Speaker
Description
This paper analyses twelve Vietnamese public apologies from 2021 to 2026, six by commercial entities and six by Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in Vietnam - using Beaudin's (2018) expanded apology taxonomy, Murphy's (2015) revised felicity conditions, Fairclough's (1992) Critical Discourse Analysis, and Brown and Levinson's (1987) Politeness Theory. Four findings emerge. First, participant structure shapes broad patterns, but within-group variation is substantial. Second, three texts from 2025 – 2026 period perform a distinctive sincerity-display: the apologizer constructs a recognisable avoidance strategy and then publicly dismantles it (meta-pragmatic D-cancellation), showing audiences the excuse was available and was refused; this move appears in both corporate/commercial and KOL texts. Third, one commercial text exits the apology genre entirely via an official-information refutation format the imported taxonomy does not accommodate. Fourth, three Vietnamese pragmatic resources - a multi-level apology intensity gradient, the honorific-pronominal system, and bodily performatives such as cúi đầu ('bow head') - strain the taxonomy and require extension.
Biography
Thanh is currently a lecturer at the Faculty of English for Specific Purposes in University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang. He got his English language bachelor degree at the University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang and finished his Master degree in Applied Linguistics in the University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom. His fields of interest are Politeness research and CDA.
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