Apologizing for historical injustice: Emotion, truth and identity in political discourse

Abstract

The recent apology by the Australian Prime Minister to Indigenous Australians demonstrates the increasing willingness of nation states to apologize for historical injustices. In this critical discursive analysis of Rudd's apology, we analyse the pragmatic and linguistic features of the apology in light of recent research on political apologies as a generic type of discourse. We demonstrate how the act of offering and justifying an apology was accomplished through the use of emotion and identity categories. In particular, we examine how the reason-emotion dilemma was managed rhetorically by tying emotion to facts, and how differing levels of categorization can all be used to evoke support for apologizing for historical injustice. In contrast to social-psychological experimental work on apologies and forgiveness, we show that different levels of categorization -the personal, intermediate and superordinate -can all be used flexibly in discourse to invoke empathy and identification with the 'other', and that rather than invoking emotions in the ingroup, humanizing the 'other' is a powerful strategy for eliciting support for redressing social injustice.

‘Categories We Share’: Mobilising Common In‐groups in Discourse on Contemporary Immigration in Greece

“…These different constructions of identity have a profound impact on who can be included or excluded from the national in‐group and therefore on whether the Greek national identity can encapsulate other identities. A similar point is made by Augoustinos et al () in an examination of the apology offered by the Australian Prime Minister to indigenous Australians for past injustice in 13 February 2008. The researches pay attention on the flexible rhetorical ends in which different levels of category inclusiveness can be mobilised in contrast to the static view that experimental studies of categorisation can elicit.…”

‘Shame on you’: The language, practice and consequences of shame and shaming in asylum seeker advocacy

“…This has resulted in a number of national apologies (Augoustinos et al, 2011). In Australia, a discourse of shame was particularly prevalent after the 1997 release of Bringing them Home, the report that documented the systematic removal of Indigenous children from their families from settlement until the 1970s.…”

Revisiting the apology as a speech act

“…The recent trend of politicians apologising for acts of historical wrongdoing has been 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 widely noted and is fast becoming a cottage industry in linguistic and social psychological research (see Lind, 2008;Kampf 2009;Augustinos et al, 2011 for some recent examples of such work (3) To all those former child migrants and their families, to those here with us today and those across the world-to each and every one-I say today that we are truly sorry. They were let down.…”