Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 14:3 (2023) ► pp.410–433

Getting involved or acting in defence

How a corporation uses the ritual act of apology in response to public criticism

ORCID logo | Zhejiang Gongshang University
| Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
This study explores the business ritual practice of apology in corporate crisis management. By comparing the frequencies and analysing apology strategies from fifty local and nonlocal Chinese companies’ public letters of apology, we extend the politeness study of public apology to a broader hierarchy of a ritual frame and discuss the related formulaic patterns and strategies of apology. The results show that both groups share a high proportion of taking responsibility and explaining but differ significantly in their use of such strategies. We find that the business ritual practice of apology varies in accordance with the cultural identity of the corporation. Local Chinese companies tend to greatly rely on a ritual frame of involvement, whereas nonlocal companies take an interest in constructing a ritual frame of defence. The paper provides implications for the scholars of cross-cultural pragmatics and for business practitioners and future research directions for a ritual perspective when revisiting the practice of apology.
Keywords: ritual frame, corporate apology, Chinese, pragmatic strategies, cultural identity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical rationale
    • 2.1Corporate apology
    • 2.2Cultural identity and corporate apology
    • 2.3A ritual perspective of apology
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Data analysis
  • 4.Findings and discussion
    • 4.1Strategies and formulaic patterns of corporate apology
      • 4.1.1Expression of apology
      • 4.1.2Taking responsibility
        • Explicit expression of self-responsibility
        • Acknowledgement of self-deficiency
      • 4.1.3Explaining
        • Buck-passing
        • Reference to corporate values
      • 4.1.4Showing empathy
      • 4.1.5Others
    • 4.2Ritual frame of involvement vs. ritual frame of defence
      • 4.2.1Local companies’ ritual frame of involvement
      • 4.2.2Nonlocal companies’ ritual frame of defence
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Symbols used in morphological gloss
  • References
Published online: 3 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20014.yan
References (43)
References
Al Masaeed, Khaled, Linda R. Waugh, and Katharine E. Burns. 2018. “The development of interlanguage pragmatics in L2 Arabic: The production of apology strategies.” System 741: 98–108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Antaki, Charles. 1994. Explaining and arguing: The social organization of accounts. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Battistella, Edwin L. 2014. Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Benoit, William L. 1995. Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: A Theory of Image Restoration Strategies. New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
1997. “Image repair discourse and crisis communication.” Public Relations Review 23 (2):177–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, and Elite Olshtain. 1984. “Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP).” Applied Linguistics 5 (3):196–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burdelski, Matthew. 2013. ““I’m sorry, flower”: Socializing apology, relationships, and empathy in Japan.” Pragmatics and Society 4 (1):54–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Andrew D., and Elite Olshtain. 1981. “Developing a measure of sociocultural competence: The case of apology.” Language Learning 31 (1):113–134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coombs, W. Timothy. 2013. “An overview of challenges facing collective apologies: Their use in the corporate world.” In D. Cuypers, D. Janssen, J. Haers & B. Segaert (Eds.), Public Apology between Ritual and Regret, 229–249. Amsterdam/New York: Brill Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam. 2018. “Investigating the apology strategies of Saudi learners of English: Foreign language learning in focus.” Pragmatics and Society 9 (4):598–625. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Ritual. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
. 1971. Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Hearit, Keith Michael. 2006. Crisis Management by Apology：Corporate Response to Allegations of Wrongdoing. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ho, Victor. 2019. “Hotel management’s attempts at repairing customers’ trust: The use of apology and denial.” Pragmatics and Society 10 (4):493–511. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ide, Risako. 1998. “‘Sorry for your kindness’: Japanese interactional ritual in public discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 29 (5):509–529. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Jeremy F., and Adrefiza. 2017. “Comparing apologies in Australian English and Bahasa Indonesia: Cultural and gender perspectives.” Journal of Politeness Research 13 (1):89–119. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Joseph, John E. 2013. “Identity work and face work across linguistic and cultural boundaries.” Journal of Politeness Research 9 (1):35–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z. 2013. Relational Rituals and Communication: Ritual Interaction in Groups. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Juliane House. 2019. “Revisiting speech acts from the perspective of ritual: A discussion note.” Multilingua 38 (6):687–692. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020. “Ritual frames: A contrastive pragmatic approach.” Pragmatics 30 (1):142–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., Pu-yu Ning, and Yong-ping Ran. 2018. “Public ritual apology – A case study of Chinese.” Discourse, Context & Media 261: 21–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kampf, Zohar. 2009. “Public (non-) apologies: The discourse of minimizing responsibility.” Journal of Pragmatics 411: 2257–2270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “The discourse of public apologies: Modes of realization, interpretation and mediation.” In Public Apology between Ritual and Regret, D. Cuypers, D. Janssen, J. Haers & B. Segaert (Eds.), Public Apology between Ritual and Regret, 147–167. Amsterdam/New York: Brill Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, Suman, and Surin Chung. 2012. “Corporate apology and crisis communication: The effect of responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression on public’s anger relief.” Public Relations Review 381: 932–934. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 2014. The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ma, Liang. 2020. “How the interplay of consumer-brand identification and crises influences the effectiveness of corporate response strategies.” International Journal of Business Communication 60 (1):84–104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ogiermann, Eva. 2009. On Apologising in Negative and Positive Politeness Cultures. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Page, Ruth. 2014. “Saying ‘sorry’: Corporate apologies posted on Twitter.” Journal of Pragmatics 621: 30–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rachfał, Edyta. 2016. “Towards a linguistic model of crisis response (CRModel): A study of crisis communication in the phone hacking scandal.” Journal of Language and Politics 15 (2):215–236. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reiter, Rosina Márquez. 2000. Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uraguay: A Contrastive Study of Requests and Apologies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schoofs, Lieze, An-Sofie Claeys, Aurélie De Waele, and Verolien Cauberghe. 2019. “The role of empathy in crisis communication: Providing a deeper understanding of how organizational crises and crisis communication affect reputation.” Public Relations Review 45 (5):101851. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scollon, Ronald, and Suzanne Wong Scollon. 2001. Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Scott, Marvin B., and Stanford M. Lyman. 1968. “Accounts.” American Sociological Review 33 (1):46–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Semin, Gün R., and Antony S. R. Manstead. 1983. The Accountability of Conducts: A Social Psychological Analysis. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Shardakova, Maria. 2005. “Intercultural pragmatics in the speech of American L2 learners of Russian: Apologies offered by Americans in Russian.” Intercultural Pragmatics 2 (4):423–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Nick. 2013. “An overview of challenges facing collective apologies.” In D. Cuypers, D. Janssen, J. Haers & B. Segaert (Eds.), Public Apology between Ritual and Regret, 29–44. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tabatabaei, Soudabeh, Gonca Gencer, Esra Eldem, and Morteza Bakhtiarvand. 2018. “A comparative analysis of the apology strategy between Turkish EFL learners and English native speakers.” Applied Linguistics Research Journal 3 (3):1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tavuchis, Nicholas. 1991. A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Trosborg, Anna, and Philip Shaw. 2005. “Acquiring prescriptive business pragmatics: The case of customer complaints handling.” In A. Trosborg & P. E. Jørgensen (Eds.), Business Discourse: Texts and Contexts, 185–224. Berlin: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Villadsen, Lisa S. 2013. “The regretful acknowledgement: A dignified end to a disgraceful story?” In D. Cuypers, D. Janssen, J. Haers & B. Segaert (Eds.), Public Apology between Ritual and Regret, 209–228. Amsterdam/New York: Podopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, Yijing, and Daniel Laufer. 2020. “How does crisis management in China differ from the West?: A review of the literature and directions for future research.” Journal of International Management 26 (1):100708. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yang, N.. 2017. “Strategic maneuvering by persuasive definition in corporate crisis communication.” Journal of Argumentation in Context 6 (3):344–358. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Lin, Deepa Anagondahalli, and Ai Zhang. 2017. “Social media and culture in crisis communication: McDonald’s and KFC crises management in China.” Public Relations Review 43 (3):487–492. DOI logoGoogle Scholar