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severity of the offense (Trosberg, 1987), and social infractions and violations of space
(Holmes, 1990). With regard to the syntactic formula of sorry, the most frequent
occurrences include sorry without any compliment, sorry to VP and sorry (that) S
(Owen, 1983). In contrast to the higher frequency of sorry, expressions with
apologize appears to be rare (Cohen & Olshtain, 1981; Owen, 1983) due to the fact
that apologize is restricted to more formal, and written interactions (Fraser, 1981). On
the other hand, the difference between sorry and excuse lies in the nature of the
offense whether it is related to personal injuries or a social rule. Moreover, the use of
single strategies, especially an explicit expression of apology, occurs more frequently
than combinations of strategies (Holmes, 1990; Olshtain & Cohen, 1983). On the
other hand, the most likely strategies to occur first were routine formulae, such as
sorry and emotives, such as Oh, no (Meier, 1998). Those strategies that are least likely
to occur include redress, such as let me pay for that and forbearance, such as this
wont happen again. In both Homes (1990) and Meiers (1998) studies, the strategy
of forbearance has never occurred first in a response sequence nor has it ever occurred
alone.
The research goals of previous apology studies mostly focus more on
classification of strategies (Olshtain & Cohen, 1983) and relate them to language
teaching (Cohen, Olshtain, & Rosenstein, 1986). Later vein of research in apology
discusses more on the factors contributing to strategy choice (Holmes, 1989, 1990,
1995) and syntactic semantic features of apology (Holmes, 1990; Owen, 1983). It is
the integration of the strategy use with the contextual factors that serves the purpose
of present study. In other words, the pragmatics of apologies, i.e. who says what to
whom and why, is the aim of this study.
4. METHODOLOGY AND DATA
As studies concerning the nature of apology in a variety of languages and
cultures are blooming over the last decades (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; Fraser,
1981; Holmes, 1990; Olshtain, 1983, 1989; Olshtain & Cohen, 1983; Owen, 1983),
there is a growing source of empirical data for apologizing. Interestingly enough,
there is a great difference regarding the data collection in apology studies. One of the
studies is from intuition and informal observation (Broken & Reinhart, 1978). Many
are in discourse completion tests limited to apology strategies as in CCSARP
(Olshtain, 1989; Olshtain & Rosenstein, 1986; Suszczynska, 1999). Still others are
elicited from role-play methods (Cohen & Olshtain, 1981; Trosberg, 1987). Only a
limited number of apology studies is collected in natural settings with one based on
written and oral ethnographic observation of New Zealand English (Holmes, 1990)
and collected from natural interactions in Akan discourse (Obeng, 1999). The model
chosen for comparison is therefore built upon pervious studies on apology, especially
4
the CCSARP project, whose results are based on eight apology contexts in written
questionnaires of seven languages. The current study focuses not only on the
identification of strategy use but also on socio-pragmatic contexts of apologies, such
as syntactic-semantic patterns for apology, distribution of apology strategy under
social contexts, and relationship between participants. The film data was collected
from 26 American feature films (See Appendix A) of 197 apologies (Appendix B).
The criteria for selecting films followed Roses study (2001), in which movies should
be no more than fifteen years old and should portray contemporary people in real-life
settings. There are also other practical constraints that selections must be available in
video rental shops in Taiwan and movie scripts are available on line 1. To facilitate
discussions about genre differences, the films are categorized into four broad
categories based on The Internet Movie Database whose classification is generated by
voters around the world2. Among 26 American feature films whose publishing years
ranging from 1992 to 2002, six of them are in the category of Science Fiction with a
total of 27 apologies, six films belong to Thriller and Action (23 apologies), ten films
are in Romance and Comedy (106 apologies), and the rest four are in Drama (41
apologies). In Table 1, we can clearly see that on average apologies occur more in the
genre of Romance/Comedy as well as Drama while in Thriller/Action and Science
Fiction, apologies are relatively few. It could be interpreted that in Romance/Comedy
oftentimes the protagonists experience ups and downs in relationships and the
interactions between characters are emotionally packed; therefore, apologies were
frequently made to tie up the bond. Similarly, in the section of Drama, whose main
plot involved a sketch of a major history event like Pearl Harbor and Titanic as well
as an autobiography of some celebrities like Erin Brockovich, apologies occur just
what we found in our daily life. However, for the genres of Action and Science
Fiction, the main dragging point is to create supernatural powers and create worlds
into the future mysteries like Back to the Future and smash crimes like Air Force One
or even a murder like The Sixth Sense; therefore, it is natural that action-packed
scenes outnumber episodes depicting human communications. It is not hard to
imagine that apologies are rare in the genres of Action and Science Fiction.
Websites offering free movie subtitles include Drew's Scripts-O-Rama Index at http://www.scripto-rama.com/table.shtml, Movie scripts at http://www.moviescripts.de/ and Movie screenplay
database at http://www.iscriptdb.com/
2
This section contains a set of top 50/bottom 10 movie charts split into various divisions, ie gender and
genre. Each chart is generated using votes received from regular voters. Available reports can be found
at http://us.imdb.com/Charts/Votes/ .
5
Number of movies
Average
Science Fiction
27
4.5
23
3.8
106
10
10.6
Drama
41
10.25
TOTAL
197
26
7.57
5. THE ANALYSIS
The model used in this study was based on Cohen and Olshtain (1981: 113-134),
Olshtain and Cohen (1983: 22-23), and CCSARP coding schemes (Blum-Kulka,
House, & Kasper, 1989). This model has been empirically developed and successfully
tested across languages and it is found that most speakers resort to a limited number
of strategies when apologizing (Olshtain, 1989). Of all the above strategies, Olshtain
and Cohen (1983) note that the illocutionary indicating device (IFID), which contains
the formulaic, routinized forms of apology or explicit performative verbs to express
an apology, and the second strategy of expressing the speakers responsibility are
general and non-language specific; that is, those two strategies are the most frequently
used and can realize an apology in any situation. Moreover, these two general
strategies, IFID and expression of responsibility, account for the majority of apology
across cultures (Olshtain, 1989). For example, the most explicit realization of an
apology is formulaic expressions of regret such as sorry, apologize, regret, and
excuse. As IFID fulfills the function of signaling regret, the speaker asks for
forgiveness and thus placates the hearer (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). Results show that
there are language specific preferences for IFID realizations. In English, the most
common form is the expression of regret, be sorry (Olshtain & Cohen, 1983). On
the other hand, the second strategy, taking on responsibility, is chosen by the speaker
when he/she recognizes responsibility for the offense. The subcategories for this
strategy are on a continuum from self-humbling on the speakers part to a complete
denial of responsibility. The acceptance of responsibility refers to the speakers intent
to initiate an apology while refusal to acknowledge guilt testifies the speakers
rejection of the need to apologize. The sub-formulas include accepting the blame,
expressing self-deficiency, recognizing the other person as deserving apology,
expressing lack of intent and expression of embarrassment.
The rest of the strategies, including explaining the situation which indirectly
brings the offense, the offer of repair, as well as the promise of forbearance, are
situation-specific; that is, those strategies can be applied only when specific situation
calls for such formulas. For example, the third strategy, explanation or account, is
used when the apologizer feels the need to justify his/her offense caused by external
factors over which the speaker has no control. Depending on the situation,
explanations may be very specific (e.g. The bus was late.) or implicit (e.g. The traffic
is not so smooth in the morning.) The fourth strategy, an offer of repair is used when
serious offense occurred. The last strategy is used when the speaker could have
avoided the offense but not. This strategy is the least applied among all the other
strategies (Holmes, 1990; Olshtain, 1989). The apology formulas are as follows.
(1) An explicit expression of apology (IFIDs)
The first one is to use formulaic expressions containing explicit
performative verbs, such as Im sorry; Excuse me; I regret; I apologize
to explicitly express an apology.
a. An expression of regret, e.g. Im sorry.
b. An offer of apology, e.g. I apologize.
c. A request for forgiveness, e.g. Excuse me/ Forgive me/ Pardon me.
(2) Taking on Responsibility
To express responsibility, which reflects the speakers degree of
willingness to admit the fault for the offense and to placate the hearer.
EG: Its all my fault. I have made a mistake. I shouldnt have done that.
a. Explicit self-blame, e.g. It is my fault / mistake.
b. Lack of intent, e. g. I didnt mean it.
c. Expression of self-deficiency, e.g. I was confused / I didnt see
you / I forgot
d. Justify the hearer, e.g. Youre right to be angry.
e. Expression of embarrassment. E.g. I feel awful about it.
f. Refusal to acknowledge guilt.
1. denial of responsibility e.g. It wasnt my fault.
2. blame the hearer e.g. Its your own fault.
3. pretend to be offended e.g. Im the one to be offended.
(3) Explanation or account
To give an explanation which indirectly cause the apologizer to commit
the offense. For example, the students may say, The bus is late. to
account for the reason being late for class.
(4) Offer of Repair
To give an offer of repair. The apologizer may seek ways to make up
the loss or provide some kind of payment which results from the
offense. EG. When you failed to return the book to someone you
borrowed, you may say, Ill buy you a new one, or Ill treat you a
lunch.
(5) Promise of Forbearance
To promise non-occurrence. The apologizer promised not to allow the
offense to happen again. EG. When you split milk over the carpet, you
may promise you mom that, I wont do that again.
5.1 How to apologize: Apology strategies
The corpus consists of 197 remedial exchanges. Table 2 shows the total number
of each strategy in the data. However, strategies are not mutually excusive; that is,
they may co-occur. Thats why the total number of the strategies amounts to 298.
Example (1) shows how CCSARP coded the data as having all of the basic
strategies.
(1)
IFID
RESPONSIBILITY
EXPLANATION
Im sorry. I missed the bus, and there was a terrible traffic jam. Lets make
REPAIR
FORBEARANCE
another appointment. Ill make sure that Im here on time.
Table 2: Apology strategies in film
Strategy
Number
a. express regret
164
55.0%
b. offer apology
19
6.5%
c. request forgiveness
14
4.7%
2. An acknowledgement of responsibility
56
18.8%
3. Explanation or account
35
11.7%
4. Offer of repair
2.3%
5. A promise of forbearance
1.0%
298
100%
TOTAL
shown in example (5) or the desire to see the beloved one in example (6), an
explanation might be redundant and waste time.
(2)
ERIN: You never called me back. I left messages.
ED: You did? Wow, sorry about that.
(Erin Brockovich)
(3)
Alice: Mom?
Rose: Yes, dear?
Alice: Im sorry I was so mean to you earlier.
(Air Force One)
(4)
Psychiatrist: We've missed you on other days. So has Hank.
Janine: Yeah, well I'm sorry. Though I wish I could visit more often, but... you
know.
(Marvins room)
(5)
Kay: You busy, Frank?
Frank The Pug: Sorry, Kay, I cant talk right now, my rides leaving in --(Men in Black)
(6)
Boy: Hey ! It's forbidding other people to come in here.
Jim: Oh ! I'm sorry. I just want to see Michelle. Do you know her?
(American Pie 2)
In addition, repair (2.3%) and forbearance (1.0%) were the least strategies used
in film. They were always used in combination with other strategies especially with
IFID and never used alone, which parallels the previous findings on strategy use
(Olshtain, 1989; Olshtain & Cohen, 1983). Repair strategies in film occurred in more
urgent situations when the offender tried to cure the wound in example (7) and make
up relationship in (8). Repair was also made on the occasions of splitting water, and
sometimes the offense was so serious that the offender needed to apologize twice to
gain approval as shown in example (9). Interesting to say, only three cases of promise
of non-occurrence were found in the data, which is similar to Holmess (1990) study
that forbearance is the least strategy used in New Zealand apology corpus. In example
(10), such promise of forbearance occurred between people with differential powerful
relationships, i.e. a security guard to a commander-in-chief. In summary, the most
frequently strategies in film data are IFID with the expression of Im sorry and
Responsibility the second place, which confirms Olstains findings (1983, 1989) that
only single strategy is enough in apology across situations.
(7)
JERRY: And just think if I got her the ring she really wanted.
9
Dorothy laughs. He looks at her strangely. Suddenly she feels very nervous, as
he sets down his bags.
DOROTHY: Sorry. Uh, let me see, have a seat. I'll get you some Aloe Vera for
that cut too.
(Jerry Maguire 1996)
(8)
Jules: You were jealous?
Michael: Crazy jealous. I'm sorry. Can we maybe spend some time alone this
afternoon? Would that be all right?
(My best friends wedding)
(9)
WILLIAM: Oh shit. Oh my god. Im sorry, Im so sorry. Here, let me help.
ANNA: Get your hands off.
WILLIAM: Im really sorry. I live just over the street. I have the water and soap
that you could get cleaned up.
ANNA: No, thank you. I need to get my car back.
(Notting Hill)
(10)
GEORGE: What am I paying you fifty cents an hour for?
BIFF: I'm sorry, Champ, (getting to his feet) It won't happen again, sir.
(Back to future)
10
Number
Percentage
123
62.4%
40
20.3%
10
5.1%
2.5%
1.5%
14
7.2%
Single strategy
(1) IFID (i.e. sorry, forgive, excuse)
Two strategies
Three strategies
(1) + (2) + (3) (i.e. IFID + responsibility + explanation)
11
0.5%
0.5%
197
100%
Four strategies
(1) +(2)+ (3) +(4) (i.e. IFID + responsibility + explanation+ repair)
TOTAL
12
CRAIG: Nah, Im not hungry. Im sorry I didnt call. It was just, you know hard
to get away.
(Being John Malkovich)
(19)
Lotte confessed to God for what she has doneimmoral things.
Lotte: Ive sinned, unwittingly, against the community. And for this I am truly
sorry.
(Being John Malkovich, 2002)
(20)
Michael: Yes, you did. Great, Kim. Two days before our wedding, you lay this on
me. I'm supposed to roll over? Fine. I'm an insensitive, sexist asshole.
You're better off without me.
Kim: No, Michael, no. You are so right. I was so wrong. We settled this, and I
reneged. That just wasn't fair. You have to forgive me and forget this
happened or I'll just die. Please.
(My best friends wedding)
5.2 Syntactic-semantic features of apologies
Most of the apologies employ explicit strategies, among which patterns with
sorry are the most frequent (Olshtain, 1983, 1989). Owen (1983) provides a very
comprehensive framework of how sorry is being used in her British corpus and finds
only a small set of syntactic-semantic formulae and a small range of lexical items are
used in apology (Table 4). A predominance percentage of the syntactic formulae of
sorry described by Owen (1983: 66) is as follows:
(21) I am (Im) + (intensifier) sorry + that S /to VP/ if S/ about that.
13
Film
N
%
8.1%
3.6%
16
Noun
Eg. I have an apology to make
Accept my apologies
1.2%
1.5%
I'm afraid
8.4%
0%
20
24.1%
41
20.8%
21
25.3%
53
26.9%
22
26.5%
47
23.9%
10.8%
23
11.7%
Other patterns
Excuse me/us
0%
10
5.1%
Forgive me
0%
2.0%
TOTAL
83
100%
197
100%
The statistical measure used for this study is Kolmogorov-Smirnov Testing. Max
1.36 *
D=0.079383524 < D0.05 , D0.05=
NM
N * M =0.177969576 (N=83; M=197)
14
structure, Im sorry, is used for relatively serious offense and occupied the most
frequent occurrences (26.9%) in the film data. In fact, it covered a wide variety of
situations, including revealing an unexpected news in example (25), functioning as a
conversation opener in example (26) or forgetting someones preference in example
(27). Such percentage is also similar to Owens study. The rest two formulae were
Sorry with complements either of a full complement or verb phrase. Oftentimes (55
out of 70 examples) it is linked with expression of responsibility as shown in
examples (28) and (29). In addition, intensifiers, such as really (18 cases) were used
when offenses were more serious as shown in example (30) and so was used between
lovers to express losing time to be together as shown in example (31) (7 cases). Such
tendency can be found both in film and Owens British data. Likewise, in Olshtains
study (1989), internal intensification, which adds routinized intensifier such as very
and really to IFID, occurs mostly when students forgot to return books to their
professor. Besides, Olshtain (1989) found that a significance correlation between
social status and the level of internal intensification. In other words, apologizers with
lower status than the addressee will choose to use more intensification, such as Im
really sorry. Im terribly sorry. This is also confirmed by film corpus.
(22)
Cole: You said the s word.
Malcolm: Yeah. Sorry.
(The others)
(23)
Roland: Sorry, we were saying?
(The lost world: Jurassic Park)
(24)
Malcovich: Sorry dear, I lost control for a minute.
Maxine: Its Okay, my sweet.
(25)
MARCEE:(explodes) And say what? "Please remove your dick from my ass?!"
Both men look at her. The outburst has surprised even Marcee.
MARCEE: (continuing) I'm sorry. I'm a little pregnant right now.
TIDWELL: I feel like crying. I feel like breaking the room up. (Jerry Macquire)
(26)
Marshall looks out the side cockpit window, sees Carlton's F-15 fly steady with
his.
COL. CARLTON: I'm sorry, sir. (Carlton salutes Marshall. Marshall returns it.)
MARSHALL: Thanks for your help, Colonel.
(Air force one)
(27)
Ricky: I dont eat bacon, remember?
Barbara: Im sorry. I must have forgotten.
(American Beauty)
15
(28)
Ray: Im sorry I was rude just then.
Dorothy: Its OK. We are in it together now.
(Jerry Maguire)
(29)
Annabel: Maureens getting a divorce.
Joe: Im sorry to hear that.
(Youve got mail)
(30)
Hank: Mom, I'm really sorry I burned the house down.
Janine: Is that it? I'm really anxious now to get on the road. (Marvins room)
(31)
Jack: Rose!! In here!
(Rose hears his voice behind her. She spins and runs back, locating the right
door, then pushes it open, creating a small wave. She splashes over Jack and puts
her arms around him.
Rose: Jack, Jack, Jack... I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
(Titanic)
The use of apologize or apology/ies is extremely rare (3.8%) in Owens (1983)
British corpus due to the fact that explicit performative formulae are used only
between distant relationships and restricted to formal, written interactions or in a
monologue fashion. However, the occurrences in film data were comparably higher
(9.6%) but the situations for using apologies were similar; that is, apologies were
made between strangers as shown in example (32), to the public in example (33) or to
people of higher social status in a monologue fashion in example (34). But the only
two exceptions were that the formulae apologize and apology can be found between
intimate relationships especially when one party wanted to make up after argument as
shown in example (35). On the other hand, monologue fashion was not exclusively
applying the formulae, apologize only, there were some cases using excuse me as
shown in example (36) and Im sorry in example (37). It could be interpreted that in
romance movies the director might want to create the tension between protagonists so
that strong emotions and feelings elaborated verbally by using apology might arouse
the audiences interest in looking forwards to what will happen next. Such private
moment is hard to observe in naturally-occurring settings. Similarly, with regard to
monologues, in real life people seldom talk that long without being interrupted.
However, in film the director might want to create the climax or space for the speaker
to spell out his/her mind, which results in a variety of syntactic uses of apology.
(32)
STELLA: It's a good thing he had your name circled in the phone book. I would
have called the police.
16
PROFESSOR EMMETT BROWN: Well, Mrs. Baines, Mr. Baines, thank you for
your trouble. Both Marty and I apologize
for the inconvenience. We'll get him home
and as good as new.
(33)
(Back to the future)
Max: Any more announcements?
William: Wellactually, yes. I feel I must apologize to everyone for my
behavior for the last six months. I have, as you know, been slightly
down these months.
(Notting Hill)
(34)
Lester: Pity, it tells it like it is. That's why the eastern, read Jewish, publishing
establishment won't touch it. That's a quote from the book jacket. George
Will, I think. (beat) I apologize if you can't understand a word I'm saying,
Dr. Schwartz.
Dr.: I understand perfectly.
(American Beauty)
(35)
DOROTHY: You don't have to explain.
JERRY: Look, the other night, I want to apologize.
DOROTHY: (can't read her) Yeah, what happened there.
(Jerry Maguire)
(36)
MARCEE: Now I don't know what you do for your five-percent, but this man,
my husband has a whole plan, an image... we majored in marketing,
Jerry, and when you put him in a Waterbed Warehouse commercial,
excuse me, you are making him common. He is pure gold and you're
giving him "Waterbed Warehouse" when he deserves the big four
shoe, car, clothing- line, soft-drink. The four jewels of the celebrity
endorsement dollar.
(Jerry Maguire)
(37)
PATRICIA (cont'd): I'm sorry. I can't talk about it without crying. Veronica and
I have so much in common -- well, not all the sad parts -- but
we were both famous by the time we were 29 and, believe
me, that's rough.
(wipes her nose with a Kleenex, pulling herself together)
Anyway, I just want to say that I'm especially thrilled to be publishing
it. Veronica lives in my building and we met
in the
elevator. By the time we had traveled from the eighth floor
to the first, we had a deal. First printing:
one million
copies.
(Youve got mail)
17
The pervious section discussed that similarities between film and Owens British
data lie in their dominant usages of the expression of regret, I am (Im) + (intensifier)
sorry + that S /to VP/ if S/ about that. The differences lie in their percentages of the
occurrences of apology with film data (9.6%) being higher than the British data
(3.8%) On the other hand, the situations when apologies occurred varied. In this
section, we can find another three different aspects between film and Owens corpus
including usages of afraid, forgive me and excuse me. Owen (1983) proposed that
when Im afraid is followed by a full complement sentence, the function of the
utterance is to express regret and thus the remedial effect may be achieved. There are
a total of 7 cases in her data; however, in film data we did find one case of using
afraid as shown in example (38). But it was linked with Im sorry so the single
formula of Im afraid was counted as zero in my film data. Secondly, the instance of
forgive was absent in Owens data but it did occur in the film (a total of 4 cases) as
shown in example (39) when a mother wanted to win back her daughter and in
example (40) when Rose asked one of the crew members on board if the number of
life boat was enough, and used forgive me to tone down the imposition of her request.
It could be interpreted that as movies are emotion-packed, the audience might
appreciate passions using strong verbal inflations such as forgive to make the episode
more dramatic. The last semantic-syntactic difference lies in the usage of excuse me,
which is virtually absent in Owens British data. Since it is more related to the issue of
the context of apologies, it would be discussed in the next section.
(38)
FLORIS: Please have a seat, Mr. Juarez
GRAIG: Schwartz.
FLORIS: Pardon?
GRAIG: Schwartz.
FLORIS: I'm sorry, I'm afraid I have no idea what you're saying right now.
GRAIG: My name is Schwartz.
(Being John Malkovich)
(39)
Mom : I'm sorry I was so harsh on you. Can you forgive me?
Anne : ( weak up and didn't say anything )
(The Others)
(40)
ROSE: Mr. Andrews, I did the sum in my head, and with the number of lifeboats
times the capacity you mentioned... forgive me, but it seems that there are
not enough for everyone aboard.
ANDREWS: About half, actually. Rose, you miss nothing, do you? In fact, I put
in these new type daviLinests, which can take an extra row of
boats here.
(Titanic)
18
(43)
ROSE: Excuse me. (She stalks away).
RUTH :I do apologize.
(Titanic)
In CCSARP, the use of the five strategies all occur in the data, but the
distribution of strategies varies across the situations. Olshtain (1989) only mentions
the degrees of using strategies vary across situations, but he didnt specify the
tendency that what strategy is most favored under which situation. Situations in
CCSARP include a university professor who has not corrected a students paper, a
student forgetting to return a book to the professor, a manger who is late for an
appointment, a waiter serving the wrong course, a student being late for a meeting
with his friend, a drive and an insult. However, the category cannot fit in film data in
that film is emotion and action compacted. Minor mistakes such as bumping into
someone may not appear in film. Borrowing books might only occur in films
featuring campus life. Fortunately, Holmes (1990) categorizes the offense type into
six. Firstly, the type of inconvenience relates to actions, which have inconvenienced
the addressee for not providing necessary information or not performing adequately in
a particular context or having providing inadequate service, which inconvenience the
addressee. The second type of offense, Space, refers to the infringement on anothers
personal space, which might occasion apologies. Examples include walking too close
or bumping into someone. The third type is talk, which refers to the act of intruding
the addressees talk or another infringement of the rules of polite talk. Examples like
mispronouncing someones name, or a waiter misunderstand what the customer
ordered. The fourth category is time, which is related to one person wasting another
persons time and the fifth category is possession, which involves damage or loss to
the addressees belongings. And the last type of offense refers to social gaff, which
occurs when the apologizer failed to observe social etiquette rule like burping. To fit
those categories into film data, the inconvenience type needs to be added one more
possibility; that is, the failure to fulfill the addressees expectation, which is the most
common type in romance/comedy movies as shown in example (44) when the
manager could accept Erins job application, who hasnt worked for six years due to
raising babies, and in example (45) where an unexpected pregnancy might disappoint
the addressee. And for the social category, situations like hearing someones death as
shown in example (46) or saluting to the higher status officials in example (26) need
to be included.
(44)
ERIN: You said things would be fine, and they're not.
ED: I'm sorry about that. Really. But -(Erin Brockovich)
(45)
20
MARCEE:(explodes) And say what? "Please remove your dick from my ass?!"
Both men look at her. The outburst has surprised even Marcee.
MARCEE: (continuing) I'm sorry. I'm a little pregnant right now.
TIDWELL: I feel like crying. I feel like breaking the room up. (Jerry Macquire)
(46)
DONNA: I know. They're more than a bit unusual. See, two years ago, Pete got
Hodgkin's disease. That's a kind of cancer -ERIN: Yeah, I'm real sorry to hear that.
DONNA: Thank you.
(Erin Brockovich, 1998)
The distribution of type of offense in film data and the use of strategy of each
offense type is shown in Table 5. The Inconvenience type occupies the most
proportion of the offense type (43.7%) with the strategy of IFID (18.3%) and
combination of strategies (25.4%). It is not hard to find that in this convenience type
of various situations, more uses of combination of strategies are used to pacify the
addressees. There was only one occurrence in the category of space as shown in
example (23) due to the fact that invading someones territory or making ones way
through were not considered significant in developing the plot. Thirdly, the talk type
occupied the second highest occurrences in film (26.4%) with a dominant strategy of
IFID (19.3%) as shown in example (47). In film the offense type of talk was often
related to the apology without hearing things clearly or asking someone to repeat a
bit; therefore, one single strategy was enough to account for this minor offense.
Similarly, the third highest offence type was time (22.8%) with comparatively more
uses of IFID (18.8%). Possession offense type occurred much less in film data (2.5%)
than in Holmes New Zealand data (10.9%) (1990: 178). All of those occurrences
were from one movie, Erin Brockovich, which portrayed a woman striving to earn
money to raise her family. In the social guru category, the dominant strategy use was
IFID including Im sorry (2 cases), and excuse me (5 cases). It corresponds to Brokin
and Rinharts (1978) finding about their American data that breaches of social rules
are most likely to elicit Excuse me.
Table 5: Distribution and strategy use for types of offense
Offense Type
IFID
36
18.3%
Combination of strategies
50
25.4%
SUBTOTAL
86
43.7%
0.5%
Inconvenience
Space
IFID
21
SUBTOTAL
0.5%
IFID
38
19.3%
Combination of strategies
14
7.1%
SUBTOTAL
52
26.4%
IFID
37
18.8%
Combination of strategies
4.0%
SUBTOTAL
45
22.8%
IFID
1.5%
Combination of strategies
1.0%
SUBTOTAL
2.5%
IFID
4.1%
SUBTOTAL
4.1%
TOTAL
197
100%
Talk
Time
Possession
Social
(47)
DONNA: Erin, this here's Frank Melendez. He works over at the compressor
station
ERIN: I'm sorry. What were you saying?
(Erin Brokovich, 1998)
(48)
ERIN: Settle down? I got 74 bucks to my name, Mr. Marshy! I can't afford to
settle down!
ED: I'm sorry, Erin.
(Erin Brockovich, 1998)
5.4 Who apologize: Gender distribution
Investigation of gender difference is still at an early stage. Olshtain and Cohen
(1983) commented on sex differences between responses to complaints from native
and non-native speakers of English in role-play situations. On the contrary, Fraser
(1981) found in his ethnographical data that women did not offer more apologies than
men, which was contrary to popular stereotype. In film, males made 123 apologies
(63%), which outnumber apologies made by females (37%) (Table 6). This is
especially true when males apologized to females. It could be interpreted that in
romance movies, males were portrayed as polite gentlemen and oftentimes males
would apologize first to their female counterparts in order to maintain close
relationships. This finding confirms Frasers comments that women did not apologize
22
more than men did; instead, men even apologize more than women.
Table 6: Gender differences in apologies
Offender
Number
Female-Female
23
11.7%
Female-Male
51
25.9%
Male-Female
70
35.5%
Male-Male
53
26.9%
TOTAL
197
100%
6. CONCLUSION
This study has examined the validity of film language by comparing apologies
in American features films with those in existing literature. Similarities can be
observed from the aspects of dominant use of a single IFID strategy with expression
of regret being the most frequent across situations, and also a predominance
percentage of the syntactic formulae of sorry confirmed by Owen (1983: 66) shown as
follows:
(21) I am (Im) + (intensifier) sorry + that S /to VP/ if S/ about that.
However, there are indeed some minor differences regarding the formulae, apologize,
between intimates, the context when apologies occurred as well as gender
distribution. Despite those differences, apologies in film do reflect a large portion of
real-life situations. Therefore, in teaching students how to apologize, film can be a
good resource, especially for EFL learners who have limited opportunities to interact
with native speakers to gain such pragmatic knowledge. Teachers can make lesson
plans first to arouse students pragmatic awareness first, teach them different
strategies to apologize, ask students to find out what they observe in the film data,
initiate discussions on appropriateness of film language, and even ask students to role
play situation found in film (Appendix C). Film is therefore providing students an
authentic context to know how to behave appropriately in the target culture. In this
way, in addition to training students listening and speaking skills, film can be a good
resource for developing learners pragmatic knowledge.
As for the connection between research and pragmatics, current results do
have a satisfactory parallel finding with previous research. However, the selection of
films and a particular speech act (i.e. complaint, request, thanking) under
investigation might influence the results. For future research, more speech act can be
analyzed as well as a wide variety of film genres, including war, horror, history and
crimes to yield more reliable results. In addition, social aspects of apologies such as
participant relationships, gender distribution as well as responses to apology can be
further explored. This study is only a start inspired by Roses work on compliment in
23
film (2001). The observation made in this study might be preliminary; however, it is
hoped that such study is a point of departure to investigate how frequent and
significant phenomenon in film parallel our daily interaction.
24
References
Allan, M. (1985). Teaching English with video. London: Longman.
Bardovi-Harlig, K., Hartford, B. A. S., Mahan-Taylor, R., Morgan, M. J., & Reynolds,
D. W. (1991). Developing pragmatic awareness:closing the conversation. ELT,
45, 4-15.
Bergman, M. L., & Kasper, G. (1993). Perception and performance in native and
nonnative apology. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage
pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests
and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural
study of speech -act realization pattterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5,
196-213.
Borkin, A., & Rinhart, S. (1978). Excuse me and I'm sorry. TESOL Quarterly, 12(1),
57-69.
Broken, A., & Reinhart, S. M. (1978). Excuse and I'm sorry. TESOL Quarterly, 12(1),
57-69.
Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1981). Developing a measure of sociocultural
competence: The case of apology. Language Learning, 31(1), 113-134.
Cohen, A. D., Olshtain, E., & Rosenstein, D. S. (1986). Advanced EFL apologies:
What remains to be learned. International Journal of the Sociology of
Language, 62, 51-74.
Fraser, B. (1981). On apologizing. In F. Coulmas (Ed.), Conversational routine (pp.
259-271). The Hague: Mouton.
Holmes, J. (1989). Sex Differences and Apologies: One aspect of communicative
competence. Applied Linguistics, 10(2), 194-213.
Holmes, J. (1990). Apologies in New Zealand English. Language in Society, 19, 155199.
Holmes, J. (1995). Women, men and politeness. London: Longman.
Kasper, G., & Dahl, M. (1991). Research methods in interlanguage pragmatics.
Studies in second language acquisition, 13(2), 215-247.
Lonergan, J. (1984). Video in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Manes, J., & Wolfson, N. (1981). The compliment formula. In F. Coulmas (Ed.),
Conversational Routine: Explorations in standardized communication
situations and prepatterned speech. New York: Mounton de Gruyter.
Meier, A. J. (1998). Apologies: What do we know? International Journal of Applied
Linguistics, 8(2), 215-231.
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Appendix C
Learning English Through Movies
By Josephine Huang joehuang@mail.sjsmit.edu.tw
http://www.sjsmit.edu.tw/jo
I.
Introduction:
Films have been used widely as a resource in EFL classes. However, oftentimes it is
used mainly for listening and speaking skills. However, films have potentials for
developing students pragmatic awareness. In this activity, we are going to look at
how people apologize in different contexts in the films chosen by you.
II.
Warm up
Do you know how to apologize appropriately according to the situation you are in?
There are five strategies, two of which are general and three of which are situationspecific.
(1) The first one is to use formulaic expressions containing explicit
performative verbs, such as Im sorry; Excuse me; I regret; I
apologize to explicitly express an apology.
(2) To express responsibility, which reflects the speakers degree of
willingness to admit to fault for the offense. EG: Its all my fault. I
have made a mistake. I shouldnt have done that.
(3) To give an explanation which indirectly cause the apologizer to commit
the offense. For example, the students may say, The bus is late. To
account for the reason being late for class.
(4) To give an offer of repair. The apologizer may seek ways to make up
the loss or provide some kind of payment which results from the
offense. EG. When you failed to return the book to someone you
borrowed, you may say, Ill buy you a new one, or Ill treat you a
lunch.
(5) To promise non-occurrence. The apologizer promised not to allow the
offense to happen again. EG. When you split milk over the carpet, you
may promise you mom that, I wont do that again.
III.
Setting
Now, its your turn to select all of the apology scenes in the movie you choose. You
can choose to work in a group of two or even better, work alone. Choose any tile you
like. Write at least FIVE scenes relating to apology for each movie. If you fail to find
that many, you can see another movie. REMEMBER, the more the better. You need to
do the following:
32
CLASS:
NAME:
NO:
Time released:
1997
Links
http://plaza18.mbn.or.jp/~happywel/script/mbfw.html
Apology 1
Reason for being sorry
Lines
Chinese Translation
Apology 2..
Apology 5
IV.
Reflections
After freely exploring, do you know better about this movie now? What have you
learned from this movie? In terms of the activity, what difficulties did you meet? Do
you like this kind of assignment? Why or why not? What do you feel about this
activity?
V.
Vocabulary Learned
RELATED LINKS:
Drew's Scripts-O-Rama Index http://www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml
(A collection of movie scripts)
The Internet Movie Database http://us.imdb.com/
(16,000 titles with video clips and reviews for class use)
33