Apology Behaviour and Politeness - Essay Example

three main theories are relevant to apologies: interactional theory, e.g. Goffman (1967)   politeness theory, e.g. Leech (1983), and speech act theory, e.g. Austin (1962).  These authors examine a wide range of different speech acts but they will be examined here only concerning their different approaches to the study of apologies.

 Since the present study examines a bilingual and intercultural situation involving both Arabic and English, it is necessary also to review the literature on the complexities of intercultural communication, for example, Trosborg (1995).  The fact that the present study concentrates on just male speakers makes it necessary to survey the literature on gender differences in language use, e.g. Holmes (1989).  Again, the focus in this overview is on how these authors deal with apologies as part of their wider work. 

            This review will consider first the theoretical background of the apology (section 2.2) and then it will survey the very many empirical studies that have been conducted on apologies. The scope of the empirical section 2.3  is international and comparative, covering secondary literature written up to the  mid-1990s. During this period there is a marked Anglo-centric focus on most of the research produced in this field. These empirical studies will be grouped in terms of their focus, namely culture (section 2.3.1), gender (section 2. 3. 2), or class (section 2.3.3 In some contexts such as workplace apologies this last variable may be presented as “power”.