Direct Apology Strategies and Their Lexicogrammatical Realizations in English Conversations

Abstract

One of the most prevalent speech acts across languages and cultures is apologizing. It plays an important role in conversations which helps maintain social relationships. Many researchers in this field have proposed several apology strategies; however, this article aims to examine the direct apology strategies and the lexicogrammatical realizations of utterances, including apologies in English conversations. This is a descriptive qualitative study that gathered data from conversations extracted from romance and family film scripts. This study was also supported with quantitative information in order to seek the answers to three research questions. The findings show that expression of regret was the most prominent direct apology strategy, which the characters took advantage of in English-language conversations in film scripts. In terms of lexico-grammar, the utterances with the occurrence of sorry and its other realizations appeared most frequently.