The Pragmatic and Prosodic Realisation of Apologies: A Matter of Severity and Sincerity?

Abstract

Though apologies are noticeably well researched, the role of prosodic dimensions in their successful delivery remains strikingly underrepresented in the literature, where considerations rarely go beyond the assumption that falling intonation is rather connected with genuine and rising intonation with casual apologies (e.g. Aijmer 1996; Knowles 1987; Lindström 1976). This thesis addresses this gap by analysing its data on the prosodic level in addition to the pragmatic one in a holistic study of apologies elicited via Discourse Completion Tasks. The data consists of 246 apologies produced in situations of low, medium or high severity of the previously committed offense by 66 female speakers of American English. By applying pragmatic coding of strategies and an acoustic analysis of the prosodic dimensions pitch height, pitch contour, pitch range, speech rate and intensity, it explores impacts of this micro-social factor on both of these levels. This approach then enables a close examination of the relation between the severity of the offense and formulations used to stress underlying sincerity, the delivery of which is central to a successful apology. <br /> Among other findings, the results suggest a systematic impact of the severity of the offense on the pragmatic and prosodic formulation of apologies. Here, higher severity led to Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices with a higher number of intensifiers, uttered with tendentially slower speech rate and more often with a falling intonation contour. In addition, the apologies were produced with fewer cases of the strategy Taking on Responsibility, while it is argued that a higher frequency of Exclamations was employed to 1) stress emotional involvement and 2) indicate surprise on the prosodic level. This may be intended to emphasize a Lack of Intent behind the offense, which is in line with the result of a higher frequency of this strategy on the pragmatic level in apologies for higher severity offenses. Finally, the data suggests that a presumed lowered sense of sincerity can impact apology formulations in intriguing ways. This includes the application of pragmatic strategies rather found in lower severity apologies, while markers of sincerity on the prosodic level were seemingly impacted in more diverse ways. <br /> Overall, the study therefore confirms that pragmatic <u>and</u> prosodic dimensions serve important functions in indicating the underlying sincerity of apologies and suggests the possibility to strengthen or weaken its features in accordance with the severity of the offense and general situational appropriateness. Additional underlying attitudes, such as urgency, can make the selection of strategies on both levels even more complex. The findings yielded from this exploratory study refine our understanding of the roles of the pragmatic and prosodic levels in speech act production and serve as a source for future studies that aim to close this research gap at the pragmatics-prosody interface even further.