The Impact Of Social Power On Apology Speech Act

A contrastive study has been conducted in this thesis among American English, Japanese and Chinese in terms of the impact of social power on apology speech act, aiming at analyzing the apology strategies adopted by participants, and in particular, the relationship between super-ordinates and subordinates so as to uncover the underlying differences of the culture and value in different nations.The ultimate purpose of the present research is to understand which culture attaches more importance to social power, to get an insight into the cultural differences for better communication and to teach students to use appropriate apology strategies in different situations. The present research may enrich the speech act theory and offer instructions on communication.The present research involves qualitative and quantitative analyses in terms of situations and strategies. Analyses on the quantitative data obtained enable the author to find out cultural similarities and differences. Data collecting includes interviews as well as DCT tests through questionnaires in English, Japanese and Chinese; the questionnaires contain four social groups, each of which containing two sub-situations: one is super to sub and the other is sub to super.Referring to the previous research achivements, eight strategies are adopted in the thesis. They are: IFID; Offer of repair; Taking responsibility; Explanation; Promise of forebearance; Showing concern; Minimizing the degree of offense and Objecting apologizing.Data analyses indicate that"IFID"and"Offer of repair"are two popular strategies adopted by all language users. In terms of situations, the first four situations are greatly affected by social power, and the last four situations are much influenced by severity of offence. Even though there are many similarities, differences can not be ignored.American super-ordinates use less number of strategies and intensifiers;"Explanation"(mainly in Situations 3 and 5) and"Taking responsibility"are their popular choices besides"IFID"and"Offer of repair". American subordinates tend to use fewer strategies; they show respect to super-ordinates through intensifiers to some degree, and they use much less intensifiers than Japanese and Chinese do. The slightest difference in the use of intensifiers can be shown between super and sub, indicating that Americans seem to be careless about social power so much as Japanese and Chinese.Japanese super-ordinates like to use"Taking responsibility","Showing concern"and"Promise of forbearance"besides"IFID"and"Offer of repair". They use more negative politeness strategies than positive ones, fewer intensifiers than subordinates, and more honorifics in simplified style. Japanese subordinates like to use various types of honorifics like"sonkeigo","kenjyogo"in"keitai", and to use many intensifiers and complicated ways to express apologies like"IFID","Responsibility","Promise of forbearance","Offer of repair""Showing concern". The greatest difference in the use of intensifiers can be shown between super and sub, indicating that Japanese pay more attention to social power.Chinese super-ordinates are likely to use complicated ways to apologize, adopting"IFID","Explanation","Showing concern"and"Offer of repair"together. In order to show concern to his or her staff, to save the victim's negative face, they use"Showing concern"and"Offer of repair"more often than the other two. Chinese subordinates put more strategies together and are more likely to explain why they made the mistake or promise never to repeat the mistake. The use of intensifiers shows that Chinese is next to Japanese in the use of intensifiers, which shows that Chinese also lay emphasis on social power.The result shows that American culture is a low-context culture and is characterized by the rights and autonomy of individuals, and people rely on personal judgments and actions, while Chinese culture, and Japanese culture belonging to high-context culture put more emphasis on social harmony; they are negative-politeness-oriented, and pay more attention to social power than Americans.