Etiquette apology in modern German language

Abstract

Introduction. Communication forms the basis for human consciousness, their cognition, social being. One of the most important categories of communication is politeness – a component of interpersonal communication, an important regulator of behavior, which is necessary to achieve effective interaction between people. From the point of view of pragmalinguistics, politeness is understood as the central communicative category, whose main function is to ensure non-conflict communication.

Purpose. Apology functions primarily in a conflict situation, but it is a form of cooperative communication. On the one hand, apology is considered as recognizing a certain imbalance in the relationship between the speaker and the addressee and, on the other hand, as an attempt to restore harmony in relationships. Therefore, the purpose of the proposed article is to study the connection of apology with the notion of politeness and the implementation of the principle of politeness, as well as to determine the place of apology in the framework of speech etiquette.

Results. Apology is an important part of verbal forms of politeness. In a conflict situation, apology is the key to resolving the conflict, since it constrains aggression and aims at restoring harmonious relationships.

Politeness and rules of communication are closely related to speech ethics, which regulates the communicative behavior of the interlocutors, formulating specific requirements to the form, content and character of statements. Compliance with the rules of speech etiquette promotes harmonization of communication and successful communicative cooperation.

We consider language etiquette as the language of harmonious communication, which helps every person, maintaining their own image, to achieve mutual respect and understanding, which contributes to the formation of human culture and comfortable conditions for communication. Violation of the norms of etiquette indicates either the negative intentions of the speaker or his lack of knowledge of social norms of behavior, and requires the implementation of apologies, the main function of which is to restore the harmony in relations between the speaker and the listener, to achieve mutual understanding between them, to show respect of a speaker to a listener and to achieve (restore) the listener's respect towards the speaker. Such association of apology with etiquette rules suggests that apology is an integral part of speech etiquette.

Etiquette apology is implemented in case of violation of the norms of cooperative communication, that is, when the speaker, regardless of his assessment of his performed action, considers the degree of harm inflicted to be minimal, but sufficient to break the existing balance in relations with the listener. The addressee of the etiquette apology is usually a person who has committed a malfactive action in relation to the person who was affected by the damage, in accordance with the rules of social interaction adopted in a particular society. The norms of cooperative communication can be compared with G. P. Grice's communicative postulates and J. Leech's politeness postulates. To etiquette apology we attribute apology for refusal/denial (maxim of consent), for changing the topic of the conversation (maxim of relevance), for a less or more informative conversation (maxim of number), for an ambiguous statement (maxim of manner), for an incorrect/false statement (maximal of quality), for invading the personal sphere of the interlocutor (maxim of tact), for other violations of the rules of communication and apology as termination or finishing conversations.

The language genres, the cause of which is violation of the maxims of consent, cover apology, with the help of which the speaker shows his awareness that he disappointed the interlocutor, did not approve of his thoughts, did not meet his expectations. The reason for such an apology is disappointment, that is, the sense of the addressee, caused by the words of the speaker, and not the expression itself, which in speaker’s opinion, is correct.

The maxim of quality requires from a speaker to provide accurate and correct information. Often, providing information, especially with regard to numbers and proper names, the speaker makes mistakes, for which he apologizes, and, therefore, such apologies are usually retrospective.

The maxim of quantity requires from the speaker not to repeat himself, clearly present the information and avoid unimportant details.

The maxim of relation implies abidance to a specific topic of conversation, prohibits the avoidance of the topic or its change without a reason.

The maxim of manner requires a clear statement from the speaker, the correct use of words, the avoidance of ambiguous expressions and vagueness. Consequently, if the speaker for some reason expressed unclearly or incomprehensibly to the recipient, then by means of apology he can correct the violation of his maxim of the manner and improve communication with the interlocutor.

Violation of the maxim of tact is considered to be a violation of the personal sphere of the interlocutor by inappropriate/tactless question, remark or advice.

Conclusion. In the situation of etiquette apology, the most important is not the sincerity of the apologist, but his compliance with the rules of etiquette of a particular linguistic culture. Etiquette apology is an act of interpersonal communication and a speaker in such a situation is usually a person who is the executor of actual or potential malfactive action and assumes the responsibility for causing harm to the “affected”. Therefore, etiquette apology can be considered a certain regulator of the communicative process.