Politeness, Face, and Apologies

Apology occurs when someone recognizes that he has performed an action or an utterance which has insulted other person, such as offending someone else, neglecting his or her duty, or causing trouble. That will damage one's relationship. In social interaction, someone may hurt other person's feeling unintentionally. This incident may cause understanding.

It is said an apology is often used to serve different purpose ranging from maintaining polite rituals that could vary from one society to another, to the acknowledgement of serious offences. In spoken and written interactions and in effect of intercultural interactions it becomes relevant to determine what condition must be present for the adequate performance of apology.

An apology is a speech act that is used to restore relationships between a speaker (S) and a hearer (H) after S has offended H intentionally or unintentionally. Olshtain and Cohen (in Wolfson &  Judd, 1983) state that the act of apologizing is called for when some behaviors violated social norms. When an action or utterance (or the lack of other one) has resulted in the fact that one or more persons perceives themselves as offended, the culpable person (s) needs to apologize.
Here, the act of apologizing is dealing with two parties: an apologizer and a recipient. However, only if the person who causes the infraction perceives him/herself as an apologizer do we get the act of apologizing. The act of apologizing requires an action or an utterance which is intended to "set things right". Whether a specific discourse situation calls for apology and whether a certain utterance qualifies as such an apology will depend on both linguistic and socio cultural norms.

Apology is speech act on which a considerable literature exists. Goffman views apology as a remedial interchange (work) with the function of changing the meaning that otherwise might be given into an act, transforming what could be seen as offensive into what can be seen as acceptable. Marian Owen interprets remedial interchanges including apologies and accounts as those concerned specifically with repairing damage to face, where past preservation itself becomes the object of the conversation for a time, however short.