical styles to mock, humiliate, even insult the intended person / party so that the threat of face is ‘high’ and resulting in ‘less polite’ speech.