Social Media And Discourse: A Comparative Study Of English And Spanish Apologies

This research is based on the combination of the age-old discussion between written and oral discourse with the emergence of using multimedia to publish apologies for widespread audiences. Because social media applications like Twitter and YouTube give instant publication access to its users, the continuum between written and oral discourse is continuing to shorten not just amongst Americans, but numerous cultures. The aim of this thesis is to observe a number of tweets and videos to determine whether or not multimedia is aiding this movement, as well as whether English and Spanish speech act-making strategies (specifically for apologies) are affected. Results show that while written discourse appears to be more useful at creating apologies with media, the continuum does appear to be tightening, due in part to the lack of thought needed to publish both tweets and live discourse. Furthermore, results show that Spanish speakers prefer apology strategies that clearly illustrate an acceptance of blame, while their English-speaking counterparts prefer non-apology strategies that help distract the audience from noticing a lack of accepting responsibility