Apologies in Fiction TV Series The Big Bang Theory

Abstract

Since Austin’s (1962) work How To Do Things With Words there have been numerous studies about the way in which utterances are used as a mean to perform actions. The branch of linguistics that deals with this phenomenon is pragmatics, which arouse in the sixties as a reaction to Chomsky's idea that language is just a set of rules that must be learnt. After the elaboration of various models of communicative competence presented by a number of authors, the idea that pragmatic awareness is necessary in order for speakers to be successful in communication has spread, being one of the most relevant constructs the one introduced by Celce-Murcia (2007). Research has been conducted especially on speech acts, as Leech’s (2014) book The Pragmatics of Politeness. For that reason, we have carried out an analysis on speech acts, and in particular on apologies, of the TV series The Big Bang Theory. The aim of this study is to analyse whether apologies in the episodes analysed mirror real-life conversation and if so, to prove that this audiovisual material may be used for classroom activities, as an appropriate tool for the purpose of developing students’ pragmatic knowledge.