Teaching apologies through the use of audiovisual materials

Abstract

Since Austin’s (1962) classic 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 emerged in the 1960s as a reaction to Chomsky’s idea that the importance of language lies in the correct use of grammar (MartínezFlor and Usó-Juan 2010). After the elaboration of several models of communicative competence presented by a number of authors such as Canale and Swain (1980), Bachman (1990), and Celce-Murcia (1995, 2007), 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 CelceMurcia (2007). Research has been conducted especially on speech acts, such as Leech’s (2014) book The Pragmatics of Politeness, whose taxonomy will be used in this study, and on the use of audiovisual material for teaching purposes. For that reason, we have carried out an analysis on speech acts, and in particular on apologies, in the fiction TV series The Big Bang Theory. The aim of this study is to analyse whether apologies in the nine episodes examined mirror real-life conversations, and if so, to show that this audiovisual material may be used for classroom activities as an appropriate tool to develop students’ pragmatic knowledge.