6 Results
6.2 Comparing men and women’s use of strategies
In the previous section the focus was on all the subjects equally. This section focuses on the differences and similarities between men’s and women’s usage of these strategies. The purpose of the comparison is to find out whether men and women in the data tend to prefer different strategies when apologizing.
In previous research on English apologies, it has been noted that there are gender differences in the ways that men and women apologize. Wouk (2006) brings up Holmes (1989), who found that women use more apologies than men in casual same-sex conversation in New Zealand English, and Aijmer (1995), who found differences in what men and women apologize for. Bataineh and Bataineh (2008) found that women apologize more explicitly than men and that women use fewer non-apology strategies than men. Jones and Adrefiza (2017) found that in Australian English, women apologize more and are also more “committed” to the apology than the men in the study. Men are “altogether quite ‘cool’, casual and brief” (2017: 107). Research thus indicates that women might be more apologetic than men (for more details, see section 4). The results of
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this study shall show whether there is a similar trend in YouTube apologies as well. However, in this study the question is not about which group offers more apologies, rather it is on how the given apologies are presented. The usage of the strategies between men and women is now compared.
As shown in figure 2, the strategies 1. an expression of apology and 6. a promise of forbearance were used in nearly equal amounts in both men’s and women’s data. The biggest differences quantitatively were with the strategies 2. an acknowledgement of responsibility, 3. an explanation or account of the situation, 4. expressing praise, gratitude, or love, 5. an offer of repair and 7. not acknowledging responsibility.
Figure 2. Frequency of usage of each main strategy by men and women (%).
These quantitative differences will now be discussed along with some qualitative observations of each strategy. 3. An explanation or account of the situation 2. An acknowledgement of responsibility 1. An expression of apology
Women Men
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Both men and women express direct apologies around the same amount, men 3.3% and women 3.5%. Looking at the word choices, variations of sorry and apologize appear in equal amounts for both men and women. However, both groups prefer the word sorry slightly more. Men use different variations of apologies, but the three most common ones are “I’m sorry”, “I’m
[intensifier(s)] sorry” and “I want to apologize”. Women also use various ways to apologize, and the three most common ones are “I’m [intensifier(s)] sorry”, “I’m sorry” and “I apologize”.
2. An acknowledgement of responsibility
The strategy an acknowledgement of responsibility was used more by men (30.5%) than women (22.3%). Figure 3 presents the frequency and distribution of each sub-strategy of this category.
Figure 3. Comparison of sub-strategy use between men and women under the strategy of an acknowledgement of responsibility (%).
As figure 3 illustrates, the most popular sub-strategy in this category for both groups is 2a.
accepting the blame, whereas expressing disappointment or shame in oneself is the least common
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2a. Accepting the blame 2b. Self-criticism 2c. Expressing lack of intent
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in both groups. Women tend to express regret or remorse more than men do, and men tend to utilize accepting the blame a lot more than women do.
Regarding 2a. accepting the blame, men had more ways of expressing this than women. The most common ways that women accept blame are by admitting she made a mistake or that her
actions were not okay (example 37), expressing that she understands where the victim is coming from or how her actions came across (38), and expressing that she is not trying to make excuses (39). The three examples below demonstrate these.
(37) Being catty and bitchy and funny is great but sometimes things just cross a line and on several occasions I crossed a line. (F3)
(38) I get where you guys are coming from now. (F8)
(39) I understand how it looked that way and I’m not making this video to be like ‘I did nothing wrong, I did nothing wrong’ because I’m taking accountability. (F7)
The most common ways that men accept blame are by admitting he made a mistake or that his actions were not okay (example 40), expressing that he is not trying to make excuses (41), expressing that he is not expecting or looking for forgiveness (42) and expressing that he understands the victim’s reaction (43). Men also exclusively expressed the hope that their audience will also learn from their mistakes (44). Examples of these are provided below.
(40) Obviously this was a huge mistake and it’s completely wrong on my end. (M3)
(41) I’m not gonna sit here and try to redirect the blame, I’m not gonna sit here and make excuses. (M7)
(42) Like I said, I made a huge mistake and I don’t expect to be forgiven. (M2)
(43) … and if people want to unsubscribe and not be here for me I totally get it. I wouldn't want to be here for myself either. (M10)
(44) From here on out I hope that, you know, people kinda take this video as not only an apology but as a lesson if there’s anyone out there. It’s just not worth it. (M4)
Regarding the strategy 2b. self-criticism, the ways the speakers use it are mostly similar (saying things like “I should know better,” “I should be more mindful”), but one thing to note is that men
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insult themselves much harsher than women do. Many male subjects call themselves “an idiot”
or “stupid”, whereas women use these kinds of words much less.
The strategy 2c. expressing lack of intent was used quite equally by both groups. Qualitatively the use is mostly similar, but there is one difference. As mentioned, this strategy includes cases where the speaker appeals to the notion of “everyone makes mistakes”. This was used more often by men than women.
2d. Expressing regret or remorse is used more by women than men. Both groups expressed feeling bad or hurt more than they explicitly expressed feeling regretful, so qualitatively the use is similar.
The strategy 2e. expressing disappointment or shame in oneself was used equally little by both groups and qualitatively the use was mostly similar.
3. An explanation or account of the situation
The strategy of explaining the situation or giving a personal account had a significant difference between men and women. In men’s data this strategy took up 27.8% whereas in women’s it took up 43.2%. In these apology videos giving explanations is a very common strategy overall, but for some reason women use it more than men do.
4. Expressing praise, gratitude, or love
The strategy of expressing praise, gratitude or love is used more by men; in men’s data it
appears 11.1% of the time, while in women’s it appears 5.6% of the time. Qualitatively the usage is mostly similar, since both groups direct these expressions more toward the general audience of the video rather than to an individual person.
51 5. An offer of repair
Women offered repair slightly more (5.3%) than men did (3.1%). Quantitatively there were no large differences in the use between men and women.
6. A promise of forbearance
Promises of forbearance were expressed around the same amount by both men and women, although men used it slightly more (4.1%) than women (3.6%). Men promise most commonly that he will be (or try to be) a better person (example 45), that he will (or will try) not to commit the offense ever again (46), and that he has learned (or will learn) from his mistakes (47). Also, men used the phrase “I owe you/myself better” a few times (48) whereas women did not.
Examples of these are provided below.
(45) I can only do my best and do better every day and just try my hardest to continue to be a better person every single day. (M8)
(46) … and of course I would never think about doing anything like this again. (M3)
(47) And I just… good to say that I’ve definitely learned from my mistakes and it’s something I would never do again. (M4)
(48) I owe you guys better for sure. (M9)
The ways women promise forbearance most commonly include saying that she will be better (example 49), that she will “work on it” (50), and that she will be more mindful or think more before speaking (51).
(49) I promise to be better, especially when it comes to stories that involve other people. (F5) (50) … that's something that I need to work on. (F8)
(51) I’m not gonna say stuff like that without thinking twice about it or thinking about who that could hurt because that’s never my goal. (F1)
52 7. Not acknowledging responsibility
The strategy of not taking responsibility is overall quite uncommon in the data and there are 10 speakers in total (four men, six women) who use these strategies. However, out of these 10 speakers there are only four that use two or three of these strategies, whereas the rest only used one. This group of four consists of one male speaker and three females. This distribution might indicate that women have higher numbers in the data in terms of this strategy, but as figure 4 shows, the opposite is true. In total, men used these strategies 10.9% of the time, whereas women used them 5.1% of the time.
Figure 4. Comparison of sub-strategy use between men and women under the strategy of not acknowledging responsibility (%).
The use of 7a. denying the offense completely or partially was nearly equal in both groups, around three percent. There were four men and five women who used it, so it is safe to suggest that there were no large differences with this strategy.
There were only two people who used the strategy 7c. denying the need to apologize: one woman and one man. This one man (M10) used this strategy quite a lot in his video, whereas the woman used it very little and that is where the percentages (3.0% versus 0.2%) come from. This result is
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7b. Criticizing the victim 7c. Denying the need to apologize
7d. Belittling the offense
Men Women
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not to be taken as a general tendency because only two individuals are not enough to provide a reliable amount of data on this feature. The situation is similar with the strategy 7b. criticizing the victim. There were only three speakers who used this strategy, out of which two are women and one is the same man mentioned in the previous strategy. Again, the reason why the percentages lean toward the side of men (4.5% versus 0.6%) is because the single man that used this strategy used it a lot in his video, whereas the two women did not use it very much.
Lastly, 7d. belittling the offense was only used by two women. It is one of the least used strategies in the data.
If the single man (M10), who uses these strategies a lot and is clearly an outlier, is removed from the results, men’s total amount of usage of 7. not acknowledging responsibility decreases from 10.9% into 3.0%, which shows how much this person uses these strategies in his video. The rest of the men only use denying the offense and no other strategies.
This ends the presentation of the results. They will be discussed independently and in the light of previous research in the next section.
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