EAP (print) issn 2055-7752 EAST ASIAN EAP (online) issn 2055-7760 PRAGMATICS Article

Intra-lingual pragmatic variation in apologies: Influence of region and gender

Yunwen Sua and Yufen Changb

Abstract This study investigates regional and gender variations of apologies in Putonghua ‘Standard Mandarin’ and Guoyu ‘Taiwanese Mandarin’. Production data were elic- ited from 40 participants from northern Mainland and 34 from using an oral discourse completion task. Results showed that speakers in both regions employed a similar sequence of strategies and demonstrated similar preferences for context-dependent strategies in their apologies, but Mainland speakers used a significantly greater number of strategies than speakers. Gender differences were observed in the apologies produced by Taiwan speakers regarding their use of illocutionary force indicating devices. The study found an interaction effect of power relation and region, with Mainland speakers sounding more apologetic than Taiwan speakers, but no interaction effect of power relation and gender; the effect of severity of offence was not clear, which could be attributed to the gap between the predetermined level of severity and speakers’ actual perception of it in each scenario.

keywords: chinese apologies; variational pragmatics; regional variation; gender difference; macro- and micro-social factors

Affiliation aThe University of Utah bWestern Kentucky University email: [email protected] [email protected] eap vol 4.1 19 59–86 https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.38215 ©9, equinox publishing 60 east asian pragmatics

1. Introduction

This study aims to investigate intra-lingual pragmatic variation in speech act pro- duction – in particular, the effects of region and gender on the use of pragmatic strategies. The study is primarily situated in variational pragmatics (Schneider & Barron, 2008; Barron & Schneider, 2009), which is the intersection of prag- matics with dialectology, and analyses the impact of social factors on language use in context. The framework distinguishes five macro-social factors, including region, social class, ethnicity, gender, and age, which cause pragmatic variation at various levels of analysis, including the formal, the actional, the interactional, the topical, and the organisational levels. The emerging line of variational prag- matics research, which has mostly focused on varieties of Indo-European lan- guages, has paid the most attention to region (e.g. English requests in Barron, 2008; Breuer & Geluykens, 2007; Spanish requests in Félix-Brasdefer, 2009; Placencia, 2008; French requests in Johns & Félix-Brasdefer, 2015; German requests in Warga, 2008; Spanish refusals in Félix-Brasdefer, 2008; Spanish invitations in García, 2008; French apologies in Schölmberger, 2008), and gender (e.g. English compliments in Herbert, 1990; Parisi & Wogan, 2006; Wolfson, 1984; English requests in Coates, 2004; Holmes, 1995; English apologies in Holmes, 1989; Spanish requests in Félix-Brasdefer, 2010; Persian apologies in Chamani, 2014). Very rarely have non-Indo-European languages like Chinese (e.g. compliments in Lin, Woodfield, & Ren, 2012; refusals in Ren, 2015; requests in Ren, 2018) and Japanese (e.g. apol- ogies in Okano & Brown, 2018) been studied. Previous research about the linguistic variation of Mandarin between Chi- nese-speaking communities, especially between Putonghua (Mandarin spoken in , henceforth Standard Mandarin) and Guoyu (Mandarin spoken in Taiwan, henceforth Taiwanese Mandarin), has mostly focused on the pho- nological (e.g. Kuo, 2005), syntactic (e.g. Cheng, 1985), and lexical (e.g. Kubler, 1985) aspects of the language. Very few studies (e.g. Lin et al., 2012; Kadar, Haugh, & Chang, 2013) have examined the pragmatic aspect of the regional variation between . The current study focuses on pragmatic variation at the actional level, that is, the level of illocutionary force, and examines how male and female university students in Mainland China and Taiwan perform acts of apologising when communicating in quasi-symmetrical situations, which require apologies from an apologiser assuming an equal social status for offences in daily life with various degrees of severity. The speech act of apology is within the broader category of what Goffman (1971) calls remedial work. An apology act is performed to remedy the offence for which the apologiser takes responsibility (Holmes, 1989), to express regret for the offence committed though not necessarily for the act itself (Fraser, 1981), or intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 61 to re-establish social relation harmony after the offence is committed (Olshtain & Cohen, 1983; Bergman & Kasper, 1993). Following Fraser (1981), Cohen and Olshtain (1981) proposed a model of an apology as a speech act set, which can comprise one or more components, including an explicit apology (i.e. the illocu- tionary force indicating device, henceforth IFID), acknowledgment of respon- sibility, an offer to compensate, and a promise of forbearance or an explanation. This study adopts the idea of an apology as a speech act set and examines the com- ponents that constitute apologies in symmetrical situations of various degrees of social distance and severity of offence.

2. Literature review

Thh is paper examines sincere apologies as remedial work for offences for which apologisers take responsibility. Unlike requests, refusals, and compliments, apol- ogies have received less attention in terms of intra-lingual pragmatic variation in the literature. Schölmberger (2008) examined apologies in French French and Quebecois French and found divergences on the situational level and an overall rather homogeneous sequence of strategies ([Alerter/Preparator] [IFID] [Excuse/Justification] [Offer of Repair]) between the two groups. Using an eth- nographic approach, Holmes (1989) explored gender differences of apologies in New Zealand English. She found that women made and received more apolo- gies than men, and that apologies happened most frequently between females and rarely between males. She attributed the observed gender differences to the possibly different perception of apologies by the two genders – as self-oriented acts damaging the speaker’s face by males and as other-oriented acts facilitat- ing social harmony by females. Also using an ethnographic approach, Chamani (2014) observed no significant gender differences in the rate of apologies in Per- sian but a significant effect of gender on the use of some apology strategies. He also found that other social factors (power, social distance, and age) affected the use of the apologies by both genders significantly – both genders apologised most frequently to same-gender equals, males to male strangers but females to female friends. Chamani (2014) supported Holmes’s (1989) assumption about the differ- ent perception of apologies by the two genders by relating men’s apology behav- iour to social distance in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model of politeness and women’s apology behaviour to Wolfson’s (1986) Bulge Theory, which claimed that equality of status encouraged negotiation. With regard to Mandarin Chinese, researchers have been exploring the reali- sation of apologies in different varieties of the language. However, they have not considered the issue from the perspective of variational pragmatics by consider- ing both macro- and micro-social factors. 62 east asian pragmatics

2.1 Apologies in Putonghua ‘Standard Mandarin’ Most studies on apologies in Standard Mandarin have focused on the three IFIDs: buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’, duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’, and baoqian 抱歉 ‘(I) apologise’. Whereas duibuqi 对不起 and baoqian 抱歉 are con- ventional expressions (Bardovi-Harlig, 2009), or situational-bound utterances (SBU, Kecskes, 2016) that are tied to apologising situations in Chinese, buhaoyisi 不好意思 can be used to denote embarrassed emotion or as an alerter similar to ‘Excuse me’ in English in addition to as an apology expression. The convention- ality of buhaoyisi 不好意思 as an apology expression or SBU was established in Bardovi-Harlig and Su (2018), in which over 60% of their native speakers used the expression to start their apologies. Using a roleplay task, Fu (2010) found buhaoyisi 不好意思 to be the most fre- quently used IFID of apologies used by Standard Mandarin speakers, but Shi and Li (2015) did not find a significant difference between the frequencies of buhao­ yisi 不好意思 and duibuqi 对不起 in their written discourse completion task (DCT) data. Choice of IFIDs was found to be constrained by contextual factors such as power relation (Shi & Li, 2015) and severity of offence (Jin, 2012), with duibuqi 对不起 being used more frequently in apologies to interlocutors of a higher social status and for offences of higher severity, and buhaoyisi 不好意思 in apologies to peers and for offences of lower severity. Luo (2004) examined data elicited by a written DCT of 12 scenarios varying in power relation and social distance and found the combination of an IFID with one or more other strategies to be representative of apologies in Standard Manda- rin. He found IFIDs to be used more frequently with strangers and acquaintances than with family and friends. Both Luo (2004) and Qin (2015) found the choice of other apology strategies to be constrained by power relations. When at a lower status than the interlocutor, the apologiser tended to use Restatement of Offence and Explanation. At a higher status, the apologiser adopted Offer of Repair and Avoidance of Apology. When both parties shared an equal status, the apologiser might not use Explanation. Regarding gender differences, using an ethnographic approach, Pan (2000) observed Standard Mandarin speakers’ apologies in three real-world situations and found that females were more likely to apologise than men, which was sup- ported by Yao (2008). She also pointed out that females preferred explicit strate- gies and intensifiers, whereas males’ choices of strategies were likely to be condi- tioned by social parameters such as distance and power.

2.2 Apologies in Guoyu ‘Taiwanese Mandarin’ The three IFIDs – buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’, duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’, and baoqian 抱歉 ‘(I) apologise’ – have also been examined in Taiwanese intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 63

Mandarin. S. Chang (2004) found that duibuqi 对不起 was used more frequently and in a wider range of contexts than the other two IFIDs, and buhaoyisi 不好意 思 was used in apologies for offences of low severity. Y. Chang (2017) found that buhaoyisi 不好意思 was perceived as with a lower level of regret, sincerity, and intention to apologise than duibuqi 对不起 and baoqian 抱歉, which helps explain participants’ preference for buhaoyisi 不好意思 in the case of low-severity offences in S. Chang’s (2004) study. Previous studies on apologies in Taiwanese Mandarin also demonstrated the influence of contextual factors on the use of pragmatic strategies, as is the case for Standard Mandarin. Tsai (2000) showed that participants tended to use a com- bination of various formal strategies when apologising for a severe offence or to an interlocutor of a higher status, which is supported by S. Chang (2004) and Chen (2008). By contrast, they would often use a single strategy to a stranger and informal strategies to intimates, as with the participants in Liu (2008). Y. Chang (2018), however, found that the use of pragmatic strategies was situation-specific rather than tied to one specific contextual factor. Researchers have not reached an agreement regarding the role of gender in Taiwanese Mandarin apologies. S. Chang (2004) did not find any significant dif- ferences in apology strategies between males and females. Y. Chang’s (2017) male and female participants perceived the three IFIDs and different combinations of various apology strategies in the same way. However, Liu (2008) found that females tended to use more strategies to apologise than males. Y. Chang (2018) attributed the incongruence in previous studies regarding the role of gender to inclusion of different scenarios in their research instruments. In brief, previous studies on apologies in Standard and Taiwanese Mandarin have demonstrated variations with regard to IFIDs, other strategies as external modifications of IFIDs, and the role of gender in choice of pragmatic strategies. Nevertheless, there has been no research comparing realisation of apologies in the two regions under the same conditions directly.

2.3 Research Questions Intra-lingual pragmatic variation in terms of region and gender has been observed in a number of speech acts and languages, though little research has considered regional and gender differences alongside each other. Apologies in Mandarin Chinese, which have been researched extensively but separately in Mainland China and Taiwan, make a good site to examine the influence of the two macro-social factors together from the perspective of variational pragmatics. This study addresses the following two questions: 1. To what extent do younger adult Mandarin speakers from Mainland China and Taiwan differ in their use of apology strategies? 64 east asian pragmatics

2. To what extent do male and female speakers in both regions differ in their use of apology strategies? An apology can be initiated outright or as a response to a complaint. In this study, we focus on initiative apologies issued towards an interlocutor of equal sta- tus and consider situational variation alongside regional and gender differences.

3. Method

The study was experimental in nature so as to control variables and ensure com- parability across the conditions under which apologies were performed by dif- ferent groups. Nevertheless, we admit that the subjective manipulation of con- textual factors like power relation and severity of offence is questionable because in natural conversations context is co-constructed by participants’ interactive contributions.

3.1 Participants A total of 74 university students participated in the present study. The Mainland group was composed of 20 males and 20 females recruited from a university in central China, who all came from Mandarin-speaking regions in northern Main- land China and reported speaking Putonghua ‘Standard Mandarin’ at home. The Taiwan group consisted of 17 males and 17 females recruited from a university in the northern part of Taiwan, who all came from Taipei and reported speaking Guoyu ‘Taiwanese Mandarin’ at home. Both groups were homogenous in terms of age (18–20 years old) and educational level (a non-English major in college as a freshman or sophomore).

3.2 Instrument Production data in the present study were elicited by a computer-delivered oral DCT with audio-visual stimuli delivered in Mandarin. In an empirical study comparing written DCTs, oral DCTs, field notes, and natural conversations as data-collection methods in pragmatics, Yuan (2001) found that oral DCTs gener- ated a significantly larger number of natural-speech features than written DCTs. Bardovi-Harlig (2013) also pointed out the importance of matching the mode of the experimental/assessment task with the real-world task in the design of pragmatics research. As this study is primarily interested in apologies initiated outright in a given situation rather than as responses to a complaint and is not investigating interactional features, an oral DCT serves the research purpose well. The oral DCT consisted of 36 items, including 18 apology scenarios and 18 distractors. The 18 experimental scenarios were screened from an initial pool of 42 scenarios collected from the literature (e.g. Cohen & Olshtain, 1981; Holmes, 1989; Nureddeen, 2008; Schölmberger, 2008) by piloting with 10 college students from northern Mainland China and 10 college students from Taipei. They were intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 65 asked to approve, revise, or reject the scenarios based on their real-life experience. They were also asked to rate the severity of offence for each scenario along a six- point scale from ‘not severe at all’ to ‘extremely severe’. A scenario was considered as with low-, medium-, or high-severity offence if it received a rating of 1 or 2, 3 or 4, and 5 or 6 respectively from over 60% of the participants in both groups in the pilot study. This paper reports findings of six of the apology scenarios. In these six scenarios, apologies were issued outright rather than as responses to complaints towards an imaginative interlocutor of equal status but with different degrees of social distance (deference [−P, +D] and solidarity [−P, −D]; Scollon & Scollon, 2000) for offences of various levels of severity (low, medium, and high) (Table 1). Scollon and Scollon’s (2000) model of politeness was employed in the experimental design because it is society based and thus consistent with the other-oriented and socially constructed Chinese concept of politeness and face (Kinnison, 2017; Spencer-Oatey & Kadar, 2016). Table 1: Summary of the six experimental scenarios ID # Setting Description Power Severity of relationship offence 3 Spilled Drink You spilled coke on a stranger at Deference High McDonald’s. [−P, +D]

5 Broken You cracked the screen of a new Solidarity High Phone cellphone that your friend just [−P, -D] bought. 9 Bus You dropped two books onto a man Deference Medium sitting next to you on a crowded bus. [−P, +D]

11 Coffee Stains You left coffee stains on a book Solidarity Medium borrowed from your friend. [−P, −D]

15 Bump into a You accidentally bumped into a girl Deference Low Girl in a busy mall. [−P, +D]

17 Roommate’s You forgot to bring a book that your Solidarity Low Book roommate asked you to. [−P, −D]

For each item, the participants first read and listened to the scenario descrip- tion. The Mainland group read simplified and listened to recordings prepared by a native speaker of Standard Mandarin (Example (1)) and traditional characters with recordings prepared by a native speaker of Tai- wanese Mandarin for the Taiwan group (Example (2); see Appendix for a full list of scenarios in simplified characters with their English translation). After finish- ing the scenario description, the participants heard a beep and saw nishuo 你说 ‘You say’, and they then responded orally. Their responses were recorded on the computer and they clicked a button to move to the next item once they finished the responses for the previous one. 66 east asian pragmatics

(1)

你在麦当劳买东西吃，里面人非常多。你端着盘子想要找一个桌子坐下来，却不小心把 可乐洒在了一个女生身上。

Ni zai Maidanglao mai dongxi chi, limian ren feichang duo. Ni duan zhe panzi xiang yao zhao yi ge zhuozi zuoxialai, que bu xiaoxin ba kele sa zai le yi ge nvsheng shenshang. You are eating at McDonald’s. It is very busy with many people. While you are looking for a seat with a tray in your hands, you accidentally spill your coke on a girl. (2)

你的好朋友小華買了一部新手機，非常酷。你拿來玩，不小心把手機摔到了地上，手機 的荧幕摔碎了。

Nide hao pengyou Xiaohua mai le yi bu xin shouji, feichang ku. Ni nalai wan, bu xiaoxin ba shouji shuaidao le dishang, shouji de yingmu shuaisui le. Your good friend, Xiaohua, bought a new cell phone. It looks cool. While you are check- ing out his phone, you accidentally drop it on the floor. The cell phone screen cracks.

3.3 Data coding and analysis A total of 444 responses were transcribed and coded for apology strategies. A coding scheme (Table 2) was developed with reference to previous literature (e.g. Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989; Y. Chang, 2016; Cohen & Olshtain, 1981; Luo, 2004; Nureddeen, 2008). The IFIDs –buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed,’ duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’, and baoqian 抱歉 ‘(I) apologise’ – are the most explicit strategies used to apologise, which could be intensified internally by adverbial intensifiers or repetition. Speakers could also modify IFIDs externally by taking on responsibility, providing an explanation, and/or offering compensation. Table 2: The coding scheme of apology strategies Semantic Formulas Examples 1. IFID Buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’ Duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’ Baoqian 抱歉 ‘(I) apologise’ 2. Intensification Adverbials e.g. tai … le 太…了 ‘so, very’ Zhen … 真… ‘really’ Hen … 很… ‘very’ Repetition e.g. Duibuqi duibuqi 对不起对不起。 ‘Sorry, sorry.’ 3. Taking on Responsibility Admitting the Fact e.g. Wo kele sa zai ni shen shang le. 我可乐洒在你身上了。 ‘I spilled my coke on you.’ intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 67

Blaming Oneself e.g. Wo tai bu xiaoxin le. 我太不小心了。 ‘I was too careless.’ Indicating Lack of Intent e.g. Wo bushi guyi de. 我不是故意的。 ‘I didn’t intend to do that.’ 4. Explanation/Account e.g. Wo gang you dian shi dange le. 我刚有点事耽搁了。 ‘I was busy with something.’ 5. Compensation Offer of Repair e.g. Wo gei ni mai ben xin de. 我给你买本新的。 ‘I’ll buy you a new book.’ Promise of Forbearance e.g. Xiaci buhui le. 下次不会了。 ‘It won’t happen again.’ Concern for the Hearer e.g. Mei shi ba? 没事吧？ ‘Are you ok?’ Efforts to Appease e.g. Wo mashang ba ta jian qilai. 我马上把它捡起来。‘I’m picking it up now.’ Making Further Requests e.g. Laoshi women keyi zai yue yixia ma? 老师我们可以再约一 下吗？ ’Professor, can we make another appointment?’ Gratitude e.g. Xiexie. 谢谢。 ‘Thank you.’

The first and second authors of this article coded all of the oral DCT responses. Theirpercent agreement rate was 90.6%. The two raters then discussed the coding discrepancies and reached a consensus. Descriptive statistics were obtained by calculating the frequencies and standard deviations of apology strategies per per- son per scenario. Inferential statistics were obtained for the use of apology strat- egies by conducting negative binomial regressions under Generalised Estimating Equations (henceforth GEEs; Ziegler, 2011) to examine the effects of macro-­ social variables (between-group independent variables: region and gender) and micro-social variables (within-group independent variables: power relation and severity of offence).

4. Results

4.1 Regional differences in apology strategies In the aggregate, the Mainland group (M = 3.68, SD = 1.30) used a higher num- ber of apology strategies than the Taiwan group (M = 2.58, SD = 1.11). Results of GEEs (repeated-measure negative binomial) showed an overall significant effect of region (Wald χ2 (1) = 39.967, p < .001). 68 east asian pragmatics

4.1.1 Distribution of apology strategies Frequencies of different pragmatic strategies used by both groups are presented in Table 3. Both the Mainland group and the Taiwan group tended to express an apology explicitly with an IFID (Mainland: M = 1.22, SD = .487; Taiwan: M = 1.00, SD = .511) and one or two external modifiers –usually one strategy to take on responsibility (Mainland: M = .72, SD = .468; Taiwan: M = .69, SD = .515) and one compensation strategy (Mainland: M = .75, SD = .580; Taiwan: M = .56, SD = .507). The IFID typically preceded the external modifiers (Examples (3) and (4)). Table 3: Frequencies of pragmatic strategies by region Mainland Taiwan Mean SD Mean SD 1 IFID 1.22 .487 1.00 .511 a. Buhaoyisi 不好意思 .75 .435 .58 .494 b. Duibuqi 对不起 .30 .457 .33 .473 c. Baoqian 抱歉 .17 .377 .08 .270

2 Intensification .78 .745 .28 .502 a. Adverbials .47 .500 .10 .298 b. Repetition .31 .464 .18 .386

3 Taking on Responsibility .72 .468 .69 .515 a. Admitting the Fact .60 .492 .56 .497 b. Blaming Oneself .02 .143 0 0 c. Indicating Lack of Intent .10 .306 .12 .329

4 Explanation .19 .394 .05 .226

5 Compensation .75 .580 .56 .507 a. Offer of Repair .51 .501 .47 .500 b. Promise of Forbearance .00 .064 .00 1.000 c. Concern for Hearer .20 .401 .08 .277 d. Efforts to Appease .03 .169 .01 .099 e. Further Request .01 .091 0 0 f. Gratitude .00 .065 .00 .070

TOTAL 3.67 1.315 2.58 1.122 intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 69

(3) Spilled drink (deference, high severity; Mainland female speaker) NSM01F: Zhen buhaoyisi a. Wo bu xiaoxin ba kele sa zai ni shen shang le. Ni ba yifu shenme shihou you kong na gei wo, wo bang ni na-qu ganxidian xi ba. 真不好意思啊。我不小心把可乐洒在你身上了。你把衣服什么时候有空拿给 我，我帮你拿去干洗店洗吧。 ‘I’m really embarrassed. I accidentally spilled coke on you. Please bring me your coat when you get time and I’ll send it for dry cleaning.’ [Intensified IFID][Admitting the Fact][Offer of Repair]

(4) Broken phone (solidarity, high severity; Taiwan male speaker) NST18M: Duibuqi, duibuqi. Ba ni de shouji shuai-huai le. Wo hui fuze pei ni weixiu-de feiyong. 对不起，对不起。把你的手机摔坏了。我会负责赔你维修的费用。 ‘I’m sorry. I broke your phone. I’ll pay for the repair cost.’ [Intensified IFID][Admitting the Fact][Offer of Repair]

The Mainland group used significantly higher numbers of IFIDs (Wald χ2 (1) = 14.870, p < .001), Intensification (Wald χ2 (1) = 30.506, p < .001), and Compen- sation (Wald χ2 (1) = 10.151, p = .001) than the Taiwan group. Both groups used Taking on Responsibility at similar frequencies (Wald χ2 (1) = .387, p = .534), and Explanation at fairly low frequencies (Mainland: M = .19, SD = .394; Taiwan: M = .05, SD = .226) with a significant between-group difference (Wald2 χ (1) = 9.392, p = .002). As for sub-strategies, both groups used buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’ much more frequently than duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’ and baoqian 抱歉 ‘(I) apologise’ (the Mainland group means: .75, .30, and .17 respectively; the Taiwan group means: .58, .33, .08 respectively). Admitting the Fact was the most fre- quently used strategy to take on responsibility (Mainland: M = .60; Taiwan: M = .56) and Offer of Repair the most frequently used compensation strategy (Main- land: M = .51; Taiwan: M = .47) by both groups. As for IFID-internal intensifi- cations, the Mainland group tended to use more adverbials than repetition (e.g. zhende 真的 ‘really’ in Example (3)), whereas the Taiwan group tended to use more repetition than adverbials (e.g. duibuqi, duibuqi 对不起, 对不起 ‘sorry, sorry’ in Example (4)).

4.1.2 Situational variation Situational variation was examined in terms of the effects of power relation (def- erence [−P, +D] versus solidarity [−P, −D]) and severity of offence (low, medium, and high). As Figure 1 shows, both groups used slightly higher numbers of prag- 70 east asian pragmatics matic strategies in deference scenarios than in solidarity scenarios. However, results of GEEs showed no signifi cant interaction eff ect of region and power rela- tion (Wald χ2 (2) = .658, p = .417).

Figure 1: Use of pragmatic strategies by group in scenarios with di erent power relations

As for diff erent types of strategies, results of GEEs showed signifi cant inter- action eff ects of region and power relation on frequencies of IFIDs (Wald 2χ (2) = 52.381, p < .001), Intensifi cation (Wald 2χ (2) = 24.425, p < .001), Taking on Responsibility (Wald χ2 (2) = 22.221, p < .001), and Compensation strategies (Wald χ2 (2) = 63.019, p < .001) (Figure 1). Pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni correction showed that both groups used signifi cantly higher numbers of IFIDs and Intensifi cation strategies in deference scenarios than in solidarity scenarios (p < .001 for use of IFIDs by both groups; p = .003 for use of Intensifi cation by the Mainland group, and p < .001 for use of Intensifi cation by the Taiwan group); the Mainland group also used signifi cantly higher numbers of IFIDs (p = .001) and Intensifi cation (p < .001) than the Taiwan group in solidarity scenarios. Pairwise comparisons also showed that both groups were more likely to use Taking on Responsibility (p < .001 for both groups) and Compensation (p = .048 for the Mainland group; p = .001 for the Taiwan group) in solidarity scenarios than in deference scenarios; the Mainland group was more likely to use Compensation than the Taiwan group in deference scenarios (p = .009). Among the three IFIDs, a signifi cant interaction eff ect of region and power relation was found on the use of buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘I’m embarrassed’ (Wald χ2 (2) = 47.820, p < .001) but not on the use of the other two IFIDs. Pairwise com- parisons with Bonferroni correction showed that both groups used buhaoyisi 不好 意思 ‘I’m embarrassed’ signifi cantly more frequently in deference scenarios than in solidarity scenarios (Mainland group: p = .008; Taiwan group: p < .001). intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 71

(5) Bus (deference, medium severity) NSM03F: A shizai buhaoyisi, duibuqi, duibuqi, ni meishi-er ba? 啊实在不好意思，对不起，对不起，你没事儿吧？ ‘I’m really embarrassed. Sorry, sorry. Are you ok?’ [Intensified IFID][Intensified IFID][Concern for Hearer] NST18M: Buhaoyisi, za-dao ni le. Zhen-de hen buhaoyisi. 不好意思，砸到你了。真的很不好意思。 ‘I’m embarrassed. I dropped my books on you. I’m really embarrassed.’ [IFID][Admitting the Fact][Intensified IFID]

(6) Coffee Stains (solidarity, medium severity) NSM05F: Duibuqi a, nage, zuotian nage kafei bu xiaoxin sa ni shu shang le, huitou wo qu bang ni mai ben yiyangde shu ba. 对不起啊，那个，昨天那个咖啡不小心洒你书上了，回头我去帮你买本一 样的书吧。 ‘I’m sorry, um, yesterday I spilled some coffee on the book by accident. Another day I’ll buy you a new book.’ [IFID][Admitting the Fact][Offer of Repair] NST21M: Xiaohua, bu haoyisi, wo ba ni-de shu nong-zang le. Buran wo mai yi ben gei ni hao le. 小华，不好意思，我把你的书弄脏了。不然我买一本给你好了。 ‘Xiaohua, I’m embarrassed. I stained your book (with coffee). How about that I just buy you a new book?’ [IFID][Admitting the Fact][Offer of Repair]

Examples (5) and (6) illustrate the quantitative results. The female speaker from Mainland NSC03F used two IFIDs and an expression of Concern for Hearer, which is a weak compensation strategy, in her apology in the deference scenario of Bus. Both IFIDs are intensified:buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘I’m embarrassed’ is intensified with the adverbialshizai 实在 ‘really’, and duibuqi 对不起 ‘I’m sorry’ is intensified by repetition.Another female Mainland speaker NSM05F used one IFID duibuqi 对不起 ‘I’m sorry’ and modified it externally with Admitting the Fact to take on responsibility and a compensation strategy Offer of Repair, in the solidarity scenario of Coffee Stains. The male Taiwan speaker NST18M also intensified the IFID buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘I’m embarrassed’ in his apology in Bus, but another male Taiwan speaker NST21M did not in Coffee Stains. When it comes to effect of severity of offences, descriptive statistics showed that both groups used higher numbers of pragmatic strategies in responses to offences with medium and high severity than in responses to offences with low severity 72 east asian pragmatics

(Figure 2). Results of GEEs showed a signifi cant interaction eff ect of region and severity (Wald χ2 (4) = 16.206, p < .001). Pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni correction showed signifi cant diff erences existed only in Taiwan speakers’ responses to off ences of medium/high and low severity (p < .001 in both cases).

Figure 2: Use of pragmatic strategies by group in scenarios with di erent severity of o ence

Th ere is not a clear pattern for the eff ect of severity when we consider diff erent types of strategies. Figure 2 shows that Mainland speakers tended to use higher numbers of IFIDs, Intensifi cation, and Compensation, but a lower number of Taking on Responsibility, in their apologies for off ences with increasing severity of off ence. Pairwise comparisons of GEEs, however, showed that signifi cant dif- ferences only in their use of Taking on Responsibility (low versus high p = .028; medium versus high p = .011; low versus medium p = 1.000) and Compensation (low versus medium p = .002; low versus high p < .001; medium versus high p = 1.000). Th e picture is clearer for the Taiwan group. According to Figure 2, they used lower numbers of IFIDs, Intensifi cation, Taking on Responsibility, and Compen- sation in apologies for off ences with low severity than in apologies for off ences with medium or high severity. Pairwise comparisons of GEEs showed signifi cant diff erences in all cases except Intensifi cation (IFID: low versus medium p = .033; high versus medium p = 1.000; low versus high p = 1.000; Taking on Responsibil- ity: low versus medium p = .009; high versus medium p = 1.000; low versus high p = 1.000; Compensation: low versus medium p = .008; medium versus high p = < .001; low versus high p < .001). Among the three IFIDs, a signifi cant interaction eff ect of region and severity (Wald χ2 (4) = 16.104, p = .003) was found only on the use of buhaoyisi 不好意 思 ‘I’m embarrassed’. Pairwise comparisons showed that the level of severity had a signifi cant eff ect on the Mainland group’s use of buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘I’m embar- intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 73 rassed’ (low versus medium p = .673; low versus high p = .006; medium versus high p = 1.000), but not on the Taiwan group’s use of the IFID. (7) Bump into a Girl (deference, low severity) NSM08F: Ou shizai buhaoyisi a, ren tai duo le, mei kan-dao, bu xiaoxin ji-dao ni le. Ni meishi-er ba? 哦实在不好意思啊，人太多了，没看到，不小心挤到你了。你没事儿吧？ Oh, I’m really embarrassed. It’s too crowded here, so I didn’t see you. It happened that I bumped into you. Are you ok? [Intensified IFID][Explanation][Admitting the Fact][Concern for Hearer] NST12F: Buhaoyisi, buhaoyisi. 不好意思，不好意思。 I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed. [Intensified IFID]

(8) Spilled Drink (deference, high severity) NSM01F: Zhen buhaoyisi a. Wo bu xiaoxin ba kele sa zai ni shen shang le. Ni ba yifu shenme shihou you kong na gei wo, wo bang ni na-qu ganxidian xi ba. 真不好意思啊。我不小心把可乐洒在你身上了。你把衣服什么时候有空拿给 我，我帮你拿去干洗店洗吧。 ‘I’m really embarrassed. I accidentally spilled coke on you. Please bring me your coat when you get time and I’ll send it for dry cleaning?’ [Intensified IFID][Admitting the Fact][Offer of Repair] NST13F: En, zhende zhende hen buhaoyisi. Duibuqi duibuqi, nage wo xian bang ni ca-gan. Wo daoshihou bang ni ba yifu na-qu song-xi. 嗯， 真的真的很不好意思。对不起对不起，那个我先帮你擦干。我到时候帮 你把衣服拿去送洗。 I’m really embarrassed. Sorry, sorry. Let me help you wipe it clean first. I’ll send your coat to professional laundry later. [Intensified IFID][Intensified IFID][Efforts to Appease][Offer of Repair]

Comparing Examples (5) (medium severity), (6) (medium severity), (7) (low severity), and (8) (high severity), we can see that use of compensation strategies is related to severity of offence in the apologies made by both groups of speak- ers. When the offence was of high severity, both groups tended to offer a repair (e.g. send stained coat to dry cleaning in Example (8)). When the offence was of medium severity, both groups tended to show concern for the hearer verbally (e.g. check if the other person was OK in Example (5)) or to give a mitigated offer of repair (Example (6):huitou 回头 ‘another day’ [NSM58M]; buran 不然 ‘or’ [NST21M]). When the offence was of low severity, Mainland speakers would also 74 east asian pragmatics show concern for the hearer, whereas Taiwan speakers would often use an IFID without any compensation strategy (Example (7)).

4.2 Gender differences in apology strategies Females (M = 3.27, SD = 1.296) used a higher total number of strategies in their apologies than males (M = 3.07, SD = 1.385), but results of GEEs showed that the difference was not significant (Wald χ2 (1) = 1.524, p = .217). Neither was there significant interaction effect of gender and region (Wald χ2 (1) = .368,p = .544). Comparisons of frequencies of different apology strategies by gender in the two regions are presented in Table 4. Results of GEEs showed significant inter- action effects of region and gender only on two IFIDs,buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’ (Wald χ2 (1) = 13.590, p < .001) and duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’ (Wald χ2 (1) = 7.611, p = .006). Specifically, female Taiwan speakers used a signif- icantly higher number of instances of duibuqi 对不起than male speakers (p = .001), whereas male Taiwan speakers used a significantly higher number of instances of buhaoyisi 不好意思than female speakers (p < .001). By contrast, female and male Mainland speakers did not demonstrate significant differences in their use of any apology strategies. Table 4: Frequencies of pragmatic strategies by gender and region Mainland Taiwan Female Male Female Male Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD 1 IFID 1.19 .455 1.24 .518 1.01 .572 .98 .445 a. Buhaoyisi 不好意思 .75 .435 .75 .435 .42 .496 .75 .438

b. Duibuqi 对不起 .28 .453 .31 .464 .50 .502 .17 .375

c. Baoqian 抱歉 .16 .367 .18 .389 .09 .285 .07 .254

2 Intensification .77 .753 .80 .740 .34 .554 .22 .437 a. Adverbials .49 .502 .45 .500 .13 .335 .07 .254

b. Repetition .28 .448 .35 .479 .22 .413 .15 .356

3 Taking on .76 .449 .68 .485 .65 .500 .73 .529 Responsibility a. Admitting the Fact .63 .486 .57 .498 .52 .502 .61 .491

b. Blaming Oneself .03 .157 .02 .129 0 0 0 0

c. Indicating Lack of .11 .312 .10 .301 .13 .335 .12 .324 Intent intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 75

4 Explanation .23 .419 .16 .367 .05 .217 .06 .236

5 Compensation .79 .564 .72 .597 .67 .474 .46 .520 a. Offer of Repair .53 .501 .49 .502 .53 .502 .40 .493

b. Promise of 0 0 .01 .091 0 0 0 0 Forbearance c. Concern for Hearer .23 .425 .17 .374 .11 .312 .06 .236

d. Efforts to Appease .02 .129 .04 .201 .02 .139 0 0

e. Further Request .01 .091 .01 .091 0 0 0 0

f. Gratitude .01 .091 0 0 .01 .099 0 0

TOTAL 3.73 1.228 3.60 1.399 2.72 1.155 2.44 1.077

Taiwan speakers’ use of buhaoyisi 不好意思 and duibuqi 对不起 is illustrated in Example (9). Both the female Taiwan speaker NST14F and the male Taiwan speaker NST18M used the two IFIDs interchangeably – severity of offence and power relation are not relevant here. Nevertheless, the female speaker used duibuqi 对不起 in five of the six scenarios andbuhaoyisi 不好意思 in four out of the six scenarios, whereas the male speaker used buhaoyisi 不好意思 (six out of six scenarios) much more frequently than duibuqi 对不起 (three out of six scenarios). Another observation is that both male and female speakers might use the two IFIDs together in the same scenarios (NST14F in Broken Phone, Bus, and Bump into a Girl; NST18M in Spilled Drink, Bus, Roommate’s Book). (9) NST14F NST18M Spilled Drink Duibuqi, wo kele sa ni shenshang le, Zhende hen duibuqi, buhaoyisi na wo zhebian you weishengzhi wo ba ni-de yifu nong-zang le, kan bang ni ca yi ca ba. ni yifu song-xi yao duoshao qian, wo hui chu. 对不起我可乐洒你身上了，那我这 真的是很对不起，不好意思把你 边有卫生纸我帮你擦一擦吧。 的衣服弄脏了，看你衣服送洗要 多少钱，我会出。 ‘I’m sorry that I spilled coke on you. ‘I’m really sorry. I’m embarrassed I have some tissue paper here. Let that I made your coat dirty. Let’s me help you clean it.’ see how much it’ll cost to clean it and I’ll pay for that.’ 76 east asian pragmatics

Broken Phone Zhende hen duibuqi, wo bu shi A, buhaoyisi, zhe shouji duoshao guyide, buhaoyisi, nage weixiu wo qian? fu ba. 真的很对不起，我不是故意的，不 啊， 不好意思，这手机多少钱？ 好意思，那个维修我付吧。 ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t intend ‘Ah, I’m embarrassed. How much to (break your phone). I’m does your phone cost?’ embarrassed. I’ll pay for the repair cost.’

Bus Duibuqi, duibuqi, za-dao ni le, Duibuqi za-dao ni. Zhende hen buhaoyisi. buhaoyisi. 对不起，对不起，砸到你了，不好 对不起砸到你。真的很不好意思。 意思。 ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry that the books ‘I’m embarrassed that the fell on you. I’m embarrassed.’ books fell on you. I’m really embarrassed.’

Coffee on Book Buhaoyisi, wo bu xiaoxin ba ni-de Xiaohua, buhaoyisi wo ba ni-de shu nong-zang le, zhe hai mai-de- shu nong-zang le, na wo zai pei dao ma? Wo mai yi ben xinde gei ni yi ben hao le, buhaoyisi. ni hao le. 不好意思，我不小心把你的书弄脏 小华，不好意思我把你的书弄脏 了，这还买得到吗？我买一本新的 了，那我再陪你一本好了，不好 给你好了。 意思。 I’m embarrassed. I made your ‘Xiaohua, I’m embarrassed that book dirty by accident. Is the book I made your book dirty. Then still available to purchase? Let me let me buy you a new one. I’m buy you a new book.’ embarrassed.’

Bump into a Duibuqi, wo bushi guiyi de, Buhaoyisi, buhaoyisi, zhebian Girl buhaoyisi a. ren tai duo le. 对不起，我不是故意的，不好意思 不好意思，不好意思，这边人太 啊。 多了。 ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to. I’m ‘I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed.’ embarrassed. It’s too crowded h e re .’

Roommate’s A, duibuqi, wo wangji bang ni ba A, Xiaohua, duibuqi, wo wangji Book shu dai-lai le, haishi deng yixia wo dai ni-de shu le, buhaoyisi. zai hui-qu na? intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 77

啊，对不起，我忘记帮你把书带来 啊，小华，对不起，我忘记带你 了，还是等一下我再回去拿? 的书了，不好意思。 ‘Ah, I’m sorry. I forgot to bring your ‘Ah, Xiaohua, I’m sorry. I book. Or do you want me to get it forgot to bring your book. I’m for you later?’ embarrassed.’

5. Discussion

To answer the first research question about the effect of region, the two groups share more similarities than differences. Both groups used the sequence of [IFID] [Taking on Responsibility][Compensation] to realise their apologies; they both tended to use more IFIDs and Intensification in deference scenarios but more Taking on Responsibility and Compensation in solidarity scenarios. Among the three IFIDs, both groups used buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’ more fre- quently than duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’ and baoqian 抱歉 ‘(I) apologise’. Regard- ing their differences, the Mainland group used a significantly greater number of strategies, especially IFIDs, Intensification, and Compensation, than the Taiwan group. To answer the second research question, the present study did not find signifi­ cant differences between males’ and females’ use of apology strategies in either region. The only exception is that male Taiwan speakers used buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’ much more frequently than female speakers, whereas female Taiwan speakers used duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’ much more frequently than male speakers. In fact, while both Mainland speakers and male Taiwan speakers preferred buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’ to the other two IFIDs, female Taiwan speakers used buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’ and duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’ to a similar extent.

5.1 Regional and gender variations in Mandarin apologies The present study found a more or less homogenous apology sequence of [IFID] [Taking on Responsibility][Compensation] for various offences to an equal-sta- tus interlocutor in the production by speakers from both regions. [Explanation] is not a typical part of the apology sequence in Chinese as is found in the present study, which supports Luo’s (2004) and Qin’s (2015) findings that Chinese speak- ers did not use [Explanation] in their apologies to an interlocutor of equal status. Findings of the present study fall in line with Fu’s (2010) empirical finding of native speakers’ preference for buhaoyisi 不好意思 ‘(I’m) embarrassed’ over duibuqi 对不起 ‘(I’m) sorry’ in contemporary Mandarin conversations. They thus deviate from the previous observation that choice of IFIDs was constrained by contextual factors in both Standard Mandarin (Jin, 2012; Shi & Li, 2015) and 78 east asian pragmatics

Taiwanese Mandarin (S. Chang, 2004), with buhaoyisi 不好意思 being typically used in the case of low-severity offences and to peers. The research instrument might play a role here. Written DCTs, which were used in S. Chang (2004), Jin (2012), and Shi and Li (2015), could have boosted the use of duibuqi 对不起, which involves fewer characters of less complicated structures than buhaoyisi 不好意思. In fact, examination of the gender difference reveals that female Taiwan speakers in the present study used the two IFIDs at similar frequencies and used duibuqi 对不起 significantly more frequently than male Taiwan and Mainland speakers. Nevertheless, female Taiwan speakers’ use of the two IFIDs did not demonstrate any situational variation, which lends further support to Fu’s (2010) findings that buhaoyisi 不好意思 and duibuqi 对不起 are interchangeable in contemporary Man- darin. Factors like age and education might also have contributed to the devi- ance – the present study involved relatively young adult speakers (18–20 years old), who were college students in both Mainland and Taiwan. Their choices of IFIDs could be different from more senior adults. Regarding their differences, the Mainland group sounded more apologetic than the Taiwan group by employing significantly greater numbers of IFIDs, Intensi- fication, and Compensation, and in fact a significantly greater total number of apology strategies. The findings fall in line with previous results, where Mainland speakers tended to employ significantly more explicit compliment strategies (Lin et al., 2012) and more adjuncts to elaborate their refusals (Ren, 2015) in that they all show Mainland speakers’ greater efforts in supporting the hearer’s face. One possible explanation for the divergence is that the two groups of participants in the present study might have perceived some of the contextual factors like power relation and severity of offence differently. The divergence could also be rooted in variation of cultural values in the two regions, which is beyond the scope of the present study. Except for male and female Taiwan speakers’ difference in their use of IFIDs, the present study did not find many significant differences between male and female speakers in either region regarding frequencies of strategies in their apologies to interlocutors of equal status, which lends support to Y. Chang’s (2017) findings that both male and female Chinese speakers in Taiwan perceived different com- binations of various apology strategies in the same way. However, the results of this study did not show that females tended to use more strategies in their apol- ogies than males as indicated in previous studies (e.g. New Zealand English in Holmes, 1989; Standard Mandarin in Pan, 2000; Yao, 2008; Taiwanese Mandarin in Liu, 2008). A potential cause for the incongruence, as Y. Chang (2018) pointed out, might be instrumental. The present study employed an experimental­ design, which does not involve the real-world consequences as in natural conversations intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 79 that Holmes (1989), Pan (2000), and Yao (2008) observed. The experiment in Liu (2008), however, differsfrom the present study in both the mode (written versus oral DCT) and scenarios (interlocutors of both higher and equal social status in Liu, 2008; interlocutors of equal social status in the present study). In fact, Liu (2008) also found that both males and females favoured informal strategies when apologising to an interlocutor in an intimate relationship such as family members.

5.2 Macro- and micro-social factors in intra-lingual pragmatic variation The present study did not find any interaction effects of the macro-social factor of gender and the two micro-social factors of power relation and severity of offence. Nevertheless, situational variation was observed in interaction with regional vari­ ation. On one hand, both Mainland and Taiwan speakers used higher numbers of IFIDs and IFID-internal intensification devices in deference scenarios than in solidarity scenarios, with Mainland speakers using them both significantly more frequently than Taiwan speakers in solidarity scenarios. On the other hand, both groups used higher numbers of Taking on Responsibility and Compensa- tion strategies in solidarity scenarios than in deference scenarios, with Mainland speakers using Compensation strategies significantly more frequently than Tai- wan speakers in deference scenarios. The findings suggest that Mandarin speak- ers’ greater efforts in remedying an offence towards an in-group member than towards an out-group member can be related to Gelfand and Cai’s (2004) point that Chinese speakers showed greater concern for the face needs of in-groups than out-groups in conversations. The findings also show that, with situational variation taken into consideration, Mainland speakers still sounded more apol- ogetic than Taiwan speakers. In addition, they add further support for the inter- action effect of power relation and region as evidenced in previous studies about refusals (Ren, 2015) and requests (Ren, 2018) in Chinese. The effect of severity of offence – the other micro-social factor examined in the present study – is less clear in the present study compared with the effect of power relation. Mainland speakers used Compensation more frequently for high-severity offences than low-severity offences but Taking on Responsibility less frequently. Taiwan speakers used IFIDs and Taking on Responsibility most frequently for medium-severity offences and Compensation most frequently for high-severity offences. The findings lend further support to the assumption that Mainland and Taiwan speakers might have perceived the severity of offences dif- ferently in the present study. In addition, as has already been mentioned briefly in Section 5.1, findings of the present study do not attest to the effect of severity of offence on choice of IFIDs, which has been found by previous studies in both Standard Mandarin (Jin, 2012) and Taiwanese Mandarin (S. Chang, 2004). 80 east asian pragmatics

5.3 Limitations and future research A major limitation of the present study, as is the case with most experimental studies situated in speech act theory, is its perspective of context as external to the acts of apologising. The present study provides a clear description of the rela- tionship between the interlocutors in each scenario and in fact determines the severity of offence in each scenario based on empirical data from the pilot study instead of the researchers’ own judgment. Nevertheless, the participants’ percep- tion of the contextual factors, especially severity of offence, may not necessarily fall in line with the perception of those in the pilot study. After all, in natural con- versations, context is co-constructed by both participants. While a co-construc- tive perspective is essentially contradictory to a controlled experimental design like an oral DCT, future studies may want to collect perception in addition to production data from the participants so as to have data triangulation. The present study investigated two micro-social factors – power relation and severity of offence and how they interacted with the macro-social factors of gen- der and region. Holmes (1989) identified type of offence (e.g. space, possession, time, inconvenience) as another micro-social factor that could have an effect on the use of apology strategies. Similarly, Lin et al. (2012) found that compli- ment topic (appearance/possession versus ability/performance) had an effect on compliment strategies in Standard and Taiwanese Mandarin. Future studies of intra-lingual variation of Chinese apologies, therefore, should take into consider- ation the effect of type of offence in their designs and analyses. Findings of the present study cannot be generalised to represent apology con- versations in either Standard or Taiwanese Mandarin for two reasons. First, the study targets apologies initiated outright and focuses on the range, frequency, and within-turn sequence of different apology strategies elicited by an oral DCT. It does not attempt to address the issue of how apologies are negotiated over the turns between the same genders or across different genders in Standard and Tai- wanese Mandarin due to the experiment being non-interactive in nature. Future research would want to expand the scope to include responding apologies as well as employ appropriate methods to investigate variation of apologies at the interactional level. Second, the study targets a specific age group (18–20 years old) at a certain educational level (first- and second-year college students) with homogenous linguistic background (Mainland speakers: from Mandarin-speak- ing regions in northern Mainland and speaking Standard Mandarin at home; Taiwan speakers: from Taipei and speaking Taiwanese Mandarin at home). Both Mainland and Taiwan, however, represent complicated linguistic realities. There- fore, we need to be cautious to treat Mandarin speakers, either in Mainland or in Taiwan, as if they are all the same. intra-lingual pragmatic variation in mandarin apologies 81

6. Conclusion

The present study contributes to the field by exploring the effects of two macro-­ social factors and two micro-social factors on speakers’ pragmatic production in Chinese, which is an understudied language in pragmatics in general and in variational pragmatics in particular. The study shows both similarities and dif- ferences between Mainland and Taiwan Mandarin speakers in their apologies for offences of varying degrees of severity to an interlocutor of equal status with dif- ferent social distances. Specifically, the two groups of speakers employed a similar sequence of and demonstrated similar preferences for apology strategies in the same context, and neither group demonstrated significant gender differences in their use of most apology strategies. Nevertheless, Mainland speakers used a sig- nificantly greater number of strategies than Taiwan speakers, and Taiwan speak- ers demonstrated some gender difference in their use of IFIDs. Overall, the field of variational pragmatics calls for more research into a wider variety of speech acts in a wider variety of languages. Perception and interactional studies should be conducted in the future to provide further insights into the variation of speak- ers’ pragmatic performance.

About the authors Yunwen Su is Assistant Professor of Chinese Linguistics at the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Utah. She researches Chinese pragmatics and interlanguage pragmatics. She has published papers in Language Learning & Technology, Foreign Language Annals, and Modern Language Journal, as well as edited volumes.

Yufen Chang is Assistant Professor of Chinese at the Department of Modern Lan- guages at Western Kentucky University. Her primary research areas are acquisition of Chinese pragmatics and tones, Taiwanese sandhi, and in general. She has published papers in journals such as Chinese as a Second Language Research and Concentric: Studies in Linguistics.

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Appendix: Experimental scenarios of the oral DCT with English translation

S3. 你在麦当劳买东西吃，里面人非常多。你端着盘子想要找一个桌子坐下来，却不小心把 可乐洒在了一个女生身上。 Ni zai Maidanglao mai dongxi chi, limian ren feichang duo. Ni duan zhe panzi xiang yao zhao yi ge zhuozi zuoxialai, que bu xiaoxin ba kele sa zai le yi ge nvsheng shenshang. You are eating at McDonald’s. It is very busy with many people. While you are looking for a seat with a tray in your hands, you accidentally spill your coke on a girl.

S5. 你的好朋友小华买了一部新手机，非常酷。你拿来玩儿，不小心把手机摔到了地上，手 机的屏幕摔碎了。 Nide hao pengyou Xiaohua mai le yi bu xin shouji, feichang ku. Ni nalai wan-er, bu xiaoxin ba shouji shuaidao le dishang, shouji de pingmu shuaisui le. 86 east asian pragmatics

Your good friend, Xiaohua, bought a new cell phone. It looks cool. While you are checking out his phone, you accidentally drop it on the floor. The cell phone screen cracks.

S9. 你在公共汽车上，人很多。你没有座位，手上抱着两本书站着。一个急刹车，你手上的 书掉了下来，砸到了旁边座位上坐着的男生。 Ni zai gonggong qiche shang, ren hen duo. Ni meiyou zuowei, shou shang bao zhe liang ben shu zhan zhe. Yi ge ji shache, ni shou shang de shu diao le xialai, zadao le pangbian zuowei shang zuo zhe de nansheng. You are standing on a crowded bus with no open seats, holding two books in your arms. The bus driver breaks unexpectedly, causing you to drop your books on a man sitting in a seat close to you.

S11. 你和小华是好朋友。你前两天跟小华借了一本小说看，却不小心把咖啡洒在上面弄脏 了。今天，你把书还给小华。 Ni he Xiaohua shi hao pengyou. Ni qian liangtian gen Xiaohua jie le yi ben xia­ oshuo kan, que bu xiaoxin ba kafei sa zai shangmian nongzang le. Jintian, ni ba shu huan gei Xiaohua. Xiaohua is a good friend of yours. The other day you borrowed a book from him. While you were reading, you accidentally left coffee stains on the book. Now you are returning the book to Xiaohua.

S15. 你在百货商场逛街，人非常多。你往前走的时候，不小心挤到了一个女生。 Ni zai baihuo shangchang guangjie, ren feichang duo. Ni wangqian zou de shihou, bu xiaoxin jidao le yi ge nvsheng. You are shopping at a mall. The mall is busy. While you are walking, you acciden- tally bump into a girl.

S17. 你在宿舍，室友张丽给你打电话，要你帮她带一本书到图书馆。你出门的时候，忘了 带上张丽的书。你现在见到了张丽，才想起来。 Ni zai sushe, shiyou Zhangli gei ni da dianhua, yao ni bang ta dai yi ben shu dao tushuguan. Ni chumen de shihou, wang le daishang Zhangli de shu. Ni xianzai jiandao le Zhangli, cai xiangqilai. You are at your dorm. Your roommate, Li Zhang, gives you a call and asks you to bring a book of hers to the library. You forget to bring the book while heading out. Now you see Li Zhang and realise that you have forgotten about the book.