Positive- and Negative-Politeness Strategies: Apologizing in the Speech Community of Cuernavaca, Mexico

Based upon a theoretical framework of politeness and face-threatening acts (FTAs), an ethnographic investigation of naturally occurring apologies and politeness strategies in Cuernavaca Spanish was accomplished. Using a modified version of BlumKulka et al.’s (1989) Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project Coding Manual for Apologies and a corpus of (200) naturally occurring apology events, the basic strategies and sub-strategies used by members of the Cuernavaca speech community to apologize for a wide range of offenses were identified and discussed. Both positiveand negativepoliteness strategies within the apology acts were noted. Finally, the findings from this sample were compared with the findings of previously conducted studies on apologizing and politeness in other varieties of Spanish. Results from this investigation dispel Brown and Levinson’s claim that negative politeness is the universally preferred approach for doing facework, and it is advocated that additional investigations of (FTAs) and politeness using culturally-sensitive models of interaction be used.