Analysis of Congratulation Strategies by Swahili Speakers in Response to Happy Occasions on Facebook Status Updates

Abstract

This study investigated congratulatory comments posted on Facebook pages in response to H.E Samia Suluhu Hassan’s   historic inauguration as   the first female president of the United Republic of Tanzania, to determine strategies used by Kiswahili Facebook users to express their congratulations. Case study design was applied in this study.  Data was collected through documentary review, where a sum of 200 congratulatory responses were extracted from selected Facebook accounts. The data were then coded based on Elwood’s (2004) congratulatory framework to obtain frequency and percentage of each strategy. The results showed five strategies for expressing congratulations, arranged from the most frequent to the least frequent: Illocutionary force indicating devices, religious expressions, offers of good wishes, speakers’ expression of their faith to the addressee and expressing encouragement. It is recommended that speakers should be familiar with how to express their congratulations to others based on the addressee’s cultural context as utterances used to express congratulations may differ from one culture to another.  Failure to congratulate other people when they have delightful occasion is interpreted as being jealous and uncooperative.