Apology strategies used by the characters in “Princess Diaries” movie

ABSTRACT

This study examines the use of apology strategies which include how apology are used by the characters of the movie “Princess Diaries”. Human being often makes mistakes both directly and indirectly. Thus everyone needs to apologize in order to maintain the relationship or the social harmony between the complainer and the apologizer. It also keep the apologizer’s social status in the society. The objective of the study is to understand the types of apology strategies by Trosborg’s theory and how the characters used it.

This research uses qualitative approach because of some reasons. First, the data are in the form of words or utterances produced the characters. Second, this study uses human instrument: the researcher herself as the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. Third, the purpose of this study is to get understanding and deep information on what types and how apology strategy are used in “Princess Diaries” movie by using Trosborg’s theory. In analyzing the data, the researcher does four steps: finding and explaining the context of the utterances of the apology expression in order to understand what the speaker’s utterances; identifying and describing the utterance based on the category of apology strategy; discussing the data based on the theory of apology strategy proposed by Trosborg; and making conclusion based on the results of the data analysis to answer research problem.

Thus the result of the study showed the types of the apology strategies which are used by the characters in “Princess Diaries” movie are expression of apology, acknowledgement of responsibility, explanation or account, promise of forbearance strategy, rejection strategy, and offer of repair strategy. From those six apology strategies, the characters are likely to ask for an apology in explicit way. They like to explain the problems explicitly, ask for apology and express it explicitly. They tend to use it explicitly because the apologizer braverly admit their mistakes. From the data, the researcher also found the differences between male and female strategy in using apology to express their apology. In this study, the researcher also found out that female are more polite than male to express their apology. It happened because female apologizers tend to be more cooperative in explaining the problem and give more explicit explanation or reason about her mistake in order to restore the relationship. It is different from male strategy to express his apology; they express to platitude.