Примењена лингвистика у част Ранку Бугарском - Језик у

Slavica Perović: YOU WANT AN APOLOGY? WELL, I AM SORRY!
According to our research, the most frequent preparatory act before requests
is an apology, and ritualistic apologising invariably takes place in such
situations. The phrase in English could be one of the three mentioned above.
Table 5. Pardon? Could you repeat, please?
190
1. IFID +
2. FTA (distance, power, imposition) –
3. IF repetition
4. Preferred first +
5. Mortification –
6. In one’s own name +
7. Positive politeness +
8. Felicity condition –
This is a typical kind of ritualistic apology. The formula given in Table
5 is in fact prototypical, specifying the illocutionary force which in this case is
repetition.
5. BOTCHED APOLOGIES. A special kind of ritualistic apology identified
by R. Lakoff (2003) is botched apologies. They do not meet the pragmatic requirements
under which they constitute a successful performance of the speech
act of apology. Some of the apologies listed under other headings in this paper
could also be botched apologies. They are apologies and they are not. Felicity
conditions under which such an utterance could be an apology are missing due to
the flouting of the Gricean principles mentioned above. Everyday conversation is
packed with such exchanges, but we will focus our attention on a couple found
on the Internet. One is about the former Democrat presidential nominee John
Kerry offending the soldiers in Iraq. His awareness of mortification is transparent
through the enumeration of what he thinks was wrong with his criticism of
Republicans. He lists all the harm that he did, and the way he presents this indicates
his (intuitive) knowledge of pragmatics. (It might not be mere guesswork
that G. Lakoff, who once wrote a manifesto for the American Democrats, Don’t
think of an elephant (2004), could be behind those words). John Kerry said:
“Come to think of it,” he added, “my apology didn’t admit wrongdoing, express
regret for my actions or offer to make things right. I really just blamed the troops
for misunderstanding my joke. So, perhaps ‘apology’ was not the precise term for
it.” (our italics) (http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2379).