On apologising in negative and positive politeness cultures / Eva Ogiermann.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ogiermann, Eva.

Series:

Pragmatics & beyond ; v. 191.

Pragmatics & beyond new series, 0922-842X ; v. 191

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Apologizing--Cross-cultural studies.

Apologizing.

Social interaction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (312 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, Pa. ; Amsterdam : John Benjamins Pub. Company, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book investigates how speakers of English, Polish and Russian deal with offensive situations. It reveals culture-specific perceptions of what counts as an apology and what constitutes politeness. It offers a critical discussion of Brown and Levinson's theory and provides counterevidence to the correlation between indirectness and politeness underlying their theory. Their theory is applied to two languages that rely less heavily on indirectness in conveying politeness than does English, and to a speech act that does not become more polite through indirectness. An analysis of the face considerations involved in apologising shows that in contrast to disarming apologies, remedial apologies are mainly directed towards positive face needs, which are crucial for the restoration of social equilibrium and maintenance of relationships. The data show that while English apologies are characterised by a relatively strong focus on both interlocutors' negative face, Polish apologies display a particular concern for positive face. For Russian speakers, in contrast, apologies seem to involve a lower degree of face threat than they do in the other two languages.

Contents:

Cross-cultural pragmatics

The culture-specificity of politeness

The speech act of apologising

Literature review

Methodological considerations

Data collection

Illocutionary force indicating devices: IFIDs

Accounts

Positive politeness apology strategies

On the culture-specificity of apologies

Conclusion.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612395512

9781282395510

1282395513

9789027288899

9027288895

OCLC:

712986277