A Look into the Politic Apologies in Iran
Journal Title: Journal of Researches in Linguistics - Year 2020, Vol 12, Issue 1
Abstract
Abstract: Apologizing is an ethical speech act that is addressed to the offended to alleviate him /her by the offender who has committed an offence. Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984) specified illocutionary force indicating device (IFID), taking responsibility, account/ explanation, offer of repair and promise of forbearance as the building blocks (movements) of an apology of which the presence of the first two strategies indicates sincerity, the others are situation-based. The present article intends to investigate the Iranian politicians’ apologies broadcasted in the national and local media so as to specify if there is any difference among them and if they are different in terms of sincerity. The data found, i.e. 93 apologies, are categorized into 4 groups including politicians at presidency constituency (the president himself, vice presidents, spokesmen, and …), ministers, state governors and local governors and analyzed based on X2 statistical test. The data investigated, the three major 1-3 movement paradigms and the 10 minor paradigms were found, wherein there was no significant difference among these groups in terms of 1 and 2 movement strategies; however, there is a significant difference among these groups in 3 movement apologies indicating that ministers made more use of them. Furthermore, the findings show that there is no meaningful difference among the politicians and all of them deny any responsibility; this takes their apologies seriously into question as this is a great factor influencing the sincerity of an apology. Keywords: Illocutionary force indicating device (IFID), Offence, Strategy, Politic Apologies, Apologetic Paradigms, Sincerity Introduction: Apology is a post-event speech act that is addressed to an offended after a violation or an offence by an offender to create appeasement. Holmes (1990: 150) contends that an apology is: A speech act addressed to B’s face-needs and intended to remedy an offence for which A takes responsibility, and thus to restore equilibrium between A and B (where A is the apologizer, and B is the person offended). Many researches including Olshtain and Cohen (1983), Trosborg (1987), Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989), Holmes (1989), Reiter (2000), Robinson (2004), Barron (2009), Ogiermann (2009), Leech (2014) have agreed with Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984: 206-209) in specifying the elements of an apology which are: 1. Illocutionary force indicating device (IFID) which selects a routinized, formulaic expression of regret (a performative verb) such as: (be) sorry, apologize, regret, excuse, etc. 2. Taking on responsibility. In the attempt to placate H, S often chooses to take on responsibility for the offence which created the need to apologize. 3. Explanation 4. Offer of repair 5. Promise of forbearance The first two strategies, found in almost all apologies from different languages they investigated in a research project called A Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP), indicate the sincerity of an apology. The others are situation based. Politic apologies are, in the “Age of Apology” (as it is called by Brooks, 1999; Lakoff, 2000; Harris, et al. 2006; Gibney et al. 2007; Lind, 2008; Sanz, 2012), at their “painful infancy” (Fraser, 1981: 70). The present article intends to investigate the apologies of Iranian statesmen including presidency constituency (the president himself, vice-presidents, spokesmen, and…), ministers, state governors, local governors and parliamentary members (MPs) to find if their apologies are of some paradigms, and whether or not their apologies are sincere. Drawing attention from a plethora of disciplines such as sociology, politics, pragmatics, speech acts theory, politeness, etc., the literature on apology is voluminous; yet it lags so much behind in political apologies; however, it is gaining speed. Material and Methodology The data (93 cases of politic apologies) for this study were excerpted from local and national media. Although a good deal of the data belong to the President Ruhani’s eras, but still one can find traces from other presidents’ periods. Of these 20 cases belong to the presidency constituency, 30 to the minsters, 22 to the state governors, and 21 to the local governors. Based on the 5 movements/ strategies identified by Blum-Kulka and Olstain (1984), these apologies were divided into five groups ranging from paradigms with one strategy to the ones with 5 strategies. But it was found that four and five movement paradigms were of no frequency, thus omitted from the analysis. The IFID itself formed a category with 1 movement. The paradigms with two movements were categorized into 4 sub-categories and the paradigms with three movements were categorized into five subcategories; the data were inserted into different tables relative to the 4 identified political groups. Discussion and Findings Based on the data found and X2 statistical test, it was found that the Iranian Politicians’ apologies follow three different paradigms (1, 2 and 3 movement(s)). There is no significant difference among the four politician groups in apologies made in 1 and 2 movements; however, there is a significant difference among these groups in 3 movement apologies indicating that ministers made more use of them. Still, among the different output strategies, those strategies which included an explanation of the reasons why those mistakes had taken place, were significantly higher in number compared to the other strategies. Furthermore, the findings show there is no meaningful difference among the politicians, and none of them accepts any responsibility; this takes their apologies seriously into question as this is a great factor influencing the sincerity of an apology.
Authors and Affiliations
Hossein Rahmani* Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Payam-e-Noor, Tehran, Iran. hosein_rahmani@pnu. ac. ir
Keywords
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- EP ID EP705247
- DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.22108/jrl.2021.126435.1538
- Views 116
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