Apology Strategies in the Interethnic Communication of Bicultural Fiction with Reference to Zadie Smith's Novel White Teeth

Abstract EN

This study has attempted to provide a socioprgmatic analysis of the interethnic communication between the British and the Bangladeshis in Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth.

The speech act of apology is the object of the present study.

This study tries to illustrate whether the speech act of apology, for example, is able to maintain the harmony and restore the interaction balance between the British and the Bangladeshis.In order to answer the research question set forth for this study, the data collected were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively.

The qualitative analysis is carried in terms of what kinds of strategies speakers use most often when apologizing.

Consequently, a number of basic categories of apologies have been set in order to analyze the data.

The categories are adapted from Olshtain and Cohen (1983).

The examples are taken from the collected data.

The quantitative analysis allows for a more in depth look at the different strategies that speakers use in order to apologize in different situations.

Therefore, an attempt at finding the frequency of different types of apologies in the three novels is done.