A Corpus Pragmatic Study On The Speech Act Of Apology In Belf Meetings

Business English as a Lingua Franca(BELF)has grown to be one of the most popular research topics in business discourse studies.Without adhering to norms of English as a native language(ENL),BELF speakers produce a series of linguistic innovations.As a highly ritualized speech act in present-day English,apology could act as a lens to examine the phenomenon of language creativity.Set out to explore the idiosyncrasies of apologies in BELF,the current study aims to examine this speech act from formal and functional aspects.The general research orientation is decomposed of four research questions:(1)What are the lexical and syntactical characteristics of apologies in meetings of BELF?(2)What are the pragmatic functions of apologies in meetings of BELF?(3)How does the speech act of apology improve BELF intercultural communication?(4)What factors could account for the similarities and variations of apology between BELF and ENL?To address the four inquires,this research conducts a corpus pragmatic study on BELF communication.Research data are extracted from the business meeting subcorpus of VOICE(Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English)with the assistance of VOICE3.0 Online.Reference data will be obtained from BNC(British National Corpus)with Sketch Engine corpus tools.The results show that:(1)The distribution and frequency of apologies vary between BELF and ENL.For lexemes,BELF interlocutors make remedies much less than ENL speakers in business meetings.They tend to apologize for their offences in a homogenous way.Sorry and excuse occupy nearly 90% of all apologizing expressions.Forgive and regret are rarely emerged in BELF encounters.In terms of syntactic structures,“detached” apologies are mostly-adopted by BELF speakers.Combinations of the three sentential structures are generated as BELF innovations.(2)The speech act of apology realizes two functions in business meetings.First,it conducts discourse management by signaling speaking error,requesting for attention,requesting for repetition.Secondly,it realizes interpersonal management by mitigating the degree of offence and saving other’s face.(3)During BELF communication,apologies manage discourse processing by serving as signals for the lack of common ground,and conduct interpersonal management as mitigation markers to restore personal relationship.(4)Cultural and institutional factors could be reflected on language expressions.Intercultural environment drives BELF speakers to adapt their language to co-construct common ground in a dynamic and recursive way.Professional business situation causes a similar ratio of two pragmatic functions in BELF and ENL meetings.By exploring how apologies are applicated in BELF communication,this study offers some implications.It contributes to BELF development by legitimizing the phenomenon of linguistic creativity,represents as an addition to empirical research of apology from a dynamic perspective,and enriches corpus pragmatic explorations by centering on certain situations.