{"title":"The sliding scales of repentance: Understanding variation in political apologies for infidelity","authors":"M. S. Cheng","doi":"10.1075/JAIC.5.2.03CHE","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the apologies of four US politicians whose marital infidelities were made public. The paper notes the variations in the use of religious language, representations of the transgressions, and metadiscourse. These variations can be calibrated to political ethos, the nature of the transgression, and the amount of repair work required. Thus, generic qualities of the personal political apology are best interpreted as existing on a sliding scale relative to the situation.","PeriodicalId":41908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","volume":"5 1","pages":"157-171"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1075/JAIC.5.2.03CHE","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/JAIC.5.2.03CHE","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper investigates the apologies of four US politicians whose marital infidelities were made public. The paper notes the variations in the use of religious language, representations of the transgressions, and metadiscourse. These variations can be calibrated to political ethos, the nature of the transgression, and the amount of repair work required. Thus, generic qualities of the personal political apology are best interpreted as existing on a sliding scale relative to the situation.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Argumentation in Context aims to publish high-quality papers about the role of argumentation in the various kinds of argumentative practices that have come into being in social life. These practices include, for instance, political, legal, medical, financial, commercial, academic, educational, problem-solving, and interpersonal communication. In all cases certain aspects of such practices will be analyzed from the perspective of argumentation theory with a view of gaining a better understanding of certain vital characteristics of these practices. This means that the journal has an empirical orientation and concentrates on real-life argumentation but is at the same time out to publish only papers that are informed by relevant insights from argumentation theory.