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 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U584521 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Ca r d if f DECLARATION UNIVERSITY PRI FYSGOL C a eRDY[§> This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not concurrently submitted!!* candidature for any degree. Sighed TTT. (candidate) Date ...l2.*.0.S ..*.2«!j. STATEMENT 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD. Signed — (candidate) Date ....l2^.:.P.S»..*.ZoU.... STATEMENT 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. OtHer'sources are acknowledged by explicit references. Signed ................(candidate) Date ...V2i.-..Q.S..:2<o.U.... STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ....................... (candidate) Date .!2.-.D.S.Ze>iU. STATEMENT 4: PREVIOUSLY APPROVED BAR ON ACCESS I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loans after expiry of a bar on access previously approved by the Graduate Development Committee. Signed (candidate) Date 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