Apologising
in
British
English
Gill
Woodman
a1
a1 Anglistik, Ludwig Maximilian University,
Munich, D-80799 Munich, Germany,
Gillwood@t-online.de
| |
MATS DEUTSCHMANN, Apologising
in
British
English.
Umeå, Sweden: Umeå University, 2003. Pp. 262.
One of the most significant problems in speech act research is
doubtless the shortage of naturally occurring spoken language in the data
under observation. Researchers have applied a battery of techniques to
collect examples of speech acts, but the vast majority of the work has
been characterized by elicited language, wherein the starting point for
the research has been the function of the speech act itself and the aim
has been to investigate ways in which it is realized linguistically. Mats
Deutschmann's book marks a clear departure from this tradition. His
research into apologizing in British English is based solely on data from
the spoken section of the British
National
Corpus (BNC). As a
result, his starting point is also different: the form (linguistic
realization) of the speech act rather than its function. Furthermore, in
addition to conducting a specific investigation of the speech act
“apologizing,” he sets himself the more ambitious target of
revealing “general characteristics of the use of politeness formulae
in British English” (p. 13).
(Received March 15 2004)
|
