CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.4.2 Apology Strategies
Fraser (1981) might be the earliest researcher proposing a systematic classification of apology strategies. As noted by Fraser (1981:263), in order to make an apology to be viewed as convincing, the offender has to use a combination of two or more of the following strategies:
(2.6) Categorization of apology strategies (Fraser, 1981: 263) Strategy 1: Announcing that you are apologizing
e.g., “I (hereby) apologize for…”
Strategy 2: Stating one’s obligation to apologize e.g., “I must apologize for…”
Strategy 3: Offering to apologize
e.g., “I (hereby) offer my apology for…”
Strategy 4: Requesting the hearer accept my apology…”
e.g., “Please accept my apology for…”
Strategy 5: Expressing regret for the offense e.g., “I’m (truly/very/so/terribly) sorry for for…”
Strategy 6: Requesting forgiveness for the offense e.g., “Please excuse me for…”
Strategy 7: Acknowledging responsibility for the offending act e.g., “That was my fault”
Strategy 8: Promising forbearance from a similar offending act e.g., “I promise you that that will never happen again”
Strategy 9: Offering redress
e.g., “Please let my pay for the damage I’ve done”
In describing the apology speech act set, Olshtain and Cohen (1983) identified the five apology potential strategies when the offender recognizes the need for apologizing as shown as follows in (2.7):
(2.7) Categorization of apology strategies (Olshtain and Cohen, 1983:22-23) 1. An expression of an apology
a. An expression of regret, e.g., “I’m sorry.”
b. An offer of apology, e.g., “I apologize.”
c. A request for forgiveness, e.g., “Excuse me.”
2. An explanation or account of the situation, e.g., “The bus was late.”
3. An acknowledgment of responsibility
a. Accepting the blame, e.g., “It is my fault.”
b. Expressing self-deficiency, e.g., “I was confused.”
c. Recognizing the other person as deserving apology, e.g., “You are right!”
d. Expressing lack of intent, e.g., “I didn’t mean to.”
4. An offer of repair, e.g., “I’ll pay for the broken vase.”
5. A promise of forbearance, e.g., “It won’t happen again.”
In her study of exploring apology realization patterns among native speakers of English, native speakers of Danish, and Danish learners of English, Trosborg (1987, 1995) introduced seven main categories of apology speech act sets:
(2.8) Categorization of apology strategies (Trosborg, 1987, 1995) I. Complainee does not take responsibility
A. Strategy 0: Opting Out
a. Explicit denial of responsibility: The complainee explicitly denies that an offence has occurred or that he/she is in any way responsible for it. He/she may emphasize his/her “innocence” with arguments of the “I know nothing about it, I can assure you kind”. Strategic disarmers, such as “You know that I would never do a thing like that”.
b. Implicit denial responsibility: The complainee evades responsibility, for example by ignoring a complaint, by talking about something else, etc.
c. Justification: The complainee evades responsibility, for example by ignoring a complaint, by talking about something else, etc.
d. Blaming someone else: The complainee seeks to evade responsibility by blaming someone else.
e. Attacking the complainter: If the complainer lacks and adequate defense for his/her own behavior, he/she may choose to attack the complainer instead.
B. Strategy 1: Evasive strategies
a. Minimizing : e.g., Oh what does that matter, that’s nothing b. Querying preconditions: e.g., Well, everybody does that
c. Blaming someone else: The offence committed by the complianee can be partly excused by an offence committed by a third party.
II. Indirect apologies
C. Strategy 2: Acknowledgement of responsibility
a. Implicit acknowledgement: e.g., I can see your points b. Explicit acknowledgement: e.g., I’ll admit I forgot to do it.
c. Expression of lack of intent: e.g., I didn’t mean to.
d. Expression of self-deficiency: e.g., I was confused e. Expression of embarrassment: e.g., I feel so bad about it.
f. Explicit acceptance of the blame: e.g., It was entirely my fault D. Strategy 3: Providing Explanation or Account
a. Implicit explanation: e.g., Such things are bound to happen, you know.
b. Explicit explanation: e.g., Sorry I’m late, but my car broke down.
III. Direct apologies
E. Strategy 4: Expression of Apology a. Expression of regret: e.g., I’m sorry.
b. Offer of apology: e.g., I apologize.
c. Request for forgiveness: e.g., Excuse me; Please, forgive me;
Pardon me.
IV. Remedial Support
F. Strategy 5: Expressing Concern for the Hearer: In order to pacify a complainer, the complainee may express concern for his/her well-being,
his/her condition, etc.
Strategy 6: Promise of Forbearance: e.g., It won’t happen again, I promise.
Strategy 7: Offering Repair or Compensation: e.g., I’ll pay for the cleaning.
As noted by Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989: 21), an apology can be realized with different degree of intensity. In addition to the categorization of apology strategies, Trosborg (1987, 1995) also proposed 8 categories of apology internal modifications which served to remedy the social harmony. Trosborg (1995: 385) classified internal apology modifications into two main types: “downgraders (minimize the guilt) and upgraders (maximize the apology)”. According to Trosborg, Downtoners, Understaters, Hedges, and Subjectiveizers are downgraders that
“minimize the complaiable and hence play down the blame that can be attached to the complainee” for the purpose of saving the offender’s face and make him/her “appear less guilty” (p. 385). Intensifiers “maximizes the apology, excuse, etc., and thus upgrades the impact of the apology on receiver” (p.385). However, commitment upgrader emphasizes “the apologizer’s belief in the complainer’s positive attitude with regard to the proposition” (p.385). Cajolers and Appealers which “function at the interpersonal level of discourse to restore harmony between two interlocutors (p.
385)” are neither upgraders nor downgraders. Categorization of apology internal modifications is listed below:
(2.9) Categorization of apology internal modifications (Trosborg, 1995: 385-386) 1. Downtoners: Adverbial sentence modifiers, such as just, simply, etc. and
adverbials expressing tentativeness, e.g. perhaps, maybe, possibly
(I just left for five minutes).
2. Understaters: Phrases that under-represent the state of affairs denoted in the complainable, e.g. a little bit, a second, not very much, etc.
(I went out for a second only).
3. Hedges: Adverbials by means of which the complainee avoids a precise propositional specification, e.g. kind of, sort of, somehow, etc.
(Somehow, it all happened very quickly, I kind of didn’t notice before it was too late).
4. Subjectiveizers: Modifiers that characterize the proposition as the speaker’s personal opinion, or indicates his attitude towards the proposition, e.g., I think, I suppose, I’m afraid, in my opinion, etc.
5. Intensifiers: Adverbials intensifying part of the proposition, e.g.
intensifying a lack of intention, an expression of regret or embarrassment (I’m terribly sorry, I really didn’t mean any harm).
6. Commitment upgraders: Sentence modifiers expressing a special commitment towards the proposition
(I was sure/certain/positive that you wouldn’t mind…/that you would forgive me).
7. Cajolers: Gambits functioning at the interpersonal level of discourse with the function of restoring harmony between two interlocutors, e.g. you know, you see, I mean, etc.
8. Appealers: Discourse elements (including tags) intended to elicit a response from the complainer, appealing to his/her understanding, etc., e.g.
okay, right don’t you think? see, I mean, etc.
Among those studies on the apology realization patterns, apology strategy set
developed by CCSARP (Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper, 1989) is perhaps the most prominent one in that it greatly influenced later studies in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics studies (e.g., Bergman and Kasper, 1993; Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1984; Holmes, 1990, 1998; Rintell and Mitchell, 1989; Suszczyńska,, 1999;
Vollmer and Olshtain, 1989). An act of apologizing can be performed by choosing one of the following apology strategies or a combination of two or more strategies listed below (Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper, 1989: 289):
(2.10) Categorization of apology strategies (Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper, 1989: 289)
1. Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs): e.g., Sorry.
2. Taking on Responsibility
A. Explicit self-blame: e.g., my mistake.
B. Lack of intent: e.g., I didn’t mean to upset you.
C. Justify hearer: e.g., you’re right to be angry.
D. Expression of embarrassment: e.g., I feel awful about it.
E. Admission of facts but not of responsibility: e.g., I forgot about it.
F. Refusal to acknowledge guilt: e.g., it wasn’t my fault.
3. Explanation or Account: e.g., the traffic was terrible.
4. Offer of Repair: e.g., I’ll pay for the damage.
5. Promise of Forbearance: e.g., This won’t happen again 6. Distracting from the offence. (Downgrading)
A. Query precondition: e.g., are you sure we were supposed to meet at 10?
B. An innocently/pretend not to notice the offence: e.g., am I late?
C. Future/task-oriented remark: e.g., let’s get to work, then!
D. Humor: e.g., if you think that’s a mistake, you ought to see our fried chicken!
E. Appeaser: e.g., I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.
F. Lexical and phrasal dowgraders a. Politeness markers: e.g., please b. Understater: e.g. a bit
c. Hedge: e.g., somehow
d. Subjectivizer: e.g., I’m afraid…, I wonder, I think/believe/suppose
e. Downtoner: e.g., possibly, perhaps f. Cajoler: e.g., you know
In a most recent study on apology internal modifications, Lin and Ho (2006) investigated the cross-cultural difference of the use of modality markers by comparing DCT data produced by native speakers of English and Chinese and EFL learners.
They specified some problems existing in the previous coding of apology intensification. In apology, a specific lexical form may function differently depending on situational contexts. For example, consider the function of the intensifier “so” in the following two utterances:
(2.11) Functions of the intensifier “so” (Lin and Ho, 2006: 11-12) a. I’m so sorry to have spilled coffee on you.
b. Laura, sorry I’m late. I didn’t know the traffic to your house would be so bad at this time.
In (2.11), the lexical forms “so” in the two utterances are both upgraders;
however, their functions are different. In (a), the “so” takes the function of MAXMIZIERs which “maximize the apology”; on the other hand, the “so” in (b) serves as MINIMIZERs which is used to play down the complainable hence
“minimize the guilt” (Trosborg, 1987, 1995). Lin and Ho (2006) have suggested that while traditional categorization of modality markers only focused on the function of intensifiers like so/very/really in upgrader, the other function like “minimize the guilt” has been neglected in previous studies on apology. Thus, they established a coding system that distinguishes lexical and functional forms of modality markers which has supplemented the categorization of internal apology modifications in the literature. (2.12) sketches the categorization of apology internal modifications proposed by Lin and Ho (2006):
(2.12) MAXIMIZERs and MINIMIZERs in Apology Realization (Lin and Ho, 21-27) I. MAXIMIZERs
A. Upgraders
1. Emotional Expressions: Discourse elements of exclamations such as oh, oh no, which are used to show the sincerity of the apology or regret.
2. Intensifiers: Adverbials that are normally used to intensify the proposition of an utterance, e.g., intensifying an expression of regret or embarrassment. Such intensifiers may appear within or outside the IFID.
3. Double/multiple Intensifiers or Repetition of Intensifiers: Use of two intensifying adverbials in a series or repetition of intensifying adverbials 4. Lexical/Phrasal Intensification: Lexical items which reveal the
apologizer’s attitude; in extreme cases swear words may be used.
II. MINIMIZERs:
A. Upgraders
1. Emotional Expressions: Discourse elements of exclamations. Contrary to those that are used as emotional maximizers, these emotional expressions are used to pacify the hearer or the situation (e.g., to reduce embarrassment, and are thus referred to as emotional minimizers).
2. Intensifiers: Intensifiers that are used within strategies with which people try to blame someone or something else in order to minimize the complainable.
B. Downgraders
1. Downtoner: Adverbial sentence modifiers, such as just, simply, etc. and adverbials that express tentativeness, e.g. perhaps, maybe, possibly 2. Understaters: Phrases that under-represent the state of affairs denoted in
the complainable. To exercise the effect of mitigating, understaters often dress themselves as a part of explanation or account.
3. Hedges: Adverbials by means of which the complainee avoids a precise propositional specification, e.g. kind of, sort of, somehow, etc.
4. Hesitators: By hesitating in explanation or account, the apologizer may sound more pathetic or appear to be innocent, hence the purpose of mitigating the blame might be fulfilled.