A Sociolinguistic Study On The Use Of Apologising In Spoken English

An apology is a remedial act in nature and at the same time it is a polite behavior that concerns the face needs of the hearers.The basic function of an apology is to provide remedial compensation for offensive acts and to restore harmonious relationships.As an important means of maintaining interpersonal relationships and regaining social balance,the speech act of apology has been drawing the attention of scholars both at home and abroad for a long time.In recent years,the speech act of apology has developed into the focus of variation,hence there is also an increasing proliferation in literature on apologies in the field of sociolinguistics.In previous sociolinguistic studies,most scholars are inclined to study gender differences in apologies,but there is a dire need of investigation on the variational characteristics of apology under the influence of multiple social variables.This current research combines linguistic variation theory(William Labov,1984)with politeness principle(Brown & Levinson,1987)based on the naturally occurring data in the BNC64 corpus.The research employs Chi-square test to combine quantitative and qualitative approaches together to study eight apologies(I’m sorry,oh sorry,excuse me,I’m afraid,pardon me,I apologize,my fault,I beg your pardon)respectively,aiming to explore the characteristics of variation in apology speech act in spoken English across three different social variables(age,gender and social class).The specific research questions include: 1.What is the overall distribution of apology expression choices in British spoken English under the three variables: age,gender and social class? 2.How do these three social variables affect the variational characteristics of apologising? 3.What are the underlying reasons of discrepancies in apologising speech act under the three variables?Results show that:(1)There are significant differences in the overall frequencies and distributions of apologies.Excuse me is the most frequently used expression,followed by I’m sorry and I’m afraid.While the expression I apologize is the least used.In terms of age,the speakers aged 14-34 use apologies more frequently than other age groups.And females use significantly more apologies than males.In addition,the working class speakers apologize more often than the middle classes.(2)As far as the apology strategies are concerned,the 14-34 years old females tend to use“Taking on responsibility” as one of others-oriented strategies,which save the negative faces of hearers to provide compensation for offensive acts.While35-82-years old male users regard “Minimizing of responsibility” as a self-oriented strategy to mitigate the severity of offense on hearers’ positive face.On the aspect of functional variations,some apologies are used by younger groups to serve as a function of requests.Older speakers are apologizing for anticipatory reasons to mitigate the severity of future offences.Another salient difference between the young and the old is that young men sometimes use taboo words in apologies for the intention of sarcasm.Males prefer to use apologies as a kind of tool to maintain their face.And female speakers prefer to use apologies as the function of sympathy.The middle class speakers often use apologies as a phatic function while the working class use apologies to remedy offensive acts and to restore social balance.(3)The underlying reasons for variations in apologies are explained with reference to both internal(age,gender and social class)and external factors(occupation,social distance and psychological state).The findings of this research will help enrich the related research on apologies and sociolinguistics,promote further explorations on the development of language variation,and help improve the interlanguage pragmatic competence of teachers and English learners.