An analysis of apology as a politeness strategy expressed by the characters in the film entitled “princess diaries 2” (a socio-pragmatics approach)

Oleh :
Christina Maya Iriana Sari - C0302021 - Fak. Sastra dan Seni Rupa

This research was conducted to find out the kinds of offenses motivating the characters to express apologies in the film entitled “Princess Diaries 2”, to know how the characters express their apologies, to reveal why the characters use the ways to express apologies as politeness strategy. This research applies the Socio-Pragmatics approach as it analyzes apology expressions by drawing together studies of politeness and language use between individual interactions. It is a descriptive research and it employs purposive sampling technique in which samples are chosen based on certain criteria suitable for the field of study. In this research, all phenomena of verbal (words or utterances), non-verbal actions supporting apologies and intonation in apologizing expressed by the characters in the film entitled “Princess Diaries 2” are taken as the samples. The result of this research shows that there are six kinds of offences found in the film “Princess Diaries 2” that motivating the characters to express apologies. They are deception, infringement on possession, infringements on talk, instances of inconvenience, social behavior offences, and infringement on time. The addresser performs apologies with simple or complex form. Simple form uses one of apology strategies meanwhile complex form uses more than one apology strategies. The apology strategies appearing in the data are direct apology (expression of regret and request of forgiveness), acknowledgment, expression of lack of intend, self-deficiency and, expression of embarrassment, giving explanation or account, minimizing the degree of the offence, expression concern to the offended, promise of forbearance and offer of repair. Furthermore, the addressers also express their apology with direct or indirect apology. Direct apology is marked with the occurrence of apology verb ‘sorry’, ‘forgive’, or ‘pardon’. Apology is generally perceived as a negative politeness since it focuses on redressing face-threatening act and it acknowledges the need of the addressee not to be imposed upon or offended. However, apology can also be perceived as positive politeness strategy since there is an expression of concern to the offended. Tone of voice and facial expression also support the performance of the act of apologizing expressed by the character. Some factors influence the characters use the ways to express apology as politeness strategy are the severity of offence, social distance and social status of the participants and situation of the conversation.