Analysis And Cultural Interpretation Of Pragmatic Strategies Of Americans’ Speech Act Of Apology

Apology is a speech act with high frequencies in our daily life. Intensive study onthe speech act of apology can make people reduce offence, save both sides’ faces andmake the communication carry out smoothly. America is one of China’s biggest tradingpartners and China has a lot of cooperation with America. Hence, a deep understandingof Americans’ apology can decrease the offence during the communication betweenAmericans and Chinese and help cross-cultural communication proceed successfully.Therefore, this thesis aims at studying Americans’ apology. The speech act is a majorresearch subject of pragmatics, so apology as a speech act is also within the scope ofpragmatics, and apology strategies as the realization patterns of the speech act ofapology are also the research content of pragmatics. Besides, Cooperative Principle isan essential theory in the history of the development of pragmatics, which includes fourmaxims-quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim and manner maxim. Thus,researches on apology strategies by employing the four maxims of CooperativePrinciple can deepen the understanding of apology from the perspective of pragmatics.Culture can influence people’s choices of apology strategies, and also can affect the fourmaxims of Cooperative Principle. Consequently, analysis of the relationship betweenthe maxims of Cooperative Principle and apology strategies from the perspective ofculture can let us understand Americans’ apology essentially, reduce communicationfailure and help cross-cultural communication carry out smoothly.Qualitative analysis method and quantitative analysis method are combinedtogether in this thesis. From the standpoint of pragmatics and culture, this thesis does aresearch on Americans’ apology strategies and violation of the maxims of CooperativePrinciple by using the quantitative analysis method, and then analyzes apologystrategies and violation of the maxims of Cooperative Principle from the perspective ofculture by using the qualitative analysis method. The objects of this study are mainly thespeech acts of apology, which appear in Season Seven of Desperate Housewives. First,count the number of the speech act of apology that appear in Season Seven of DesperateHousewives, and then study which apology strategies are used in the speech acts ofapology and analyze the employment of Americans’ apology strategies from Hofstede’sindividualism vs. collectivism as well as power distance and Hall’s High Context andLow Context. Then study which apology strategies violate which maxims of Cooperative Principle and then analyze the violation of the maxims of CooperativePrinciple deeply from cultural perspectives. This analysis can let people understandAmericans’ apology strategies and the relationship between the speech act of apologyand Cooperative Principle in essence, then enhance the understanding of Americans’speech act of apology and apology strategies, and ultimately help cross-culturalcommunication proceed smoothly.The results of data analysis in this study are as follows. Firstly, the frequency of thespeech act of apology is pretty high in the seventh season of Desperate Housewives, inwhich the apology strategy of IFIDs and the apology strategy of explanation or accountare used most frequently. American culture of high individualism, low power distancedimension and low-context culture mainly account for the different frequency of theusage of the apology strategies. Secondly, there is a pretty close relationship betweenapology strategies and Cooperative Principle. The number of apology strategies whichare employed in the seventh season of Desperate Housewives is259. The number ofapology strategies violating the maxims of Cooperative Principle is154. The number ofapology strategies violating quantity maxim is86. The number of apology strategiesviolating relation maxim is32. The number of apology strategies violating qualitymaxim is26and the number of apology strategies violating manner maxim is10. Therelationship between apology strategies and Cooperative Principle is inseparable fromAmerica’s low-context culture.