Public apologies and the psychodynamics of orality

Abstract

Though many scholars note the importance of the spoken apology, the overwhelming majority of research from the field of communication does not discuss apologies in terms of orality itself. Drawing on Walter Ong’s psychodynamics of orality, the author argues that we need to hear an apology as it is an instance of residual orality which does not make sense when analysed from the detached, rational, literate, perspective. In the moment of the spoken, ‘I’m sorry’, the desire to analyse our feelings in terms of abstract, rational concepts dissolves as we are called to forgiveness.