Is Apology A Scarcity In China?--A Study On The Speech Act Of Apologizing In Chinese

This thesis attempts to discover the interactive mechanism between the social parameters (power/social distance), the situational parameters (severity/obligation) and the apology strategy selections in the Chinese context. In this empirical study on Chinese apologies, we find out that all the influencing factors are reset in the Chinese cultural background, thus bringing forth corresponding disposition of strategy selections. The final results of the thesis are then ensued: social (power/social distance) and situational (severity/obligation) parameters jointly determine apology strategies; the use of IFID and some indirect strategies in Chinese apologies shares similarities with other languages, indicating that the basic apology structure is more or less identical from one language to another; the interaction between Chinese apology strategies and social parameters, the strategy combination and the sequence of Chinese apologies all feature Chinese cultural peculiarities. All the conclusions mentioned above demonstrate that pragmatic principles are universal and meanwhile must be adapted to different cultural backgrounds.