Apology behaviour in works of different authors - Essay Example

According to the research an apology is “A speech act addressed to B’s face-needs and intended to remedy an offense for which A takes responsibility, and thus restores equilibrium between A and B (where A is the apologizer and B is the person offended)”. Apologies have long been studied as easily recognisable, often formulaic speech acts which are more or less universal across human languages. It has not always been easy, however, to situate the apology firmly in any one linguistic theory and the literature of the last fifty years reflects this uncertainty.

Both the context of an apology and the actual words spoken work together to make it an effective piece of communication, and so it is a topic best considered with a comprehensive method, such as discourse analysis, where all the relevant linguistic and social factors can be included. Within this broad area there are three main theories which are relevant to apologies: interactional theory, e.g. Goffman politeness theory, e.g. Leech, and speech act theory, e.g. Austin. These authors examine a wide range of different speech acts but they will be examined here only with reference to their different approaches to the study of apologies.

The work of the Canadian scholar Goffman and Austin is a good place to start when considering apologies because these scholars brings together the social and the linguistic aspect of speech and illuminate the exchange that goes on in situations like apologies. An apology always involves at least two people who are linked in some kind of context which involves a mistake or wrong doing the person which affects the other person.