Journal of Pragmatics 11 (1987) 147-167 147

North-Holland

APOLOGY STRATEGIES IN NATIVES / NON-NATIVES

Anna TROSBORG*

Sociolinguistic competence has been shown to be an important component of communicative

competence. However, research findings (e.g. Rintell (1981) Blum-Kulka (1982), Thomas (1982)
Eisenstein and Bodman (1984)) show that this area of competence is indeed problematic for
learners of a foreign language; they may be proficient in e.g. grammar and vocabulary, but still fail
to communicate effectively because they lack social-appropriateness rules as well as linguistic
realization rules for conveying their intended communicative acts. This paper deals with one
particular communicative act, viz. the act of apologizing, as realized in the speech of Danish
learners of English compared to native speaker performance. The paper is divided into two parts:
(1) an outline of apology strategies, and (2) an analysis of native/non-native communicative
behaviour in terms of these strategies.

1. The communicative act of apblogizing

Appropriate social behaviour patterns, as they are perceived in Western

societies, are built on the norms which constitute polite behaviour. Face-saving
maxims are believed to lie at the heart of face-to-face interaction and the social
recognition of an individual’s face is very important. As mentioned by House
and Kasper (1981: 157), who in turn build on Goffman, there are two
important points a person will hold with regard to face-saving: a defensive
orientation towards saving his own face and a protective orientation towards
saving the other’s face (Cf. Goffman (1972: 325)). House and Kasper also
point out that the same phenomenon has been described as ‘tact’ and defined
as ‘strategic conflict avoidance’ by Leech (1977: 19) while Lakoff defines it as
a device used ‘in order to reduce friction in personal interaction’ (1975: 64).
Regardless of definition, face-saving is likely to call for hearer-supportive as
well as speaker-supportive acts.
An apology is called for when social norms have been violated, whether the
offence is real or potential (Olshtain and Cohen (1983 : 20)). It is assumed that
there are two participants: an apologizer and a recipient of the apology. When
a person has performed an action or utterance (or failed to do SO) which has
* A preliminary version of this paper has appeared in A. Trosborg, ed., Communicative
competence in foreign language learning and teaching. Aarhus: The Dolphin (1986).
Author’s address: A. Trosborg, Dept. of English, Aarhus Universitet, DK-8000 Arhus C,
Denmark.

0378-2166/87/$3.50 0 1987, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

148 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies

offended another person, and for which he can be held responsible, he needs to
apologize. The act of apologizing requires an action or an utterance which is
intended to ‘set things right’. The culpable person must let the offended person
know that he is sorry for what he has done, so the act is highly hearer-
supportive and often self-demeaning (Edmondson and House (1981: 45)).
However, as pointed out by Olshtain and Cohen (1983: 21), the person who
has caused the infraction may not perceive himself as guilty, he may not feel
the need to apologize, or he may choose to deny his responsibility. A number
of factors are likely to influence his behaviour. His own perception of the
degree of the severity of the offence is often decisive, but he may also take into
consideration the recipient’s point of view, his perception of the degree of
offence, the extent of the expected reprimand, etc. Other influential factors are
the age, familiarity, and social status of the two participants (cf. Olshtain and
Cohen (1983: 21)).
In a complaint-apology situation, three ‘Roles’ are involve, referred to as
‘complainer’, ‘complainee’ or ‘apologizer’, and ‘complainable’ (i.e. the offence
in question). The potential apologizer may find himself in a position of ‘inner
conflict’ (Edmondson and House (1981: 145)). In receiving a complaint, he
sees his social competence challenged. At the same time he must accept that his
behaviour indicates a denial of the social standing of the complainer. His
response has, therefore, a twofold aim: He must placate the complainer to
restore social harmony, and he must restore his own social status. A conflict
between these two aims is likely to arise. Consequently, a complaint is not
always followed by an apology. In turn, the recipient of an apology may or
may not have been complaining. If a speaker feels he has given offence and/or
anticipates negative reactions, he may try to ‘soften his interlocutor’s feelings’
by ‘getting in first’ (Edmondson and House (1981: 153)). Thus, although the
acts complaint/apology resemble an adjacent pair, one may occur without the
other. In the following, I attempt to describe the major response categories
likely to follow a complaint. Most of these, but not all, are included in the
speech act set of apo1ogies.l

2. Coniplainee does not take on responsibility

Although an apology is the act by means of which a complainee can restore his
own social standing, he may refrain from performing this act. If he apologizes,
he accepts the complainer’s criticism to the effect that he is a non-responsible
social member, which is implied if not explicitly stated in all complaints.

1 The descriptions of the categories in the apology speech act set are built on Olshtain and Cohen
(1983), who in turn build their categories on Fraser (1981), and on the coding manual from The
Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (cf. Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984)), as well as on
the data obtained in the present study.
 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies 149

Instead, he may choose to deny responsibility. His denial can take on various
forms, from blunt refusals to evasive responses.
In the data obtained in my experiment, I found the categories displayed in
figure 1 below to be of major relevance. The complainee either denies that the
complainable has occurred (0.1) and (0.2), or he denies that he himself can be
held responsible, either by justifying his behaviour (0.3), or by blaming
someone else (0.4) and (0.5). The 5 categories can be described as follows:

Complainee does not take on responsibility

Does not accept that Accepts that the

the complainable has occurred complainable has occurred

Explicit Implicit Justification Blame

denial denial (0.3)
(0.1) (0.2)
Biames X Blames the
(0.4) complainer ‘attack
(0.5)
Figure 1

0.1. Explicit denial of responsibility:

The complainee‘exphcitly denies that an offence has occurred or that he is
in any way responsible for it. He may emphasize his ‘innocence’ with
arguments of the ‘I know nothing about it, I can assure you’ kind.
Strategic disarmers, such as ‘You know that I would never do a thing like
that’, may support the denial.
0.2. Implicit denial of responsibility:
The complaineee evades responsibility, for example by ignoring a
complaint, talking about something else, etc.
0.3. Justification:
The complainee provides arguments in which he seeks to persuade the
complainer that no blame can be attached to him. Either the complainable
has not occurred at all, or it can be fully justified.
0.4. Blaming someone else:
The complainee seeks to evade responsibility by blaming someone else. He
may blame a third party or even the complainer himself (in which case he
is likely to cause further offence).
0.5. Attacking the complainer:2
If the complainer lacks an adequate defence for his own behaviour, he
may choose to attack the complainer instead. This is yet another way of
* For a differentiation of category 0.5 (complaint strategies), the reader is referred to Trosborg
(1986).
150 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies

evading responsibility, though undoubtedly in most cases it is a more

abusive strategy than strategy 0.4..

An apology may be performed directly by the use of one of the verbs directly
signalling apology (apologize, be sorry, excuse, etc.) or it can be done indirectly
by taking on responsibility, minimizing the degree of offence, or giving
explanations. An offer of repair is often required in cases in which a verbal
apology is felt to be insufficient to restore social harmony. A promise of
forbearance relates to future behaviour, and the strategy of expressing concern
for the hearer serves as an additional attempt to placate the complainer. These
strategies are presented below in order of increasing directness and with an
increase in the potential ability to satisfy the complainer.

1. Minimizing the degree of offence

This strategy is closely related to the strategies in which the complainee fails to
take on responsibility. The difference lies in the fact that the complainee does
not deny responsibility. Instead, he seeks to minimize the degree of offence,
either by arguing that the supposed offence is of minor importance, in fact is
‘hardly worth mentioning’, or by querying the preconditions on which the
complaint is grounded. Finally, the complainee may be only partly responsible.
The following three substrategies apply:

1.1. Minimizing:
e.g. ‘Oh what does that matter, that’s nothing’; ‘What about it, it’s not
the end of the world’.
1.2. Querying preconditions:
e.g. ‘Well, everybody does that’; ‘What is love then?’ (in response to the
complainable ‘You don’t love me’).
1.3. Blaming someone else:
The offence committed by the complainee can be partly excused by an
offence committed by a third party.

Strategy 1.3 is distinguishable from strategy 0.3 on the grounds that in 1.3 the
complainee admits responsibility.

2. Ackowledgement of responsibility
When a complainee chooses to take on responsibility he can do so implicitly or
explicitly and with varying degrees of self-blame. The sub-categories outlined
below are all hearer-supportive and self-demeaning, and they are ordered with
respect to the degree of recognition with which the complainee accepts the
blame (from low to high intensity):
 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies 151

2.1. Implicit acknowledgement:

e.g. ‘I can see your point’; ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have done it’.
2.2. Explicit acknowledgement:
e.g. ‘I’ll admit I forgot to do it’.
2.3. Expression of lack of intent:
e.g. ‘I didn’t mean to’.
2.4. Expression of self-deficiency:
e.g. ‘I was confused’; ‘You know I am bad at...‘.
2.5. Expression of embarrassment:
e.g. ‘I feel so bad about it’.
2.6. Explicit acceptance of the blame:
e.g. ‘It was entirely my fault’; ‘You’re right to blame me’.

3. Explanation or account
A complainee may try to mitigate his guilt by giving an explanation or account
of the situation. Various kinds of mitigating circumstances serve as indirect
apologies and may be put forward on their own or in addition to a direct
expression of apology (cf. strategy 4 below). A distinction is made between an
implicit and an explicit explanation or account:

3.1. Implicit explanation:

e.g. ‘Such things are bound to happen, you know’.
3.2. Explicit explanation:
e.g. ‘Sorry I’m late, but my car broke down’.

Strategy 3 differs from strategy 0.2 with respect to the speaker’s acknowledge-
ment of responsibility. In an explanation or account, a complainee admits that
what he has done was undesirable, but he tries to lessen the blame which can
be attached to him by referring to mitigating circumstances that may excuse his
behaviour. Thus an explanation or an account serves as an ‘excuse’ for a
committed offence, whereas in a ‘justification’ the complainee does not
acknowledge that an offence has occurred.

4. Expression of apology
An apologizer may choose to express his apology explicitly. A small number of
verbs apply and the expression is a routine formula generally accepted to
express apology. The semantic content may be an expression of regret, an offer
of apology, or a request for forgiveness, as in the examples below:3

3 I am aware that the categories 4.2 and 4.3 are oversimplified, but they are sufficient for the
present analysis, as these strategies were rarely obtained in my data. For an elaborate categoriza-
tion, see Fraser (1981) and Owen (1983).
152 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies

4.1. Expression of regret:

e.g. ‘I’m sorry’.
4.2. Offer of apology:
e.g. ‘I apologize’.
4.3. Request for forgiveness:
e.g. ‘Excuse me’; ‘Please, forgive me’; ‘Pardon me’.

The routine formula ‘I’m sorry’ is by far the most commonly used form of
expression and is often extended by means of adverbial intensifiers (e.g. ‘I’m
really/terribly/most dreadfully sorry’).

5. Offer of repair
An apologizer may offer to ‘repair’ the damage which has resulted from his
infraction. Repair may be offered in its literal sense or as an offer to pay for
the damage. In situations in which actual repair is not possible (not wanted,
etc.), the apologizer may offer some kind of ‘compensatory’ action or ‘tribute’
to the complainer.

5.1. Repair:
e.g. ‘I’ll pay for the cleaning’.
5.2. Compensation :
e.g. ‘You can borrow my dress instead’.

6. Promise of forbearance
With respect to future behaviour, an apologizer can promise either never to
perform the offence in question again, or to improve his behaviour in a
number of ways. His utterance is often signalled by the performative verb
promise.

6.1. Promise of forbearance:

e.g. ‘It won’t happen again, I promise’.

7. Expressing concern for hearer

In order to pacify a complainer, the complainee may express concern for his
well-being, his condition, etc.

3. The experiment

3.1. Empirical design

The data are part of a corpus (300 conversations) elicited in a variety of social
situations in order to provide knowledge of the sociolinguistic competence of
 A. Trosborg 1 Apology strategies 153

Danish learners of English as compared to native speakers. The conversations

involve various communicative acts within three major categories of speech act
functions, viz. the regulatory, the attitudinal, and the argumentative functions.
For the present paper, the data were elicited by means of role plays constructed
on the basis of anticipated illocutionary acts of complaints and apologies.4 The
participants were videotaped in dyadic face-to-face conversations lasting
approximately 5 minutes. The role relationships between the two participants
varied along two parameters: ‘dominance’ and ‘social distance’. With regard to
dominance, the role relationship between the two participants was specified
either by the authority or by the lack of authority of one interactant over the
other. The interactants either knew each other or they had never met before
(social distance). The following three different types of role constellations were
used : 5

(a) status unequals, non-intimates + dominance

(authority figures/subordinates) + social distance
(b) status equals, non-intimates - dominance
(strangers) + social distance
(c) status equals, intimates - dominance
(friends or near acquaintances) - social distance

It was hypothesized that the addition of the two parametres would result in
situations demanding different levels of politeness.
The aim of the research was to obtain dialogues which were as spontaneous
and natural as possible. Therefore, the distinction between (a) role playing and
(b) role enactment (McDonough (1981: SO)) was kept in mind when the role
play material was constructed. The two types are characterized as follows: (a)
‘pretending to react as if one were someone else in a different situation’ and (b)
‘performing a role that is part of one’s normal life or personality’. The role
enactment approach was considered the most advantageous, which meant that
the role plays had to be tailor-made to the participants or, at least, contain
problems and characters which were known beforehand to be familiar to those
involved. This would facilitate the process for the foreign-language learners
considerably, especially if they were unused to performing in this kind of
situation. Twelve concrete situations from everyday life (private life, at work,
at public places, etc.) were chosen and role descriptions were constructed.
Typically, these descriptions involved some interactional complexity in the
form of some kind of conflict or social difficulty that was not easily handled in

4 The elicitation material consists partly of role plays taken over from Edmonson, House, Kasper
and Stemmer (1984), and partly of new role plays constructed for the present study.
5 A fourth possibility of the combination of the features + dominance and - social distance was
not included, as the addition of the feature + dominance might be outweighed by the inclusion of
the feature - social distance.
154 A. Trosborg 1 Apology strategies

a prepatterned or routinized manner. The descriptions were slightly modified in

order to serve as descriptions for three different groups of learners, but always
so that major characteristics of the situation were kept constant across groups.
Three groups of learners and two groups of native speakers provided the
data?

Group I: Danish learners of English (intermediate level)

Group II: Danish learners of English (lower advanced level)
Group III: Danish learners of English (higher advanced level)
NS-E: Native speakers of English
NS-D: Native speakers of Danish

For Groups I, II, III, and NS-E, the complainer was always a native speaker
of English.
The roles were distributed so that twelve subjects from each of the five
groups were video-recorded in two different role constellations (a + b, or b + c,
or a + c), viz. 24 situations, eight in each of the three different role constella-
tions, for each of the five groups, yielding a total sample of 120 conversations.
All conversations were transcribed and analysed with regard to the
occurrence of apology strategies. Furthermore, utterances classified within this
framework were also analysed for the inclusion of ‘modality markers’ (see
below). This analysis was conducted to gain some insight into the subjects’ use
of politeness markers added to the main strategies, e.g. in order to create
mitigating circumstances, convey tentativeness, etc.

4. Results

An analysis of the results showed major differences in learner performance as

compared to NS-E for some of the apology strategies, while for others, no
significant differences were found (see table 1). When the performance of NS-E
was compared to that of NS-D, no statistically significant differences were
found in terms of the frequency of use of apology strategies. However,
different trends were apparent, some of which may have influenced the
learners’ choice of strategy in the foreign language. An analysis of the use of
modality markers showed significant differences between learners and NS-E, as
well as between the two groups of native speakers (NS-E/NS-D).
In the following, we shall consider the similarities and differences obtained
on the seven apology strategies in turn. Differences in terms of politeness
markers as realized through the inclusion of modality markers will be dis-

6 Group I learners come from secondary school, grade 9, and from business school, level 2,
Group II learners from gymnasium, 2.g, and from business school, level 3, and Group III learners
are from Aarhus University, 4th semester, and from the Aarhus Graduate School of Management
and Modern Languages, HA, 4th semester.
 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies 155

Table 1
Distribution of Strategies 1-7 according to learner group (I, II, III), native speaker of English
(NS-E), and native speaker of Danish (NS-D).

Group I Group II Group III NS-E NS-D

% % % % %

Strategy 0
(Reject) 23.7 29.0 18.1 7.6 13.1
Strategy 1
(Minimize) 11.3 14.3 13.5 20.9 24.8
Strategy 2
(Acknowledge) 20.6 12.3 18.9 16.3 20.1
Strategy 3
(Explain) 10.5 13.3 13.9 21.7 17.5
Strategy 4
(Apologize) 13.2 8.2 16.0 7.2 6.4
Strategy 5
(Offer repair) 16.3 20.8 14.6 21.7 12.4
Strategy 6
(Promise forbearance) 4.3 1.4 3.6 2.3 4.7
Strategy 7
(Show concern) 0 0.7 1.4 2.3 1.0

Total number of responses 257 293 281 263 298

cussed, and, finally, the influence on performance of the two variables ‘domi-
nance’ and ‘social distance’ will be considered.

1. Complainee does not take on responsibility (O;l-0.5)

The three groups of learners behaved differently from NS-E as regards the
degree of responsibility they undertook. Learners failed to take on responsibil-
ity in situations where NS tended to acknowledge responsibility. It is noticeable
that Group II learners used this strategy more often than Group I learners,
and only in Group III was there a decline in the use of this strategy relative to
increasing linguistic competence. For Group II learners, the higher number of
‘denials’, as compared to NS-E, reached statistical significance (F7.387, df 1,
p = 0.009). For Group I, the difference to NS-E was marginally significant
(F3.921, df 1, p = 0.054). NS-D rejected responsibility more often than NS-E.
Failure to acknowledge responsibility often resulted in very impolite be-
haviour :

Ext. 1 (Situation: Complainee has failed to erase comments in the margin of a

library book. The librarian complains.)7
L: I’m sorry we got a because I’m not gonna pay for this . . . that that’s not my
problem because when I lent that book it was mn, this book is a mess.
7 In the extracts to follow, C refers to the complainer (always a native speaker), and apologizers
are referred to as either L (in the case of learners) or NS (in the case of native speakers).
156 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies

After a long and aggressive ‘defence’, L finally complains about the service at
the library and threatens to speak to the manager about it.
When looking at the use of the various substrategies in this response
category, differences between the groups become enlarged. While Group I
mainly used simple denials (0.1) and attacks (OS), the three remaining groups
also used justifications (0.3). The substrategy of attacking the complainer (0.5)
was used about three times as often by the three groups of learners as
compared to NS, and most frequently by Group III learners. Consider the
following interchange:

Ext. 2 (Situation: A lodger comes home late at night and leaves the bathroom
in a mess. His landlady complains.)
C: Well, it’s not very nice for me to be woken up at night by you coming
home late.
L: Just once and why are you so mad?
C: Because it’s irritating.
L: Oh, crazy old lady.
c: and I do think you should have a little respect.
L: A little respect for you?
c: Yes for me.
L: You aren’t my mother, you know.
C: No, but this is my house~and you live here.
L: Yes, and I pay for it.
C: I do have certain rules and another thing is that when you moved in you
agreed to clean the bathroom and I don’t know why but you took a bath
when you came home because I could see that there was a black ring
around the bathtub and that’s still there this morning and I refuse to clean
it.
L: Oh, it was terrible.
C: Certainly was, yeah.
L: You’re crazy.
.. .
C: Why are you being so difficult, I thought we agreed when you moved in
that you were going to do these things.
L: Yes, you thought.
C: Look, there are hundreds of other people I could get to stay here.
Li Do you think?

When occasionally substrategy 0.5 was used by NS, it occurred either in

conversations between strangers (Ext. 3) or between intimates (Ext. 4). It was
never used when NS responded to complaints from authority figures.
 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies 151

Ext. 3 (Situation: Complainee has taken another student’s seat at the library.
The student complains.)
NS: Well, if it was your chair, why did you leave it?

Ext. 4 (Situation: Complainee has forgotten to hand in a term paper for a

friend as promised. His friend complains.)
NS: Oh, but I mean you always take things so, so eh
.. .
NS: It’s, it just slipped my mind, I mean if it had meant that much to you, you
should have done it yourself.

It must be mentioned that these attacks only occur after a direct apology,
several explanations, after an expression of lack of intent (2.3), an expression
of self-deficiency (2.4), and an expression of embarrassment (‘I mean, it really
pisses me off that I didn’t hand it in’ (2.5)).

2. Minimizing the degree of offence

While strategy 0 was rarely used by NSs, strategy 1 was used more often by
NSs than by learners, and most frequently by NS-D.
In some situations in which learners claimed not to be responsible, NSs
tended to query the preconditions on which the accusation was made. Croup I
learners used this strategy significantly less than NSs (F6.722, df 1, p = 0.013).
With regard to the choice of substrategy, learners and NSs minimized (1’:1) to a
similar extent, although learners often appeared less polite than NSs. Contrast,
for example, the lack of concern (‘I don’t care’) in Ext. 5 with the expression of
‘lack of intent’ (2.3) in Ext. 6:

Ext. 5 (Situation: Two friends share a flat and have agreed on a mutual
cleaning arrangement. Complainee fails to do her share.)
L: Oh, it’s nothing, it will take only five minutes.. . I just don’t care,’ it’s
nothing, just takes ten minutes, help me.

Ext. 6 (Situation: A typist has borrowed a tape-recorder from the manager’s

office without having asked his or his secretary’s permission. The secretary
complains.)
NS: I didn’t mean to be any inconvenience in your work, but, I mean, it’s no
good making a big deal out of it, we delivered it straight off, didn’t we?

As it appears, the two extracts stem from different situations. The distribution
of the strategies often differed, in that learners tended to minimize in situations
in which NSs were likely to acknowledge responsibility. Compare Ext. 7 to
Ext. 5 above:
158 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies

Ext. 7
C: Hi, at last it’s you. I’m sick and tired of all this mess.
NS: Yeah, ahm look, yeah, I’m sorry, I know I should have been doing that
cleaning.

In the interaction that follows, NS’s defence is expressed through several

queries of the whole arrangement: A different day, a change of time-table, a
different way of dividing the job, etc. are needed for the arrangement to
function.
When using the substrategy of minimizing (l.l), learners sometimes went to
extremes in putting forward statements of dubious relevance. In the ‘library
situation’, for example, a library member insisted that ‘the book is better now
with all the underlinings’, ‘the author’s mistakes have been corrected’, ‘the
book is easier to read now’, ‘the next reader can learn from the comments
that’s been added’, etc. for which reasons the comments in the margin did not
matter at all.
The substrategy ‘querying preconditions’ (1.2) was used about twice as often
by NSs as by the three groups of learners. As mentioned, it tended to be used
by NSs in situations in which learners denied their responsibility or-attacked
the complainer. Compare Ext. 8 to Ext. 2 above:

Ext. 8 (Situation: The same as in Ext. 2)

NS: You know, I mean, I don’t think it’s not worth bothering to clean up all
the time.
C: Well, actually, if you just clean up after, if one just cleans up after
themselves then there’s never any great deal of work at one time.
NS: But I mean, you know, we’re only, there’s only the two of us living in the
house, it doesn’t get that dirty, you know, I mean to wash the bathroom
once a week that’s enough, isn’t it, don’t you think?

The substrategy ‘blaming someone else’ (1.3) was not used frequently by any
group.

3. Acknowledgement of responsibility
What distinguished learner performance from NS on this strategy was not the
frequency with which the strategy was used (no statistically significant differen-
ces were obtained), but rather the combinations in which the strategy occurred.
One might hypothesize that if a group had a high number of ‘denials’, they
would have a relatively low number of acknowledgements, and vice versa. This
was indeed the case for Group II learners whose performance demonstrated
the highest number of denials and the lowest number of acknowledgements as
compared to the other groups. This was not so, though, for Groups I and III,
who had> high number of responses in both categories. This may be explained
 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies 159

with reference to the situations in which these learners failed. to take on

responsibility, but when faced with ‘evidence to the contrary’, they felt bound
to acknowledge their offence. Inconsistent behaviour and loss of face was the
result. In contrast, NSs would acknowledge their responsibility from the
beginning, often either implicitly or tentatively by means of the inclusion of
‘modality markers’. Compare the following extract to Ext. 1 above:

Ext. 9 (Situation: The same as in Ext. 1.)

C: There are some scribbles in the book and someone’s been writing in it.
NS: Really.
C: As far as I can see it is exactly the same handwriting.
NS: Yes, I see what you mean.
C: You’re not certain?
NS: No. It could have been, though, because I’ve been studying for an exam,
and I’ve been starting already at two in the morning, and I get so tired
and I get so confused, and I’m so stressed that ahm - and when I study,
lots of times I underline things and write little notes and I am very sorry.

For NSs, a fairly high number of acknowledgements were consistent with the
low number of cases in which responsibility was denied.
For all four groups, ‘explicit acknowledgement’ (2.2) was the most frequent-
ly used of the six substrategies outlined above.

4. Explanation or account
The ability to account adequately for a complainable is likely to require
linguistic strength and, as anticipated, learners provided less explanations than
NSs. For Group I, this difference was statistically significant (F7.6661, df 1,
p = 0.008). Not only did NSs provide explanations in all 24 apology situations,
but attention must also be directed to the nature of these explanations.
Sometimes explanations provided by NSs were very lengthy indeed. Consider
Ext. 10 below:

Ext. 10 (Situation: The same as in Ext. 6.)

NS: Ahm, I must admit I haven’t, I didn’t know it was broken, and it eh, the
situation was very unfortunate, as you said it was a holiday and we’ve all
been under great pressure, and John came in one day and was in a
terrible rush, he was off to a meeting and his own tape-recorder had
broken and there were no other tape-recorders available anywhere and
then I suddenly remembered Smith’s tape-recorder and thought that I
could perhaps borrow that, and I went looking for you and couldn’t find
you and because John was standing sort of trembling to get off to his
meeting then I decided I better just take it and leave a note and he were of
course told to look after it properly and all that so -
160 +4.Trosborg / Apology strategies

5. Expression of apology
Both native and non-native speakers of English used ‘expression of regret’ (4.1)
to the exclusion of the other strategies of direct apology. ‘Offer of apology’
(4.2) was employed only a few times by NSs, while none of the learners used it.
The third substrategy ‘request for forgiveness’ (4.3) was not used at all. Group
III learners had the highest number of direct apologies (45 against 19 for NS-E
and NS-D). Group I had more direct apologies than NSs too, but the
differences were not significant. The two groups of learners also intensified
their routinized formulae more than NSs did. Furthermore, the apology
formulae were sometimes used inappropriately, not so much because the
apology itself was out of place, but rather because of the combination of
strategies in which it occurred. The routinized formulae were observed in
interactions in which it was obvious that the apologizer was not sorry at all. As
an example, it can be mentioned that Ext. 2 above was preceded by an
expression of regret (‘I’m sorry’), which is not in agreement with the very direct
attacks that follow.

6. Offer of repair
Offer of repair was negotiated by all three groups of learners. Group I and
Group III tended to repair less than NS-E and Group II learners, but
differences in frequency of use were not significant. NS-D had the lowest
number of repairs.
Response patterns also differed in that NSs volunteered repair more will-
ingly. Repair was elicited twice as often by the complainer in Groups I and II
as compared to NS-E. A request for repair was rejected most often by Group I
learners, but it was not a strategy frequently used by any of the groups.
Sometimes the sincerity of a learner’s offer of repair was doubtful. Consider
Ext. 11:

Ext. 11 (Situation: Downstairs neighbour complains about noise from flat

upstairs.)
C: Can you turn the music down?
L: Oh sure, but we’re having a party.

C: ..... .but will you promise that you turn the music down because I really need
to get some sleep.
L: I promise, maybe you should get some earplugs.

Request for repair was rejected most often by Group I learners, but it was
not a strategy frequently used by any of the groups.

7. Promise of forbearance
This strategy was not frequent in any of the groups. It was observed only in
 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies 161

specific situations and occurred most often in Group I (4.3 percent of the total
number of responses).

8. Concern for hearer

This strategy was the most rare of all the strategies outlined. Frequency of use
was limited to just a few responses (2 in Group II and 6 in the group of NS-E).

Modality markers. In addition to a classification of apology strategies, it

was found of interest also to analyse the subjects’ use of ‘modality markers’.8
It clearly makes a difference in terms of politeness whether you say ‘maybe
your argument is a bit overheated, don’t you think?‘, or you say, ‘You are a
liar’. I will only focus on modality markers that serve to mitigate the
circumstances under which an offence was committed and consequently these
lessen the blame that can be attached to the complainee. In the case of an
attack, these elements play down the impact the utterance is likely to have
on the complainee. The following eight categories of modality markers are
distinguished. l-4 play down the impact of a complainable, 5-6 upgrade the
impact of an apology, excuse, etc., while 7-8 function at the interpersonal level
of discourse to restore harmony between two interlocutors:

(1) Downtoners: Adverbial sentence modifiers, such as just, simply, etc. and
adverbials expressing tentativeness, e.g. perhaps, maybe, possibly (‘I just left
for five minutes’).
(2) Understaters: Phrases that underrepresent the state of affairs denoted in the
complainable, e.g. a little bit, a second, not very much, etc. (‘I only went out
for a second’).
(3) Hedges: Adverbials by means of which the complainee avoids a precise
propositional specification, e.g. kind oJ sort 05 somehow, etc. (‘Somehow,
it all happened very quickly, I kind of didn’t notice before it was too late’).
(4) Subjectivizers: Modifiers that characterize the proposition as the speaker’s
personal opinion, or indicates his attitude towards the proposition, e.g. I
think, Z suppose, I’m afraid, in my opinion, etc.
(5) Intensifiers: Adverbials intensifying part of the proposition, e.g. intensi-
fying a lack of intention, an expression of regret or embarrassment (‘I’m
terribly sorry, I really didn’t mean any harm’),
(6) Commitment upgraders: Sentence modifiers expressing ar special com-
mitment towards the proposition (‘I was sure/certain/positive that you
wouldn’t mind.. .‘).
(7) Cajolers: Gambits functioning at the interpersonal level of discourse with

8 For an extensive description of modality markers, see House and Kasper (1981: 16670) on
which my outline is built.
162 A, Trosborg 1 Apology strategies

the function of restoring harmony between two interlocutors, e.g. you

know, you see, Z mean, etc.
(8) Appealers: Discourse elements (including tags) intended to elicit a response
from the complainer, appealing to his understanding, etc., e.g. okay, right,
don’t you think?
!
As we have seen, learners did not always appear as polite as NSs even
though the same apology strategy was used: Lack of politeness was due to
‘inferior’ linguistic means for modulating the attitudinal tone of a given
strategy. NSs included more modality markers in their responses and thereby
achieved a different effect of politeness (see table 2). For NSs, as compared to

Table 2
Distribution of Modality markers according to learner group (Group I, II, III), native speaker of
English (NS-E) and native speaker of Danish (NS-D).

Group I Group II Group III NS-E NS-D

Number of markers 78 119 182 198 436

Group I learners, this difference was significant (F9.479, df 1, p = 0.004).

When the three groups of learners were compared, there was an increase in the
use of modality markers relative to increasing linguistic competence. For
Group II learners, the difference to Group I was marginally significant
@ = 0.057), while when Group III was compared to Group I, the difference
was significant (p = 0.000). The frequency of use for NS-D was significantly
higher than for NS-E (F 13.821, df 1, p = 0.001). In the light of this finding, the
differences obtained between Danish learners of English and NS-E seem even
more remarkable.

Strategic disarmers. In order to modify the attitudinal tone of an inter-

action, the apologizer may try to soften the complainer’s feelings etc. with a
‘strategic disarmer’.9 This strategy is intended to have a soothing effect on the
complainer and was often skilfully employed by NSs, though rarely used by
learners. The examples presented below are from the speech of NS-Es:

Ext. 12
Yea, you see I hate to do this but.. .

Ext. 13
I would have told you but you weren’t there.

9 See Edmondson and House (1981: 155-157) for a description of apologies as strategic
disarmers.
 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies 163

Ext. 14
I’d like to assure you that I’m not in the habit of normally coming home
intoxicated.

Dominance and social distance. All groups reacted to the parameters of

dominance and social distance. However, no straight ‘top-to-bottom’ scale of
politeness, viz. a-situations more polite than b-situations, b-situations more
polite than c-situations, was found. Nor was it the case that all strategies were
equally sensitive to the parameters in question.
For the selection of direct apologies, the influence of dominance and social
distance was not significant for any of the groups, although Group III learners
tended to apologize more to friends than they did to strangers. As mentioned,
Group I and Group III learners intensified their apologies more than Group II
and NS. For Group III, this intensification occurred mostly in interactions
with friends, while Group I did not discriminate.
Thus the findings show that the addition of the parameters [+ social
distance] and [+ dominance] did not result in an increase in the number of
direct apologies, nor in the intensifications of these apologies. For NSs, the
performance was neutral, while the performance of Group III showed the
opposite trend, i.e. they apologized more and intensified more to friends than
they did to strangers and authority figures.
Major differences are to be found in the selection of strategies (l), (2), (3),
and (5). For the selection of the strategy minimizing (l), there was a significant
effect of the variable dominance. All groups minimized less to authority figures
(a-situations) than they did to friends (c-situations) (T - 2.0693, df 611.7,
p = 0.043). On the other hand, all groups acknowledged significantly more to
authority figures and to friends than they did to strangers (T4.0921, df 64,
p = 0.000 and T4.9142, df 65, p = 0.000, respectively). The highest number of
explanations was given to friends, and the difference to the number of
explanations offered to strangers was significant (T 3.3827, df 71.2, p = O.OOl),
while the difference to authority figures was only marginally significant
(T - 1.8412, df 78, p = 0.069). Friends as well as strangers received significantly
more repairs than authority figures (T -4.6996, df 72.6, p = 0.000 and
T - 2.54, df 66.2, p = 0.013, respectively).

5. Concluding remarks

The sociopragmatic competence in terms of the selection of the appropriate

apology strategy in a given social context has been analysed in Danish learners
at three levels of English as compared to NS-E and to the learners’ per-
formance in their native language. The findings show that sociopragmatic
strategies are indeed transferred from one language to another. However, the
164 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies

frequency with which the seven main strategies were selected reveals a devia-
tion from NS-E norms for a number of strategies. When the performance of
NS-E was compared to the performance of NS-D, no significant differences
were found on the main strategies, This finding was not altogether unexpected,
as the two nations share similar cultures, and it implies that Ll interference is
not the most likely cause of deviations. in the choice of strategy between
learners of English and native speakers of English. However, as mentioned
earlier, an inclination in NS-D to use some strategies more/less often than NS-
E may have been reinforced in the learners’ performance. NS-D used more
rejections than NS-E, while they repaired less than NS-E, which findings point
in the direction of the obtained learner deviations. In the case of rejections (0),
the aversiveness of having to take the blame coupled with inadequacy to give
explanations is in itself a likely explanation for the high number of rejections.
The higher number of direct apologies used by learners, which reached
statistical significance for Group III learners, cannot be traced back to Ll
influence. It is likely, though, that the formula has been ‘overlearned’ by these
advanced speakers.
Lack of minimizing (1) in learners can by no means be traced back to Ll
influence, as NS-D had the highest number of responses in this category, but in
particular the strategy of querying preconditions (1.2) which was used fairly
often by NSs, demands linguistic as well as cognitive skill, and may well
increase with increasing competence in the foreign language. Likewise, we may
account for the low number of explanations in learners.
The increase in the use of modality markers relative to an increase in
linguistic competence is in agreement with language acquisition in children.
The relatively low number of direct apologies expressed through a routinized
formulae (7.2 percent of the total number of responses for NS-E) was
unexpected and needs to be discussed. An intuitive assumption to the effect
that direct apologies are used more frequently in English than in Danish was
not confirmed either, as the two samples contained exactly the same number of
apologies. The low number of direct apologies may be explained with reference
to the severity of the offence. It is suggested that beyond a certain degree of
severity, a routinized formula used on its own is not an adequate response to a
complaint. Regardless of intensification (‘I’m terribly/awfully/most dreadfully
sorry’), it is insufficient to make amends for the afflicted offence and thus
restore harmony between two participants. Other strategies are needed, such as
explanations and offers of repair. The following native-speaker utterances
support this point:

Ext. 15 (Situation: A young fellow has stolen a cassette in the music depart-
ment of a store. The shop-assistent complains.)
NS: Do you think ‘sorry”s going to pay our bills?
 A. Trosborg / Apology stratepiw 165

Ext. 16 (Situation: The same as in Ext. 5.)

NS: Yes, but it is not good enough to say ‘sorry’ because every time you have
cleaning day you haven’t been home.

The situations chosen for the role plays were of a kind that could not be easily
treated as routines. Furthermore, as an effect of the elicitation method, an
offence committed would nearly always be treated by the complainer as
something very unpleasant and serious, even in situations where this was not
explicitly stated in the role description. For example, with reference to the
‘library situation’, the comments in the margin were ‘all written in ink’,
‘obscenities’, etc., and ‘the whole book was ruined:.
The low number of explanations used by learners is a likely outcome of
insufficient linguistic knowledge. In order to provide a convincing explanation
or give an adequate account, you need the relevant linguistic means. Likewise,
a high degree of proficiency is demanded to query the preconditions on which
an accusation is built. Therefore, it was not unexpected that students would be
found deficient in this respect and would have to resort to the use of other
strategies instead. If you find yourself unable to explain your own behaviour
adequately, or do not manage to query the relevance of a complainable, an
‘easy way out’ is to resort to ritual language use - hence the higher number of
direct apologies in learner speech as compared to NS - or to deny responsib-
ility altogether. Fearing the potential damage to their self-esteem, some
learners, especially in Group I, resorted to the strategy of denying responsibi-
lity. Obviously, some learners failed to consider the even greater loss of face
they risked, viz. that of having to admit their failure when faced with
counterfactual evidence. Combinations of strategy (0) and e.g. strategies (2)
(3) and (4) reveal inconsistent behaviour. In cases in which learners went to the
extreme of attacking the complainer, their utterances reveal their inability to
express themselves in a subtle and polite manner.
The degree of the severity of the offence committed may also throw light on
the high number of cases in which the learners at all three levels of competence
failed to take on responsibility. If the offence is very serious, it is not easily
justified. Therefore, for want of an adequate explanation, learners resorted to
the strategy of denying their responsibility. Native speakers, on the other hand,
with a better command of the language were able to explain and somewhat
justify their behaviour, or they found reasons for querying the preconditions
on which the accusation was built. Explaining, justifying and questioning an
accusation is both linguistically and cognitively more difficult than denying or
responding with a routine formula of expression of regret. In addition, the
possibility that learners were unaware that apology strategies could be success-
fully transferred from Danish to English with much the same frequency of use
cannot be excluded. For example, faulty expectations to the effect that
166 A. Trosborg / Apology strategies

speakers of English make use of direct apologies more often than Danes, may
have caused this formula (4.1) to be ‘over-learned’.
The ‘over-use’ of strategy 0.1 in learners can be compared to the findings of
Olshtain and Cohen (1983). They found that children tended to deny responsi-
bility when apologizing at a high degree of severity, since they expected a
strong reaction (e.g. a reprimand) from the recipient of the apology (p. 27).
This finding points to the use of similar strategies in children and foreign
language learners. A similarity between child language and learner language, in
particular at lower levels, has also been observed in other studies (cf. Trosborg
(1983, 1985)).
Concerning the frequency of use of modality markers, one would expect
‘over-use’ rather than ‘under-use’ when judging from the learners’ performance
in their native language. The fact that modality markers are under-used by
learners of English as compared to native speakers cannot be attached to Ll
interference as NS-D used these markers significantly more often than NS-E.
On the contrary, a likely transfer from mother tongue to target language did
not take place. This finding supports the hypothesis that the use of modality
markers is indeed a difficult ‘area’ for foreign language learners, a problem to
which the foreign language teacher must devote his attention.

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