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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 14:2 (2015) ► pp.175–204

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Revisiting the apology as a speech act

The case of parliamentary apologies

 | University of the West of England |
Published online: 20 August 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.2.01mur
By looking at both apologies made in everyday conversation and those made by politicians in public, I aim in this paper to provide a full set of felicity conditions for the speech act of apology. I also discuss how refinements to previously proposed categories of apology strategies are needed to accurately describe how (British) politicians apologise. I endeavour to show that with these refinements, the speech act approach to apologies is applicable to those of a political nature, as well as those in everyday conversation. Using these developments I analyse how Members of the U.K. Parliament apologise for a variety of offences. This analysis shows that MPs make more fulsome apologies than the apologies found in everyday conversation. The type of offence has an effect on how an MP apologises, with apologies for financial irregularities being the more detailed and making use of more conventional strategies than other apologies.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Felicity Conditions
    • 2.2Propositional content
      • 2.2.1Speaker responsibility
      • 2.2.2Timing of the offence
      • 2.2.3Reformulating the propositional content
    • 2.2Preparatory condition
    • 2.2Sincerity condition
    • 2.2Summary
  • 3.Apology Strategies
  • 4.Participation Structure In The House Of Commons
  • 5.Results
    • 5.2Influence of offence type
    • 5.2The rôle of participation structure
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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