As a whole, the results show that YouTubers use a variety of different strategies in their apology videos and combine them in various ways. Olshtain and Cohen (1983: 22) suggest that an
apology’s intensity is increased when multiple strategies are used together which is probably the reason for such variety.
The most common main strategies in the data are 2. an acknowledgement of responsibility (26.1%) and 3. an explanation or account of the situation (35.9%). This tells us that the apology videos mostly consist of explanations and acknowledgements of responsibility. Although the YouTubers utilize other strategies alongside them, these two are still the most preferred ways of delivering an apology in this format. Explaining the situation might be useful in building a certain narrative and getting the viewer on their side by making them understand the situation from the speaker’s point of view. As mentioned in the Results section, some explanations in the data have a face-saving effect and some have a face-damaging effect, of which the latter seems to be more common. While they explain the situation, they also include acknowledgements of responsibility to clarify that they recognize that they are in the wrong. Ogiermann (2009: 131) emphasizes the importance of acknowledging responsibility, saying that “[t]he acceptance of responsibility is generally regarded as an indispensable element of apologies, necessary for the restoration of social equilibrium.”
The most common sub-strategies under 2. an acknowledgement of responsibility are 2a. accepting the blame (50.2%) and 2b. self-criticism (19.7%), while the least common are 2d. expressing regret or remorse (11.4%) and 2e. expressing disappointment or shame in oneself (3.5%). It seems like YouTubers find it easier to take responsibility by saying things that are likely to be accepted by the viewer: e.g. “It’s my fault (accepting the blame), I was stupid (self-criticism).” Perhaps the speaker already expects the viewers to blame and criticize them, so they decide to do it to themselves to show that they are on the viewer’s side in order to mitigate the inherent damage to their face. This is probably easier than admitting how ashamed and regretful one is, which is why those strategies are used the least. Expressing disappointment, shame and regret puts the
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speaker in a very vulnerable situation. This can surely be a good apology strategy to persuade the hearer, but it might feel too personal to the speaker to be so vulnerable on a public platform.
The least used main strategies are 1. an expression of apology (3.5%), 5. an offer of repair (4.3%), and 6. a promise of forbearance (3.8%). An expression of apology (such as “I’m sorry”) is often what defines an apology and seems to be the most common English apology strategy in many earlier studies (e.g. Holmes 1989, Kasanga and Lwanga-Lumu 2007, Bataineh and Bataineh 2008, Qari 2019). However, it is used in small word amounts in these videos because a direct apology does not require many words. The videos’ main message is always the direct apology, but the apology is surrounded by lots of other strategies that are used to convince the hearer of the speaker’s sincerity. All 20 speakers offer a direct apology at least once. A promise of forbearance is used by 15 speakers in the data, which tells us that it is quite a common strategy that most of the speakers recognize and use. An offer of repair, however, is only used by six speakers. This is probably affected somewhat by the fact that offers of repair are often situation-specific; not all offenses even require repair.
Concerning strategy 7. not acknowledging responsibility, the most common strategy is 7a. denying the offense completely or partially (40.1%). Looking at the data in detail, it appears that this
strategy is not used to deny all responsibility. Most often it is used as a partial denial in an attempt to correct the narrative that has formed around the issue. The speakers’ main goal with it is to make the audience have an accurate understanding of things (from the speaker’s
perspective, of course). It is possible that sometimes the speaker wants to completely deny the accusations, but because they want to show concern toward the hearer’s face, which is a positive politeness strategy (Ogiermann 2009), they soften it by only partially denying the accusations.
Most strategies found in the data (with the exception of 4. expressing praise, gratitude, or love) appear in many other English apology studies, some of which have been introduced in this paper. This indicates that apology videos consist of the same apology strategies as everyday apologies, but the biggest difference is the length of the apology and the distribution of the strategies. 4. Expressing praise, gratitude or love is probably an exception because it is a strategy
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directed mostly at the audience, which is suitable and perhaps even expected from a public YouTube video.
Regarding the comparison between women and men, this study does not exactly confirm the previous notion of women being more apologetic than men. Many previous studies have found that women use more apology terms than men (e.g. Holmes 1989, Ogiermann 2008, Jones and Adrefiza 2017), but this is not the case in the current study. The strategy 1. an expression of apology was used almost an equal amount by women and men, although women did use it slightly more. This difference is, however, extremely small. What the study does confirm, however, is that women and men seem to have somewhat different ways of expressing an apology, which has been recognized in previous research as well (e.g. Holmes 1989, Bataineh and Bataineh 2005, Ogiermann 2008).
The strategy 2. an acknowledgement of responsibility is used a lot by both groups, but men tend to use it more. Looking at the sub-strategies, men use 2a. accepting the blame a lot more than women do, although it is also the most popular one in women’s data. The second most popular sub-strategy, 2b. self-criticism, is also used slightly more by men. In contrast, regret, remorse, shame, and disappointment are expressed more by women than men. As mentioned,
expressing these emotions is quite vulnerable for the speaker. A possible explanation is that women are more willing to show their emotions and be vulnerable on a public platform than men are. This would be in line with the well-known suggestion that men are socialized into being stoic. As a whole, it seems like men prefer to acknowledge responsibility by accepting the blame and criticizing themselves, whereas women, while also using these strategies, are more open to expressing regret and remorse.
3. An explanation or account of the situation is used a lot by both groups, but women use it much more than men. Women thus seem more open to explaining the situation in detail and perhaps feel like explanations are an important part of a convincing apology.
4. Expressing praise, gratitude or love is used more by men than women. This indicates that men are more likely to praise and talk nicely about the victim and also more likely to address the
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audience and especially express gratitude. They thus place the hearer above themselves and express humility. This interpretation relates back to men accepting the blame and criticizing themselves more as well; they place themselves below the victim and tell them that they are right in the situation.
5. Offers of repair are used more by women, although the numbers for both groups are quite small. This might be due to women committing more offenses which an offer of repair can fix, but it is also possible that women are simply more likely to offer corrective action for their offense, which can be a face-saving strategy for the speaker. 6. Promise of forbearance was offered quite evenly by both groups, if not slightly more by men. Ogiermann (2008: 279) found that women promise both repair and forbearance a bit more than men do, although the differences were not substantial. This result is in line with the current study.
As mentioned in the Results section, the results from the category of 7. not acknowledging responsibility are not entirely reliable because very few speakers used its sub-strategies and one of them was an outlier skewing the results. However, if the outlier is removed, the results show that women use multiple sub-strategies, although in quite small amounts, while men only use 7a. denying the offense completely or partially. There is thus more non-apology strategy variety in women’s speech. As a whole, it is safe to say that using these types of non-apology strategies is not a common tendency in the videos, but there are individuals who tend to use them more than the general group. This could be more accurately described in a larger-scale study.
The limited size of the data is a limitation to this study. 20 videos is a manageable amount of data for this thesis, but more data would provide more accurate and consistent results. The data may be too small for generalization, but it is a suggestive find nonetheless. It must also be remembered that the findings can not be applied directly onto other groups of people since this study focuses specifically on YouTubers who have their own kind of culture on the Internet. In addition, comparisons to previous studies in terms of amounts is difficult since this study used a very different kind of methodological approach.
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