Public acts of contrition as apologies in the British and French press

448 Pages·2013·14.66 MB·English

Public acts of contrition as apologies in the British and
French press:
Focus on evaluation and ideology
Clyde Ancarno
Thesis submitted in part fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Centre for Language and Communication Research
Cardiff University
December 2010
UMI Number: U584521
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ABSTRACT
This thesis examines the press uptakes (news reports) of public apologies in
Britain and France. Apology, as used here, includes unequivocal apologies,
equivocal apologies and refusals to apologise. The approach adopted in this study
is primarily data-driven and relies on a comprehensive bilingual (English and
French) data set including 268 news texts. The two corpora are compared to
reveal any cross-cultural variations pertaining to the speech act of public apology.
The main goal of the research is to provide a new account of public apologies by
combining methodologies from pragmatics, critical discourse analysis and corpus
linguistics.
The research presented has four main aims:
- to further develop and re-interpret the four basic components of apologies,
namely apologiser, apologisee, offence and remedy, in terms of their relation to
public apology processes. This is achieved by emphasising the different ways
used by public figures to apologise, the identity of apologisers and apologisees,
and the types of offences involved in the corpora of media texts examined.
- to describe the evaluative stancetaking in news texts in order to determine the
degree of variation in the evaluative strategies identified in the immediate framing
of verbatim apologies, and in the explicitly and implicitly evaluative metapragmatic
comments found in the press uptakes.
- to explore cross-cultural variations in the perception of public apologies, with the
particular aim of gauging any differences in representations of these apologies in
newspapers in Britain and in France. This perspective considers the extent to
which press uptakes in each country are indicative of the ways in which discourse
meanings are verbally and situationally bound.
- to determine the ways in which ideology permeates press uptakes of public
apologies. This is achieved by considering how evaluative stancetaking is used in
the corpora, thereby accessing aspects of ideological positioning as represented in
the media texts under scrutiny.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to first thank my supervisor Justine Coupland without whom this thesis
would not be. Her comments on the thesis, probing questions and the
conversations we have had have allowed me to gain an invaluable experience as
a researcher. Academically speaking, it has made this research a most inspiring
and rewarding journey. Of course any errors in the thesis are my own, but the
success I owe to Justine. Thank you for your support. Thank you to Adam
Jaworski too for his useful comments along the way.
I would also like to thank Lise Fontaine for her support and positive advice
throughout the thesis as well as proofreading. You have inspired me in more than
one way and for this I am really grateful.
A special thank you to Donna, Dinah, Martin and Kevan who also helped with the
proofreading. Many thanks to the friends (you know who you are) whom
throughout the years have shown support and faith in me, and kept encouraging
me.
Within my family, I would like to thank my father and Lyne for their
encouragements. Had my mother been alive, I know she would be proud of me. I
thank her in particular for inspiring me to study. Mamie of course you have been
great. Your constant support over the years has really touched me.
Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Salif who has only known the
‘worst’ of me and coped with living with me towards the final stages of the thesis.
Thank you for your outstanding patience, trust, care, and lovely meals! I wish we
will spend more fun time in a near and distant future.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Chapter overview 1
1.2 Evolution of public apologies 2
1.3 Towards a definition of public apologies 5
1.4 Data 8
1.4.1 Three types of apologies 8
1.4.2 Newspaper uptakes 9
1.4.3 Reasons for studying public apologies and their press uptakes 12
1.4.4 Interdisciplinary approach to the data 16
1.4.5 Media discourse as a form of representation 17
1.4.6 Database 19
1.5 Thesis focus 20
1.5.1 Two analytic categories 20
1.5.2 Research aims 22
1.6 Overview of the thesis 23
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ON PUBLIC APOLOGIES AND
EVALUATION 25
2.1 Chapter overview 25
2.2 Public apologies: what we need to know 27
2.2.1 Key issues in public apology research 28
2.2.2 What are public apologies? 34
2.2.3 Public apologies and accounts 36
2.2.4 Importance of the context 38
2.2.5 Public apology felicity conditions 41
2.2.6 Supportive co-constructed speech acts 42
2.3 Recent views on apology research 43
2.4 Evaluation 46
2.4.1 Evaluation and stance 46
2.4.2 Evaluation in news discourse 48
2.4.3 Evaluation in metapragmatic comments 50
2.5 Summary 51
CHAPTER THREE: DATA AND METHODOLOGIES 53
3.1 Chapter overview 53
3.2 Data 53
3.2.1 Newspapers represented in the corpora 55
3.2.2 Timeframe 58
3.2.3 Data retrieval method (NEXIS) 60
3.2.4 Keywords 61
3.3 Methodologies 65
3.3.1 Pragmatics 66
3.3.2 Critical discourse analysis 67
3.3.3 Corpus linguistics 73
3.4 Summary 74
CHAPTER FOUR: COLLECTION AND CODING OF APOLOGY PRESS
UPTAKES 76
4.1 Chapter overview 76
4.2 Computer-assisted method of analysis: working with ALTAS.TI 77
4.2.1 Qualitative analysis software 78
4.2.2 Project and terminology in ATLAS.TI 80
4.3 Data collection process 83
4.3.1 Final version of the corpora 84
4.3.2 Stage 1: Preliminary version of the corpora 87
4.3.3 Stage 2: Unfiltered version of the corpora 90
4.3.4 Stage 3: Focus on most newsworthy articles 92
4.3.5 Data organisation 94
4.3.6 Data collection for the study of discourse 95
4.4 Coding schema 96
4.4.1 Coding process 96
4.4.2 Thematic codes 99
4.5 Summary 102
CHAPTER FIVE: UNDERSTANDING THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF PUBLIC
APOLOGY PROCESSES 104
5.1 Chapter overview 104
5.2 Reasons behind public apologies (offences) 106
5.3 Public apology classification system 110
5.3.1 Broad public apology categories 110
5.3.2 Ways of classifying public apologies 111
5.3.3 Public apology categories explained 113
5.3.4 National and international apologies 120
5.4 Interpretation of the apparent newsworthiness of public apology categories 122
5.4.1 Distribution of public apology categories in the Extensive lists of news stories 122
5.4.2 Distribution of public apology categories across newspapers 124
5.4.3 Distribution of public apology categories in the final version of the corpora 124
5.5 Participation in public apologies 125
5.5.1 Apologisers 126
5.5.2 Apologisees and third parties 127
5.5.3 Identity of apologisers and apologisees as represented in the Extensive lists of news
stories 130
5.6 Summary 132
CHAPTER SIX: REPORTING AND FRAMING: APOLOGIES QUOTED
VERBATIM 133
6.1 Chapter overview 133
6.2 Verbatim quotes in the news media 134
6.2.1 Defining verbatim in the media 134
6.2.2 Speech quoted verbatim in the corpora 137
6.3 Verbatim apologies in the data 140
6.4 Wording of public apologies and strategies 145
6.4.1 Public apology form: core remedial acts 146
6.4.2 Public apology form: peripheral remedial acts 159
6.4.3 Peripheral strategies (beneficial to the apologisee) 160
6.4.4 Peripheral strategies (beneficial to the apologiser) 161
6.5 Evaluative stance in verbatim apologies 168
6.5.1 Stance through selection: inclusion or exclusion of verbatim apologies 168
6.5.2 Stance through mis-presentation of words used to apologise 172
6.5.3 Stance through the immediate framing of verbatim apologies 176
6.6 Summary 179
CHAPTER SEVEN: EXPLICITLY AND IMPLICITLY EVALUATIVE
METAPRAGMATIC COMMENTS 182
7.1 Chapter overview 182
7.2 Salient themes in apology press uptakes 184
7.3 Evaluation in explicitly evaluative metapragmatic comments 190
7.3.1 Explicit comments in the corpora 190
7.3.2 Overt representation of the felicity conditions of public apologies 194
7.4 Evaluation in implicitly evaluative metapragmatic comments 205
7.4.1 Implicit comments in the corpora 205
7.4.2 Reversed or disguised illocutionary forces 206
7.5 Discussion 211
7.5.1 Ideology of language 211
7.5.2 Newspaper ideologies 212
7.5.3 Commonsense discourse on public apologies in the press 215
7.5.4 Blurring of societal boundaries 217
7.6 Summary 218
CHAPTER EIGHT: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 221
8.1 Chapter overview 221
8.2 Key findings 222
8.3 Limitations of the research and suggestions for new routes of enquiry 227
8.4 New trends in public apologising? 230
REFERENCES 232
APPENDIX 1: ARTICLES MENTIONED IN THE RESEARCH 245
Art. 1/ The art of saying sorry in Brighton on Tuesday (...)- Never explain 245
Art. 21 You Call That an Apology? - Evolution of apologies 248
Art. 3/ Why can’t more people just say sorry? - Non-apology 250
Art. 4/ Mea culpa connoisseurs lap up tears - Non-apology apology 255
Art. 5/ British Muslims plan a summer vision - Eurabia 256
Art. 6/ Police told to give public apology (...)- Request for apology (article discarded) 257
Art. 7/ Cops were right (...)- Request for apology (article discarded) 258
Art. 81 Voice of the Daily Mirror: So who’s sorry now - Several apologies focussed on 259
Art. 9/ Victoria Beckham wins damages over ‘rude’ claim - Minimal uptake 260
Art. 10/ Foot in mouth disease (...)- Article on apologising in general 260
Art. 11/ Iran : (...) <lran: (...)> - no reference to apology in French articles 262
Art. 12/ Londres (...) cLondon (...)> - no reference to apology in French articles 262
Art. 13/ No alternative 263
Art. 14/ The voice of the Daily Mirror: So who’s sorry now 264
Art. 15/ MacKenzie’s Hillsborough (...)- Apology withdrawal 265
Art. 16/ Return to the dark ages (...)- Opinion-focussed article 266
Art. 17/ French give Sarkozy (...)- Non-repentance of France 267
APPENDIX 2: DATA COLLECTION PROCESS 269
Summaries of news stories 269
List of apology news stories (final version of the corpora) 273
News stories statistics: Distribution of news stories (national and international) for each
newspaper 274
Lists of news stories appearing in more than one newspaper 287
Extensive lists of news stories: French corpus 293
Extensive lists of news stories: British corpus 296
Lists of labels attached to news stories 318
Use of comments in the research 319
Use of interrogation tools in the qualitative analysis software 321
APPENDIX 3: FOUR MAIN COMPONENTS OF PUBLIC APOLOGIES 322
Categories of apologisers and apologisees (British and French corpora) 322
Celebrity apologies 322
Media apologies 322
Political apologies 323
Business apologies 325
Religious apologies 326
Sports apologies 326
Societal apologies 327
Court apologies 327
Police apologies 328
School apologies 329
Hospital apologies 329
Categories of offences (British corpus) 330
Political apologies 330
Sports apologies 331
Celebrity apologies 332
Media apologies 332
Business apologies 332
Court apologies 333
Religious apologies 333
Societal apologies 333
Police apologies 334
School apologies 334
Hospital apologies 335
Categories of offences (French corpus) 335
Political apologies 335
Sports apologies 336
Celebrity apologies 336
Media apologies 336
Business apologies 336
Court apologies 337
Religious apologies 337
Societal apologies 337
Police apologies 337
School apologies 337
Hospital apologies 337
APPENDIX 4: PUBLIC APOLOGY STRATEGIES IN THE CORPORA 338
List of abbreviations devised to discuss core and peripheral apology strategies 338
Core apology expressions 339
Core and peripheral strategies 343
APPENDIX 5: FULL TEXT OF CITED ARTICLES FROM THE CORPORA 356
LIST OF TABLES IN THE THESIS
Table 3.1: Political leanings of French newspapers...................................................................57
Table 3.2: Political leanings of British newspapers....................................................................58
Table 3.3: Number of hits for keyword search (three-year period - French newspapers).........59
Table 3.4: Number of hits for keyword search (three-year period - British newspapers)...........59
Table 3.5: Prototypical apology formulations in French.............................................................64
Table 4.1: News stories in both corpora.....................................................................................84
Table 4.2: Extensive list of news stories for the French newspaper Le Figaro...........................91
Table 4.3: Most newsworthy stories in both corpora..................................................................98
Table 4.4: Categories of semi-automatic codes.......................................................................101
Table 5.1: Labels attached to apology news stories in both corpora........................................114
Table 5.2: Apology categories in both corpora........................................................................115
Table 5.3: Distribution of apology categories (national and international) in both corpora.......120
Table 6.1: Number of verbatim apologies in both corpora.................................................. 143
Table 6.2: Number of occurrences of explicit apology expressions in the corpora..................147
Table 6.3: Number of occurrences of keywords in French newspapers...................................149
Table 6.4: Number of occurrences of keywords in British newspapers....................................149
Table 7.1: Collocates of offers of apologies.............................................................................185
Table 7.2: Press representation of the consequences of public apologies...............................186
Table 7.3: Press representation of public apologies (IFIDs excluded).....................................187
Table 7.4: Press representation of apologetic feelings.............................................................188