Unit 2: Direct Apology Strategies in Chinese
Like expressions of gratitude and requests, apologies can also be realized by different types of strategies. An apology strategy is a linguistic expression or utterance used to realize an apology. According to Blum-Kulka et al. (1989), two main types of apology strategies can be identified, that is, direct and indirect. This unit explicitly teaches students direct apology strategies used in Chinese and provides students with examples that illustrate the use of direct apologetic expressions in Chinese.
2.1 Goal of Unit 2
The goal of Unit 2 is to familiarize students with direct apology strategies in Chinese and to help them understand the formulaic feature of direct apology strategies in Chinese. After studying this unit, students are expected to be able to use some of the most commonly used formulaic expressions to apologize in Chinese.
2.2 Direct Apology Strategies (1)
Direct apology strategies refer to expressions that explicitly indicate the function of apologizing. According to Owen (1983), direct apology strategies are conventionalized and routinized. For example, in American English, direct apology strategies are usually those formulaic expressions that contain such verbs as (be) sorry, excuse, apologize, forgive, pardon, which indicate the force of apologizing explicitly.
Similarly, the direct apology strategies in Chinese are also sort of formulaic, primarily including apologetic formulas as 对不起duìbùqǐ, 不好意思bùhǎoyìsi, 抱歉 bàoqiàn, 道歉 dàoqiàn, 原谅 yuánliàng. 道歉 is generally used in expressions like 我向你/您道歉 wǒ xiàng nǐ/nín dàoqiàn, and 原谅 is more often used in structures like 请你/您原谅 qǐng nǐ/nín yuánliàng. In addition, some adverbs such as 真（是）zhēn (shì), 太 tài, 非常 fēicháng, 很 hěn are often used to intensify the force of apologizing, thus referred to as intensifiers. For example,
真是不好意思. Zhēn shì (I’m really sorry)
太对不起了. Tài duìbùqǐ le. (I’m terribly sorry)
非常抱歉. Féicháng bàoqiàn. (I’m very sorry)
很对不起. Hěn duìbùqǐ. (I’m very sorry)
To learn more about the Chinese words/expressions in this section, please refer to the Glossary below.
| Word | Pinyin | Part of speech | English translation |
| 对不起 | duìbùqǐ | N/A | I'm sorry |
| 不好意思 | bùhǎoyìsi | N/A | I'm sorry |
| 抱歉 | bàoqiàn | N/A | I'm sorry |
| 道歉 | dàoqiàn | verb | To apologize |
| 原谅 | yuánliàng | verb | To forgive |
| 我向你/您道歉 | wǒ xiàng nǐ/nín dàoqiàn | N/A | I apologize to you |
| 请你/您原谅 | qǐng nǐ/nín yuánliàng | N/A | Please forgive me |
| 真（是） | zhēn (shì) | adv. | Really |
| 太 | tài | adv. | Very. extremely |
| 非常 | fēicháng | adv. | Very, unusually |
| 很 | hěn | adv. | Very, quite |
2.3 Direct Apology Strategies (2)
The most commonly used apologetic formula in American English is (be) sorry, while the one that is frequently used in Chinese apologies is 对不起. When Chinese speakers use 对不起 to apologize, it may be translated as I’m sorry, excuse me, pardon me, etc. in American English, depending on specific contexts. 不好意思, on the other hand, is reported to be used more and more widely in colloquial Chinese, which carries a similar meaning with 对不起 (Zhang, 2012) . In addition, compared to 对不起, Chinese apologetic formulas 原谅, 抱歉 and 道歉 are used in more formal situations in which more severe offence might be caused for the hearer.
Prior research findings on Chinese apologies have reported that the direct strategies in Chinese apologies are sort of formulaic (e.g., Hu, 2002; Pan, 2006). In other words, only a small number of lexical items and syntactic patterns constitute the majority of the apology strategies.
2.4 Direct Apology Strategies in Chinese and American English
As discussed in 2.2 and 2.3, direct apology strategies in both Chinese and American English are routinized. That is, direct apology strategies used in both languages are composed of a number of apologetic formulas.
But there are also noticeable differences in the use of direct apology strategies between the two languages. Previous studies have found that the most noticeable difference lies in the frequency (e.g., Kang, 2008; Zhao, 2010). American speakers seem to prefer to apologize explicitly (e.g., saying Sorry) whenever they think they might offend someone or whoever they might offend, while the use of direct apologies in Chinese (e.g., saying 对不起) is closely related to certain social variables such as social distance (which will be discussed in detail in Unit 6). For example, it might be common for a girlfriend not to apologize directly to her boyfriend, but she might use indirect strategies to apologize in Chinese. Therefore, it would be heard more frequently that American speakers say Sorry, whereas 对不起 is less used by Chinese speakers.
Thinking: In addition to the similarity and difference discussed above, what are other similarities and differences in the use of direct apology strategies between American English and Chinese?
Review
To review the ideas in this section, please click the Review link here.