Apologizing in Elementary School Peer Conflict Mediation. Issue 1 (2nd January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Korpela, Rosa; Kurhila, Salla; Stevanovic, Melisa
• Is Part Of: Research on language and social interaction. Volume 55:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 17
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02
• Subjects: Linguistics -- Periodicals; Sociolinguistics -- Periodicals; Communication -- Periodicals; 401.4105
• DOI: 10.1080/08351813.2022.2026168
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0835-1813

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We analyze apologizing as part of the institutional agenda of school mediation in Finland. When primary school teachers intervene to mediate a dispute, the children orient to apologizing as a ritualized, expected, and recognizable action that resolves the matter. Teachers build, step by step, a sequence that, when preconditions are met, results in the parties involved in the dispute producing the uniquely explicit apology exchange "I apologize"—"apology accepted." We discuss the action of apologizing as involving an interdependence and tension between sincerity and rituality. Data are in Finnish with English translation.