Money & society · 2015
Do British MPs apologise more fully than people do in everyday conversation?
Yes—in this analysis, members of the U.K. Parliament made fuller apologies than those found in everyday conversation. Their public apologies also varied with the offence: apologies for financial irregularities were more detailed and used more conventional apology strategies than apologies for other offences. This describes the language used, not how sincere or convincing the apologies were.
Details
The paper examines apologies as actions performed through language. The author refines existing categories of apology strategies to better describe British politicians’ public apologies, then uses that framework to analyse how MPs apologise for different offences.
The central finding is that MPs’ apologies were fuller than those in everyday conversation, with financial irregularities drawing especially detailed apologies that relied more on conventional strategies. The abstract does not report the sample size, how examples were selected, or the size of the differences. It also does not report how audiences received the apologies, so fuller wording should not be taken as evidence of greater sincerity or effectiveness.
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