A Sociolinguistic Study Of Apologizing In The Beijing Speech Community

This dissertation is intended to investigate the patterns of apology in the Beijing speech community, with an attempt to uncover the rules of speaking concerning the speech act of apologizing and further demonstrate the social variables which may have influenced it. Finally, a cross-cultural comparison between Chinese and American speech act of apology is made, with an analysis of their underlying cultural causes as well.Chapter One is the literature review, in which the related theory such as communicative competence and the ethnography of communication is introduced. Moreover, the subject matter and the essential concepts of the ethnography of communication as well as the significance of speech act studies are described. Finally, the definition of the speech act of apologizing is clarified and previous work is introduced.Chapter Two talks about the reasons and goals of this research, as well as the research methodology. This study takes the ethnography of communication as the point of departure, making use of the data-collection methods like participant observation, questionnaires, interviews and elicitation from literary sources.Chapter Three reveals the findings of the research, such as the analysis of the apology strategies, apologies in relation to gender, social status, social distance, as well as offense type. This dissertation concludes that apologies used by Chinese in the Beijing area are highly formulaic, and that such social variables as sex, social status, social distance affect the apologizing behavior to some extent.Chapter Four makes a comparison of the speech act of apology cross-culturally, especially analyzes the similarities and differences between Chinese and American way of apologizing, and further reveals its cultural causes. Finally, it reaches the conclusion that as a foreigner, he should be intuitively sensitive to the cultural differences in the cross-cultural communication. What's more, he should minimize the negative transfer of his native language so as to participate appropriately and effectively in its activities.