1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Pragmatics
  4. Volume 22, Issue 4
  5. Article
Volume 22, Issue 4
  • ISSN 1018-2101
  • E-ISSN: 2406-4238
PDF

Abstract

This article provides insights into the strategies used by a group of university students of Canarian origin to perform the speech act of apologizing. Though Canarian Spanish has been recognised as one of the most deeply studied dialects in the Hispanic world (Medina 1996; Álvarez 1996; Corrales, Álvarez and Corbella 2007), little has been said about this variety at the socio-pragmatic level, and, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have been carried out on the issue of speech acts, let alone about apologies in Canarian Spanish. This article attempts to start filling this gap by describing the most frequent apology strategies used by one hundred university students at the ULPGC (Canary Islands, Spain) when apologizing in eight different situations. Following the lines of many other studies, we obtained the data through the application of a Discourse Completion Test, slightly adapted from the well-known CCSARP (Cross-cultural Speech Act Realisation Project). Gender differences are explored, along with the role of other situational factors such as degree of familiarity between the participants, severity of the offense and age of the offended person. Suggestions for further work in the fields of intercultural pragmatics and EFL teaching and learning are also given.

© 2012 International Pragmatics Association
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/prag.22.4.01gon
2012-01-01
2024-12-11

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/prag.22.4.01gon
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Afghari, Akbar
    (2007) A sociopragmatic study of apology speech act realization patterns in Persian. Speech Communication49: 177–185. doi: 10.1016/j.specom.2007.01.003
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2007.01.003 [Google Scholar]
  2. Álvarez, Alexandra , and María Alejandra Blondet
    (2009) ‘Pero te traje algo para resarcirme’: La disculpa en una cultura de cortesía valorizante. In D. Bravo , N. Hernández Flores , and A. Cordisco (eds.), Aportes pragmáticos, sociopragmáticos y socioculturales a los estudios de la cortesía en español. Estocolmo/Buenos Aires: Edice/Editorial Dunken, pp.297–320.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Álvarez Martínez , Mª Ángeles
    (1996) Sobre algunas construcciones sintácticas en el español de Canarias. In Javier Medina López , and Dolores CorbellaDíaz (eds.), El español de Canarias hoy: Análisis y perspectivas. Madrid/Frankfurt & Main: Vervuert/Iberoamericana, pp.67–82.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Attardo, Salvatore
    (2003) Introduction: The pragmatics of humour. Journal of Pragmatics35: 1287–1294. doi: 10.1016/S0378‑2166(02)00178‑9
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00178-9 [Google Scholar]
  5. Ballesteros, F.J.
    (2001) La cortesía española frente a la cortesía inglesa: Estudio pragmalingüístico de las exhortaciones impositivas. Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense9: 171–207.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bataineh, Ruba Fahmi , and Rula FahmiBataineh
    (2006) Apology strategies of Jordanian EFL university students. Journal of Pragmatics38: 1901–1927. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2005.11.004
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.11.004 [Google Scholar]
  7. (2008) A cross-cultural comparison of apologies by native speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics40: 792–821. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2008.01.003
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.01.003 [Google Scholar]
  8. Beebe, Leslie M. , and Martha C. Cummings
    (1996) Natural speech act data versus written questionnaire data. In Susan M. Gass , and Joyce Neu (eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp.65–86.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana , Juliane House , and Gabriele Kaper
    (1989) Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana
    (1992) The metapragmatics of politeness in Israeli society. In R. Watts , S. Ide , and K. Ehlich (eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory and practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Bolívar, Adriana
    (2010) Las disculpas en el discurso político latinoamericano. In Franca Orletti , and Laura Mariottini (eds.), (Des)cortesía en español. Espacios teóricos y metodológicos para su estudio. IV Coloquio programa EDICE, pp.491–519.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Boretti, Susana H.
    (2009) Una justificación de la aplicabilidad de la pragmática sociocultural al estudio de la cortesía. Contextos socioculturales en la Argentina. In D. Bravo , N. Hernández Flores , and A. Cordisco (eds.), Aportes pragmáticos, sociopragmáticos y socioculturales a los estudios de la cortesía en español. Estocolmo/Buenos Aires: Edice/Editorial Dunken, pp.231–269.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Bou Franch, Patricia , and Nuria Lorenzo-Dusa
    (2008) Natural versus elicited data in cross-cultural speech act realisation. The case of requests in Peninsular Spanish and British English. Spanish in Context5.2: 246–277. doi: 10.1075/sic.5.2.06lor
     https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.5.2.06lor [Google Scholar]
  14. Bravo, Diana
    (1999) Imagen ‘positiva’ vs. Imagen ‘negativa’: Pragmática sociocultural y componentes de FACE. Oralia. Análisis del discurso oral2: 155–184.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Bravo, Diana , and Antonio Briz
    (eds.) (2004) Pragmática sociocultural: Estudios sobre el discurso de cortesía en español. Barcelona: Ariel.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Bravo, Diana
    (2004) Tensión entre universalidad y relatividad en las teorías de la cortesía. In D. Bravo , and A. Briz (eds.), InPragmática sociocultural: Estudios del discurso de cortesía en español. Barcelona: Ariel, pp.15–37.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. (2009) Pragmática, sociopragmática y pragmática sociocultural del discurso de la cortesía. Una introducción. In D. Bravo , N. Hernández Flores , and A. Cordisco (eds.), Aportes pragmáticos, sociopragmaticos y socioculturales a los estudios de la cortesía en español. Estocolmo/Buenos Aires: Edice/Editorial Dunken, pp.31–56.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Bravo, Diana , Nieves Hernández Flores , and Ariel Cordisco
    (eds.) (2009) Aportes pragmáticos, sociopragmáticos y socioculturales a los estudios de la cortesía en español. Estocolmo/Buenos Aires: EDICE/Editorial Dunken.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Cohen, A.D. , and E. Olshtain
    (1981) Developing a measure of sociocultural competence: The case of apology. Language Learning31: 113–134. doi: 10.1111/j.1467‑1770.1981.tb01375.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1981.tb01375.x [Google Scholar]
  20. Cordella, Marisa
    (1990) Apologizing in Chilean Spanish and Australian English: A cross-cultural perspective. Aral series5.7: 66–92.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. (1991) Spanish Speakers apologizing in English: A cross-cultural pragmatic study. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics14.2: 115–38.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Corrales Zumbado, Cristóbal , Mª Ángeles Álvarez Martínez , and Dolores CorbellaDíaz
    (2007 [1988]) El español de Canarias. Guía bibliográfica. Tenerife: Instituto de Estudios Canarios.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Cummings, Louise
    (2010) The Pragmatics Encyclopedia. London/New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Curelli Gotor, Hortensia , and María Sabatéi Dalmau
    (2007) The production of apologies by proficient Catalan learners of English: Sociopragmatics failures and cultural interference. In Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich et al. (eds.), Studies in Intercultural, cognitive and social pragmatics. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Publishing, pp.76–92.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Davies, Bethany , John Merrison , and Angela Goddard
    (2007) Institutional apologies in UK higher education: Getting back into the black before going into the red. Journal of Politeness Research3.1: 39–63.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Dumitrescu, Domnita
    (2011) Aspects of Spanish Pragmatics. New York: Peter Lang.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Duranti, A.
    (1992) Language in context and language as context: The Samoan respect vocabulary. In A. Duranti , and C. Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context. Language as an interactive phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.77–99.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Ellis, R.
    (1994) The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Fernández Amaya, L.
    (2009) La traducción al español de estrategias de cortesía en inglés. El caso de well y you know . In D. Bravo , N. Hernández Flores , and A. Cordisco (eds.), Aportes pragmáticos, sociopragmáticos y socioculturales a los estudios de la cortesía en español. Estocolmo/Buenos Aires: EDICE/Editorial Dunken, pp.109–134.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Flowerdew, J.
    (1990) Problems of speech act theory from an applied perspective. Language Learning40.1: 1–153. doi: 10.1111/j.1467‑1770.1990.tb00955.x
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1990.tb00955.x [Google Scholar]
  31. Fraser, Bruce
    (1981) On apologizing. In Florian Coulmas (ed.), Conversational routine: Explorations in standardized, communication situation and prepatterned speech. Paris: Mouton, pp.259–271.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. García, Carmen
    (1989) Apologizing in English: Politeness strategies used by natives and non-native speakers. Multilingua8: 3–20. doi: 10.1515/mult.1989.8.1.3
     https://doi.org/10.1515/mult.1989.8.1.3 [Google Scholar]
  33. Goffman, E.
    (1967) Interaction ritual: Essays on face to face behaviour. New York: Anchor and Doubleday, Garden City.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. (1971) Relations in public. New York: Harper Coophon Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Haverkate, H.
    (2003) El análisis de la cortesía comunicativa: categorización pragmalingüística de la cultura española. In D. Bravo (ed.), Actas del primer coloquio del Programa EDICE ‘La perspectiva no etnocentrista de la cortesía: identidad sociocultural de las comunidades hispanohablantes’. Estocolmo: Programa EDICE/Universidad de Estocolmo, pp.60–70.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Hickey, L
    (2005) Politeness in Spain: Thanks but no ‘Thanks. In L Hickey , and M. Steward (eds.), Politeness in Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp.317–330.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Holmes, Janet
    (1989) Sex differences and apologies: One aspect of communicative competence. Applied Linguistics10: 194–213. doi: 10.1093/applin/10.2.194
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/10.2.194 [Google Scholar]
  38. (1990) Apologies in New Zealand English. Language in Society19.2: 155–199. doi: 10.1017/S0047404500014366
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500014366 [Google Scholar]
  39. (1995) Women, men and politeness. New York: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. House, Julianne
    (2005) Politeness in Germany: Politeness in Germany?In Leo Hickey , and Miranda Steward (eds.), Politeness in Europe. Clevendon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp.13–28.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Jebahi, Khaled
    (2011) Tunisian university students’ choice of apology strategies in a discourse completion task. Journal of Pragmatics43: 648–662. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.008
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.008 [Google Scholar]
  42. Kasanga, Luanga A. , and Joy-Christine Lwanga-Lumu
    (2007) Cross-cultural linguistic realization of politeness: A study of apologies in English and Setswana. Journal of Politeness Research3.1: 65–92.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Klaver, Muriel
    (2008) ¡Cuánto lo siento” - “Het spijt me zo!”: El arte de disculparse. Un estudio contrastivo entre el español y el neerlandés. Tesina de máster. Máster en Comunicación Intercultural.
  44. Departamento de Lengua y Cultura Hispánicas
    . Universidad de Utrecht. Accessed 19 February 2010 . Available fromigitur-archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2008-0506-200519/Masterscriptie%20Interculturele%20Communicatie.doc.
  45. Lakoff, R.
    (2003/2001) Nine ways of looking at apologies. In D. Schiffrin , D. Tannen , and H. Hamilton (eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell, pp.199–204. doi: 10.1111/b.9780631205968.2003.00011.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/b.9780631205968.2003.00011.x [Google Scholar]
  46. Lorenzo-Dus, N.
    (2001) Compliment responses among British and Spanish university students: A contrastive study. Journal of Pragmatics33: 107–127. doi: 10.1016/S0378‑2166(99)00127‑7
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00127-7 [Google Scholar]
  47. Maros, Marlina
    (2006) Apologies in English by adult Malay speakers: Patterns and competence. The International Journal of Language, Society and Culture19: 1–16. Accessed 20 February 2010 . Available fromwww.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/Journal/ARTICLES/2006/19-2.htm.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. McKay, Sandra Lee , and Nancy H. Hornberger
    (1996) Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Márquez-Reiter, Rosina
    (2000) Linguistic politeness in Britain and Uruguay: A contrastive study of requests and apologies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi: 10.1075/pbns.83
     https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.83 [Google Scholar]
  50. (2001) The case of apologies in English and Spanish. In Ana I. Moreno Vera Colwell (ed.), Perspectivas recientes sobre el discurso. León: Universidad de León, Servicio de Publicaciones y Medios Audiovisuales, D.L.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. (2008) Intra-cultural variation: Explanations in service calls to two Montevidean service providers. Journal of Politeness Research4.1: 1–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Medina López, Javier
    (1996) La investigación lingüística sobre el español de Canarias. In Javier Medina López , and Dolores CorbellaDíaz , El español de Canarias hoy: Análisis y perspectivas. Frankfurt & Main/Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, pp.9–48.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Meier, Ardith
    (1995) Passages of politeness. Journal of Pragmatics24: 381–392. doi: 10.1016/0378‑2166(94)00053‑H
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(94)00053-H [Google Scholar]
  54. Mir, Montserrat
    (1992) Do we all apologize the same? An empirical study on the act of apologizing by Spanish speakers learning English. Pragmatics and Language Learning3: 1–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Morgenthaler García, Laura
    (2008) Identidad y pluricentrismo lingüístico. Hablantes canarios frente a la estandarización. Madrid/Frankfurt & Main: Vervuert/Iberoamericana.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Norrick, Neal R. , and Alice Spitz
    (2008) Humor as a resource for mitigating conflict in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics40: 1661–1686. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2007.12.001
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.12.001 [Google Scholar]
  57. Nureddeen, Fatima Abdurahman
    (2008) Cross-cultural pragmatics: Apology strategies in Sudanese Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics40: 279–306. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2007.11.001
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.11.001 [Google Scholar]
  58. Placencia, María E. , and Diana Bravo
    (eds.) (2002) Actos de habla y cortesía en español. Munich: Lincom Europa.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Rohatgi, V.K.
    (1976) An introduction to probability theory and mathematical statistics. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Rojo, Laura
    (2005)  Te quería comentar un problemilla…The speech act of apologies in Peninsular Spanish: A pilot study. Hipertexto1: 63–80.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Robinson, Jeffrey D.
    (2004) The sequential organisation of ‘explicit’ apologies in naturally occurring English. Research on Language and Social Interaction37.3: 291–330. doi: 10.1207/s15327973rlsi3703_2
     https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi3703_2 [Google Scholar]
  62. Ruzickova, E.
    (1998) Apologies in Cuban Spanish. Paper presented at the First Hispanic Linguistics Colloquium. Ohio: Columbus.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Shariati, Mohammad , and Fariba Chamani
    (2010) Apology strategies in Persian. Journal of Pragmatics42: 1689–1699. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2009.10.007
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.10.007 [Google Scholar]
  64. Sugimoto, Naomi
    (1997) A Japan-U.S. comparison of apology strategies. Communication Research24.4: 349–369. doi: 10.1177/009365097024004002
     https://doi.org/10.1177/009365097024004002 [Google Scholar]
  65. Suszczynska, Malgorzata
    (1999) Apologizing in English, Polish and Hungarian: Different languages, different strategies. Journal of Pragmatics31: 1053–1065. doi: 10.1016/S0378‑2166(99)00047‑8
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00047-8 [Google Scholar]
  66. Swann
    et al (2004) A dictionary of sociolinguistics. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  67. Trask, R.L.
    (1999) Key concepts in Language and Linguistics. London/New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Trosborg, A.
    (1987) Apology strategies in native/non native speakers of English. Journal of Pragmatics11: 147–167. doi: 10.1016/0378‑2166(87)90193‑7
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(87)90193-7 [Google Scholar]
  69. Wagner, Lisa C.
    (1999) Towards a sociopragmatic characterization of apologies in Mexican Spanish. Unpublished Dissertation, The Ohio State University.
  70. (2004) Positive- and negative-politeness strategies: Apologizing in the speech community of Cuernavaca, Mexico. International Communication Studies13.1: 19–27.
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Wagner, Lisa C. , and Regina Roebuck
    (2010) Apologizing in Cuernavaca, Mexico and Panama City, Panama. Spanish in Context7.2: 254–278. doi: 10.1075/sic.7.2.05wag
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/sic.7.2.05wag [Google Scholar]
  72. Wierzbicka, Anna
    (1985) Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts. Polish vs. English. Journal of Pragmatics9: 145–178. doi: 10.1016/0378‑2166(85)90023‑2
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(85)90023-2 [Google Scholar]
  73. Wolfson, Nessa
    (1988) The bulge: A theory of speech behaviour and social distance. In J. Fine Norwood (ed.), Second Language Discourse: A Textbook of Current Research. New Jersey: Ablex, pp.55–83.
     [Google Scholar]
  74. Wouk, Fay
    (2006) The language of apologizing in Lombok, Indonesia. Journal of Pragmatics38: 1457–1486. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.011
     https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.011 [Google Scholar]
  75. Yule, George
    (1996) Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/prag.22.4.01gon
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Apologies; Apology strategies; Canarian Spanish; Speech acts

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error