A corpus-based study of responses to apologies in US English

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Abstract

Responding to apologies can be difficult, and while there is etiquette advice available on how to respond to apologies as well as studies on the concept of forgiveness in response to apologies, there are few studies on particular strategies and expressions interlocutors use to respond to apologies. In this paper, we begin by looking at previous research on responding to apologies and then at issues related to gathering data in order to study speech acts. In our study, we analyzed 320 apologies from a corpus made up of dialogue from 72 episodes from the US situation comedy Modern Family. We divided the responses to these apologies into nine categories: no response, minimizing the offense, focusing on the offense, response to the justification/explanation/question, asking for clarification, reciprocating the apology, vocalization, expression of disbelief, and other. We discussed how the responses in different categories are used and analyzed the circumstances in which they are used.

Journal

  • 文化情報学

    文化情報学 9 (2), 1-13, 2014-03-31

    同志社大学文化情報学会

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