CHPATER ONEINTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

This thesis studies Chinese corporate apologies posted on Weibo, from the perspective ofGrice’s Cooperative Principle (Hereafter CP). Weibo, functioned as Twitter in Westerncountries, is now becoming one of the most popular ways for people to exchangeinformation, which is much faster, convenient and common than traditional media. Hence,most corporations own a corporate Weibo account to take care of daily interactions withtheir customers. As a matter of fact, among all the questions raised by customers, a goodpart of them are complaints. In order to protect their corporate reputation and maintain agood corporation-customer relationship, apology, on the other hand, has become a commonand influential way for Chinese corporations to communicate with their customers. As oneof the most frequently used speech acts in communication, some influential films directedby famous Chinese directors try to tell people the importance of apology to either restorereputation or simply express one’s guilty.

“Who says we need a reason (to apologize)? Never underestimate the value of anapology, a simple ‘sorry ’ can go a long way. It might not solve the problem, but it letspeople vent their anger.”

In this part, the author will give a general introduction of this thesis. First, the researchtopics are discussed to decide which research questions are to be answered in the thesis.Second, a proper definition which is suitable to this thesis is concluded on the basis ofprevious studies of the speech act of apology. Third, the reasons why the author decides to do a research about Weibo apologies and also an introduction of the development and valueof Weibo will be presented. Finally, after extracting research questions based on thediscussion above, the organization of this thesis is introduced.

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1.2 Rationale of the present study

This study is conducted to find out the characteristics of apology strategies (hereafter AS)used by Chinese corporations in their Weibo apologetic postings, and analyze the potentialreasons of the specialty of Chinese corporate Weibo apologies. In order to show the fact ofcorporate apologies in China, the study should be based on authentic corpus generated byChinese corporations, which is of great difficulty because “in the existing researches, themethods of data collection may focus more on the perceived use of apologies, rather thananalyzing naturally occurring examples, but cannot do anything due to the infrequency ofapologies in day-to-day interactions, or limited by observation techniques” (Page, 2014:32).However, ever since the wide spread of Weibo, the author realizes that corporate Weiboapologies are worthy studying and during the analysis process, the author finds it possible toconduct this study from the perspective of CP and it’s also veryrational to explain thefindings within cultural dimensions.

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CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Three approaches to the study of apologies

Apology, as “one of world’s most basic and pervasive conflict resolution technique”(Joanne Chen Lyu, 2012:201), have been studied by scholars from various disciplines,“including sub-fields in linguistics (especially in pragmatics, social-linguistics and corpuslinguistics), communication (rhetoric, crisis communication) and public relations” (Page,2014:31). Researches done on apologies via these three approaches have been focusing ondiverse aspects and meanwhile contribute a lot for latter studies on apologies. However,there’re also some common limitations in these three approaches, which will be partlyimproved in the present study.

2.1.1 Pragmatic approaches to apologies

From the perspective of pragmatics, previous studies trace various paths through theextensive and diversified forms of apologies. One path focuses on identifying the characteristics of apologies as a speech act (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Shariati & Chariani,2010; Tanaka et al., 2008). Other work has been concentrating on the communicative stylesused to realize apologies, including the direct or indirect nature of the apology (Mills, 2003;Jucker & Taavitsainen, 2007; Rundquist, 2007). And a third distinctive area is functions ofapologies as a form of face work (Goffman, 1959) or as a rapport influencing strategy(Spencer-Oatey, 2008), highlighting the potential risks to the reputation of the personmaking the apology, and the opportunities that apologies present for re-establishing rapportbetween participants (Ogiermann, 2009). On the other hand, most work within pragmaticresearches has examined data in some form of spoken discourse, or written projections (forexample, elicited through discourse completion tasks or dialogue contained in drama).Likewise, the focus has been on interactions that take place in the private domain, andlinguistic studies which examine apologies made in public contexts are in their infancy bycomparison (but see for example, Davies et al., 2007; Gruver, 2011; Harris et al., 2006;Kampf, 2009). Meier’s (1998) overview of politeness rightly points to further limitations inexisting research, where the methods of data collection may focus more on the perceiveduse of apologies, rather than analyzing naturally occurring examples. 

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2.2 An overview of studies on corporate apology strategies

The act of apologizing is one of the most frequently used speech acts. And one of thepurposes is to smooth out resentment, being used with the aim of editing function of socialrelations through language (Intachakra, 2004; Bayat, 2013). Within the field of crisiscommunication, it seems possible to identify at least two important research traditions(Johansen & Frandsen, 2007), which is “rhetorical or text-oriented (scholars are interestedin describing what and how an organization communicates during a crisis situation) andstrategic or context-oriented (scholars are interested in explaining when, where and towhom an organization communicates during a crisis situation)” (Frandsen & Johansen,2010:351). On the other hand, Spenser-Oatey regards apology as “post-event speech act”,where the event in question (e.g. the customer’s complaint) is perceived as requiring aremedial response (such as the apology) (Oatey, 2008:19; Page, 2014:31).

As this paper focuses on different aspects of apology strategies, and in order to have abetter understanding of corporate strategies as well as its strategies, the author mainlyreview the development of corporate apologies in the past decades and corporate apologystrategies in this part to better serve the research of this thesis.

Scholars have done numerous researches to divide apology categories, According toCohen & Olshtain’s (1981) apology speech act set, there were 5 main categories such as thefollowing:

1) An expression of apology (Illocutionary Force Indicating Device IFID)

2) An offer of repair redress (REPR) (e.g. I’ll pay for your damage)

3) An explanation of an account (EXPL) (e.g. My daughter was ill, I took her to hospital)

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CHAPTER THREE.................21

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.............. 21

3.1 Theoretical background of the present thesis..............21

3.1.1 The original meaning of Grice’s Cooperative Principle.................21

CHAPTER FOUR............37

METHODOLOGY...........37

4.1 Process of data collection.............37

4.2 Process of data analysis...........38

CHAPTER FIVE.............41

COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES USED ON APOLOGY STRATEGIES.................... 41

5.1 Identifying the characteristics of the apology strategies....... 41

5.1.1 The physical characteristics of apologies in this study....................... 43

CHAPTER SIXDISCUSSION

6.1 The apology patterns in this study

Chapter 5 has studied the relationship between each maxim and each apology strategy,which proved significant differences between Strategy B (Explanation or Account) and themaxim of Quality, Strategy B (E/A) and the maxim of Manner, and Strategy D and themaxim of Relevance. However, the acknowledgment of responsibility doesn’t show anysigns of either obeying or violating the four maxims. The results tell people that Chinesecorporate apologies on Weibo are generally clear in logic with true and convincing evidencein their explanation, being detailed or brief. However, they tend to avoid making promisesof forbearance to their customers even though they should. In the end, a Weibo apology ismore of a defense for a corporation because what they care the most is their explanation oraccount.

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CHAPTER SEVENCONCLUSION

7.1 Findings

So far, the author has studied the corpus from three aspects, the characteristics of corporateapology strategies posted on Weibo, the application of CP to corporate apology strategiesand the reason why do the strategies present such characteristics from the perspective ofcultural dimensions. In this section, the author will make a conclusion about the findings ofthis study.

After doing this research, the author found out three major characteristics of corporateWeibo postings. First, the corporations are more active in responding light and mediumcomplaints on Weibo. The data show that less than 6% of heavy offenses are taken care ofon Weibo, which means the corporations are trying to protect their corporate reputation byrestricting the spread of negative news or comments to their corporation. These offense mayhave been taken care of privately, and it’s also possible that customers don’t get asatisfactory solution, which is also worth studying in the future. Meanwhile, in those lightand medium offenses, most corporations choose to repeat/ rewrite the offenses in theirpostings, either it’s an update message or a redressed message. By doing this, they showtheir sincerity and cooperation with their customers and thus win the possibility of gainingmore potentially loyal customers. Second, among the four strategies used as a framework,strategy A, B, C and D are used from high to low on the frequencies. An IFID is required inan apology, which makes strategy B the most popular strategy among the corporations. Areasonable explanation or account is not only able to gain empathy from their customers,but also a smart way to reduce the responsibility of a corporation for a problem. Thoughstrategy C is also frequently adopted in this corpus, they seldom promise relevant solutionswill be provided, which makes the process of solving a problem more complicated. Apologystrategies basically occur in combinations, and strategy B and C generally go ahead ofstrategy A, because corporations are sorry to some problems, but the purpose of a postingfocuses on clarifying an issue and restoring corporate images. Third, besides the typicalapologizing lexemes, these postings on Weibo present a vivid picture of Chinese culture.Posters are apologizing for the whole corporation; decisions are made by people with morepower; the value of a group always comes first though it means that the poster has to takeblame personally sometimes; and most apologies are posted with a rather vague answer byusing some uncertain claims regarding to possible causes, time and responsible parties.

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