Reflection: What counts as an apology?

The performance of public apologies, even within nation states, is often more complex than at first appearance, due to the different understandings and footings of recipients. In early 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a formal apology in the Australian parliament to the “Stolen Generations”, indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Straits Australians who were forcibly taken from their homes as children and forced to assimilate with white Australian families over a period of 100 years from 1869–1969. The core of the “sorry speech” was the issuing of apologies for three offences:

This apology was received by many Australians as genuine and sincere as it conformed to both “everyday and formal understandings of the necessary linguistic features of a legitimate apology” (Augustinos et al. 2011: 527), at least in English, we might add. However, the reaction amongst indigenous Australians was more mixed. On the one hand, the address was treated as an appropriate and sufficient apology by some, as illustrated by the following reaction from a member of the Stolen Generations, Uncle Albert Holt:

On the other hand, other (indigenous) Australians regarded it is as less than an apology. They focused on two points. The first is the way in which it has been (mis)perceived by white Australians.

The point argued here by Foley is that, while the apology was perceived by most Australians as an apology to all indigenous Australians, it was in fact only an apology for what happened to the Stolen Generations. Such activists contend that a real apology should address all injustices against all indigenous Australians. The second point of contention is that an apology must be accompanied by meaningful compensation or reparations to count as real or sufficient:

The “sorry speech” was thus perceived, by some at least, as reflecting the “discourse of minimizing responsibility” that Kampf (2009) argues is characteristic of public, political apologies.

Differences in the performance and understanding of speech acts can be divided into two main types following the pragmalinguistic-sociopragmatic distinction that was initially made by Thomas (1983; see also Leech 1983). The pragmalinguistic aspect of speech acts refers to the linguistic forms and strategies (more generally “resources”) that are utilized in their performance. The sociopragmatic aspect of speech acts, in contrast, refers to the social values and perceptions that underlie their performance and interpretation. The cross-cultural differences in apologies in English and Japanese we have just discussed are largely sociopragmatic in nature. However, in comparing speech acts across cultures, we often find that differences are both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic in origin. For example, a review of the literature indicates that while Chinese and English speakers draw from a largely similar range of pragmalinguistic resources in performing apologies (e.g. explanations for the offence, acknowledgements of responsibility and offers of redress), one resource used much more commonly by Chinese compared to English speakers is the repetition of apology IFIDs (e.g. duìbùqĭ or bùhăoyìsu) (Chang and Haugh 2011). This pragmalinguistic difference can be traced to a key sociopragmatic difference underlying apologies in English and Chinese, namely, the way in which “sincerity” (or what is termed chéngyì in Chinese) is conceptualized. In Chinese, chéngyì in relation to apologies is realized through repetition of an apology IFID several times to “show what s/he intends to do is genuine” while also giving the recipient the opportunity to confirm the speaker’s “genuine intention” (Hua et al. 2000: 99). This pragmalinguistic resource, while available to English speakers, is not as commonly employed due to the different sociopragmatic value placed on repetition of speech acts (particularly IFIDs).