International Journal of Language & Literature

Apologizing – How Genre Affects the Changes in the Speech Act
Monika Zasko-Zielinska

Abstract
The goal of the paper is to show how external situations (cultural, institutional, social) of the suicide note genre and its component speech acts (especially: Last Will Instructions, Saying ‘I love you’ and Thanking) impact the choice of the strategies of apologizing. The results of the research conducted using Polish Corpus of Suicide Notes were compared to the description of apologizing as found in the Polish part of project Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns. Natural communicative situation reflected in the analyzed texts reveal a complex structure of the apologizing speech act with its overlapping strategies. The most noticeabledifferences between everyday apologizing and apologizing in the suicide note emerge in the strategy of Taking of Responsibility whose form depends not only on the type of the offense but also on the recipients. In suicide notes,the author knows the rules of apologizing but he adjusts them to his situation and he subordinatesthe text to his goals. The most important person in the sender-recipient relationship appears to be the author himself and the injured party remains in the shadow. In the sender’s mind, both the acceptance of the apologyand the direct contact arenot necessary.

Full Text: PDF      DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v2n3a5