Options
A genre analysis of Korean political apology speeches
Author
Lee, Jiyo
Supervisor
Weninger, Csilla
Abstract
An increase in public apologies since the 1990s has made some scholars claim that we are living in the Age of Apology (Brooks, 1999; Kampf, 2009) and discuss what significance public apologies have in the public arena (Lakoff, 2000; Luke, 1997; Kampf, 2009). As such, this study views public apologies as an emerging new genre in public discourse and explores political apology speeches from a genre perspective, in which genre is defined as “a dynamic response to and construction of recurring situation, one that changes historically and in different social groups, that adapts and grows as the social context changes” (Devitt, 1993, p. 580).
This study involves a close examination of four political apology speeches by Korean presidents and tries to enrich our understanding of political apologies. Specifically, it aims 1) to identify communicative purposes of the apologies, 2) to describe the overall move structure, strategies and linguistic features in the moves, and 3) to explain the move structure and linguistic features drawing on contextual factors. Following Askehave and Swales’ (2001) text-driven procedure for genre analysis, the overall move structure, strategies and linguistic features are described first. In the analysis, ‘move’ is defined as a functional unit with a specific purpose (Bhatia, 2006; Swales, 2004) and is analyzed following Biber, Connor and Upton’s (2007) general steps for move analysis. As a second analytic step, the distinctive moves and features are explained drawing on the contextual factors at the time of delivery and finally communicative purposes are derived from the preceding findings. The analyses are based on the original Korean texts, while examples are presented with English translations.
The findings indicate that this genre demonstrates several common moves, strategies and some linguistic features while also showing variability in the move structure. Based on these findings, four communicative purposes of this genre are inferred: to apologize for reconciliation, to evade responsibility for the incident (non-apologizing), to define the incident in president’s terms, and to discourage further communication about the incident. In addition, several contextual factors seem to influence the presence of moves and linguistic features across the texts. For instance, intense demand for a public apology seems to be related to confessional characteristics and extreme honorifics in the text. Particularly, the indirect and ambiguous language in the Apologizing move supports previous research that political figures produce an inexplicit apology to minimize face threat (Kampf, 2009) and to mitigate potential negative consequences that an explicit apology would result in (Bavelas, 2004).
Overall, the conflicting and complex communicative purposes identified by this study confirm the argument that such purposes embody the move structure and influence the language choice in this genre (Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990). In other words, the moves and linguistic features are found to be effectively employed in order to realize communicative purposes in the four political apology speeches. The findings also suggest that this genre intimately interacts with the social context, which reaffirms Devitt’s (1993) definition of genre.
This study involves a close examination of four political apology speeches by Korean presidents and tries to enrich our understanding of political apologies. Specifically, it aims 1) to identify communicative purposes of the apologies, 2) to describe the overall move structure, strategies and linguistic features in the moves, and 3) to explain the move structure and linguistic features drawing on contextual factors. Following Askehave and Swales’ (2001) text-driven procedure for genre analysis, the overall move structure, strategies and linguistic features are described first. In the analysis, ‘move’ is defined as a functional unit with a specific purpose (Bhatia, 2006; Swales, 2004) and is analyzed following Biber, Connor and Upton’s (2007) general steps for move analysis. As a second analytic step, the distinctive moves and features are explained drawing on the contextual factors at the time of delivery and finally communicative purposes are derived from the preceding findings. The analyses are based on the original Korean texts, while examples are presented with English translations.
The findings indicate that this genre demonstrates several common moves, strategies and some linguistic features while also showing variability in the move structure. Based on these findings, four communicative purposes of this genre are inferred: to apologize for reconciliation, to evade responsibility for the incident (non-apologizing), to define the incident in president’s terms, and to discourage further communication about the incident. In addition, several contextual factors seem to influence the presence of moves and linguistic features across the texts. For instance, intense demand for a public apology seems to be related to confessional characteristics and extreme honorifics in the text. Particularly, the indirect and ambiguous language in the Apologizing move supports previous research that political figures produce an inexplicit apology to minimize face threat (Kampf, 2009) and to mitigate potential negative consequences that an explicit apology would result in (Bavelas, 2004).
Overall, the conflicting and complex communicative purposes identified by this study confirm the argument that such purposes embody the move structure and influence the language choice in this genre (Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990). In other words, the moves and linguistic features are found to be effectively employed in order to realize communicative purposes in the four political apology speeches. The findings also suggest that this genre intimately interacts with the social context, which reaffirms Devitt’s (1993) definition of genre.
Date Issued
2011
Call Number
P302.77 Lee
Date Submitted
2011