Eugenia Diegoli, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the University of Bologna. In her work, she studies how the Japanese language is used and interpreted in online settings. She has published translations and many articles in the most important venues in her field.

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures and TablesAbbreviationsConventions1 Introduction1 What is it to apologise?2 From form to function3 A brief introduction to pragmatics and discourse4 The choice of data5 Defining ‘apology’6 Morphosemantic features of Japanese apologetic IFID s7 Why ‘apologies’ in Japanese?8 Bringing together corpus linguistics and discourse studies9 The data source: Yahoo! Chiebukuro10 Research questions and aims11 Conclusions2 Speech Acts, (Im)politeness and Norms1 From ‘apologies’ to (im)politeness2 Operationalising politeness3 Operationalising impoliteness4 (Im)politeness as implicature5 Brown and Levinson’s ‘universals’ in language use6 Culturally determined (im)politeness7 The discursive approach to (im)politeness8 Conclusions3 (Im)politeness in Computer-Mediated Discourse1 Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Discourse2 Expectations and norms in Computer-Mediated Discourse3 Deceptive genres4 Speech acts in online settings5 Conclusions4 Methodological Approaches to Speech Acts in Online Setting1 A closer look at discourse and pragmatics2 Corpus linguistics3 Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis4 Other viable approaches5 Conclusions5 Description of Corpus Construction and Annotation1 Corpus construction2 Corpus description3 Limitations to the corpus construction4 Pragmatic annotation of the corpus5 Limitations to the corpus annotation6 Conclusions6 The Multifunctionality of Japanese Apology-like Expressions1 I’m sorry, what?2 Pragmatic functions across the three IFID s3 Comparison and visualisation of pragmatic functions4 Conclusions7 The Apology Metadiscourse1 Why metadiscourse?2 Operationalising metadiscourse3 From metadiscourse to metacomments4 Other forms of reflexive awareness5 Drawbacks of metadiscourse6 Conclusions8 Apology Strategies1 The steps required for a ‘proper apology’2 The coding scheme3 Results4 Discussion5 Conclusions9 The Role of Intensification and Downgraders1 Intensification2 Downgraders of the ‘apology’3 Conclusions10 What People are Apologising for1 Offence and morality2 Offence: a problematic notion3 Types of transgression4 ‘Apologies’ and morality5 The apology tradeoff6 Conclusions11 Conclusions1 Overview2 Findings3 General discussion4 Limitations5 What’s next?6 So what?Appendix1: Concordance corpusAppendix2: Additional figuresBibliographyIndex

Eugenia Diegoli, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the University of Bologna. In her work, she studies how the Japanese language is used and interpreted in online settings. She has published translations and many articles in the most important venues in her field.

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures and TablesAbbreviationsConventions1 Introduction1 What is it to apologise?2 From form to function3 A brief introduction to pragmatics and discourse4 The choice of data5 Defining ‘apology’6 Morphosemantic features of Japanese apologetic IFID s7 Why ‘apologies’ in Japanese?8 Bringing together corpus linguistics and discourse studies9 The data source: Yahoo! Chiebukuro10 Research questions and aims11 Conclusions2 Speech Acts, (Im)politeness and Norms1 From ‘apologies’ to (im)politeness2 Operationalising politeness3 Operationalising impoliteness4 (Im)politeness as implicature5 Brown and Levinson’s ‘universals’ in language use6 Culturally determined (im)politeness7 The discursive approach to (im)politeness8 Conclusions3 (Im)politeness in Computer-Mediated Discourse1 Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Discourse2 Expectations and norms in Computer-Mediated Discourse3 Deceptive genres4 Speech acts in online settings5 Conclusions4 Methodological Approaches to Speech Acts in Online Setting1 A closer look at discourse and pragmatics2 Corpus linguistics3 Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis4 Other viable approaches5 Conclusions5 Description of Corpus Construction and Annotation1 Corpus construction2 Corpus description3 Limitations to the corpus construction4 Pragmatic annotation of the corpus5 Limitations to the corpus annotation6 Conclusions6 The Multifunctionality of Japanese Apology-like Expressions1 I’m sorry, what?2 Pragmatic functions across the three IFID s3 Comparison and visualisation of pragmatic functions4 Conclusions7 The Apology Metadiscourse1 Why metadiscourse?2 Operationalising metadiscourse3 From metadiscourse to metacomments4 Other forms of reflexive awareness5 Drawbacks of metadiscourse6 Conclusions8 Apology Strategies1 The steps required for a ‘proper apology’2 The coding scheme3 Results4 Discussion5 Conclusions9 The Role of Intensification and Downgraders1 Intensification2 Downgraders of the ‘apology’3 Conclusions10 What People are Apologising for1 Offence and morality2 Offence: a problematic notion3 Types of transgression4 ‘Apologies’ and morality5 The apology tradeoff6 Conclusions11 Conclusions1 Overview2 Findings3 General discussion4 Limitations5 What’s next?6 So what?Appendix1: Concordance corpusAppendix2: Additional figuresBibliographyIndex