The book Local Grammar Approaches to Speech Act Studies: Apology in Contemporary Spoken British English, written by Hang Su, is situated within corpus pragmatics and, more specifically, it represents a contribution both to the research on local grammar (e.g. Hunston Reference Hunston, Reppen, Fitzmaurice and Biber2002) and to its application within the exploration of speech acts. Although the investigation in his monograph focuses on the speech act of apology, it draws on ample research by the author and collaborators on other types of discoursal and pragmatic features (e.g. thanking, exemplification, request) in different varieties of English and languages other than English (e.g. Italian and Chinese) – particularly within the work of Su (Reference Su2017, Reference Su2018), Su & Wei (Reference Su and Wei2018), Su & Fu (Reference Su and Fu2023), Su & Lu (Reference Su and Lu2023) and Yu et al. (Reference Yu, Su and Bondi2024). The aims in this study are manifold. Firstly, Su aims to remedy the criticism levelled against speech act theory, especially as regards the inventory of speech acts, and addresses other issues which the author himself considers in need of revision, such as the basic unit of pragmatic description as well as annotation and quantification of speech acts. Secondly, the book provides a detailed local-grammar-based analysis of apology in contemporary British English and demonstrates that the proposed methodology represents a feasible and fruitful approach which can be successfully applied in contrastive studies of speech acts across languages, times and contexts; furthermore, thanks to its functional and transparent terminology, it can also be extended to educational contexts. Most importantly, throughout the book, the author accentuates the methodological insights which local grammar can bring not only to the study of speech acts but also to corpus pragmatics in general, and demonstrates how it can enrich the methodological toolkit of construction grammar (Goldberg Reference Goldberg1995). The research carried out here is put forward as evidence that local grammar is compatible with the study of speech acts and, further, it also stands as a distinct theoretical framework which can be used to explain how language works in interactive social contexts, whether as an alternative or complementary to other functional approaches. At the same time, the author is aware of the methodological challenges faced by local grammar analysis applied to authentic corpus data, including data retrieval, the repertoire of specialised function-based terminology and automated annotation, each of which is addressed in the subsequent chapters.

The book is structured in eight chapters. The core chapters provide a theoretical background, identify previous research and remaining gaps, discuss both the benefits and challenges of local grammar, and conclude with a concise and useful summary.

Chapter 1, ‘Introduction’ (pp. 1–16), introduces the basic tenets of local grammar, defined as ‘an approach to linguistic analysis and explanation that seeks to account for one subset of language use […] associated with a specific lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, discoursal, or social phenomenon’ (p. 1). Su situates local grammar within broader research domains, such as corpus pragmatics, and contrasts the local grammar approach with traditional and corpus-based approaches to speech acts. Drawing on the Sinclairian model of local grammar, the author stresses the need to describe not only surface lexico-grammatical realisations – which in corpus research are typically targeted on speech acts – but also, and in fact primarily, to uncover the underlying semantic-discourse patterns. This focus makes his approach distinct and particularly valuable for contrastive research as well as pedagogical applications. Su focuses on the speech act of apology on the grounds that its conventionalised and formulaic nature makes it amenable to corpus investigation and it can shed light on the socio-cultural norms observed by speakers.

Chapter 2, ‘Local grammar’ (pp. 17–45), provides a more detailed treatment of local grammar, including its aims, methodological and terminological issues, and also data retrieval. As local grammar accounts for ‘not the whole of a language, but one meaning only’ (Hunston Reference Hunston, Reppen, Fitzmaurice and Biber2002: 178), the terminology is characterised by a high degree of transparency and delicacy of description. Indeed, transparency is one of the principles advocated by Su to guide the design of the terminological apparatus. As he emphasises at various points throughout the book, it is an asset that sets local grammar apart from approaches which remain at the surface lexico-grammatical level on the one hand, and from those which reach a higher level of abstraction and generality on the other, such as e.g. systemic functional grammar or general grammars. However, it may hinder wider acceptance within the research community and further application, for instance, in automated annotation. For its part, section 2.2.2.1 is devoted to methods of data retrieval; here searching for illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs) was an obvious choice, inasmuch as the speech act of apology is routinely realised by a small repertoire of (fixed) formulaic expressions.

Chapter 3, ‘A local grammar approach to speech act annotation’ (pp. 46–71), starts with a response to an unresolved problem in speech act research, namely the taxonomy of speech acts. In this study, Su adopts Edmondson et al.’s (Reference Edmondson, House and Kádár2023) taxonomy because it recognises an optimal number of speech acts and, more importantly, it aligns methodologically with his own approach, prioritising formal realisation over the analyst’s subjective interpretation of the speaker’s intention. Another controversial issue to which the chapter responds is the basic unit of annotation and, consequently, delicacy of description. The author goes below the clause or utterance level, annotating any syntactic element which carries a recognisable pragmatic meaning or function directly related to the overall speech act, thus achieving a greater degree of delicacy. Section 3.4 outlines the local grammar annotation scheme for apology proposed by Su & Wei (Reference Su and Wei2018), which comprises seven functional labels: Apologiser, Apologising, Forgiveness-seeking, Apologisee, Intensifier, Specification and Hinge (table 3.2, p. 61). For further illustration, the chapter provides a corresponding scheme for requests (Su Reference Su2017). These schemes illustrate two important principles, namely form–function correspondence and flexibility of description, related to the fact that functional units may have variable form. Section 3.4.3 reviews the prospects for automating speech act annotation, with the author expressing optimism about its feasibility in light of the high degree of conventionalisation, on the one hand, and the principle of form–function pairing, on the other. As the author acknowledges (p. 69), this optimism must be tempered with caution in view of the challenges involved in developing a comprehensive inventory of context-specific functional labels acceptable to the research community.

Chapter 4, ‘Developing local grammars of speech acts’ (pp. 72–102), argues for the usefulness of local grammar in educational contexts, especially as regards enhancing L2 speakers’ pragmatic competence, but its main aim centres around a detailed description of the local grammar of apology in contemporary British English. To this end, the author examined the Spoken BNC1994 and Spoken BNC2014. As pointed out by Su (p. 74), a local grammar of apology based on authentic data is missing, as is research specifically addressing the formal realisation of apology. Recalling previous research on the formulaic nature of apologies, Su focused on eight lexical indicators (e.g. sorry, pardon, regret, excuse) to identify five sets comprising 27 semantic patterns which differ in complexity, as reflected in the type and number of functional elements. The simplest pattern is realised by a single functional element and exhibits a high degree of idiomaticity (e.g. Apologising, as in Sorry), whereas highly complex patterns combine five functional elements (e.g. Apologiser – Hinge – Intensifier – Apologising – Specification, as in I’m awfully sorry I’ve got the wrong number). The results reveal that contemporary British speakers employ two principal apology strategies: ‘making apologies’ and ‘seeking forgiveness’. The former, which is considerably more frequent, is realised by Apologising patterns, while the latter is realised by Forgiveness-seeking patterns. Furthermore, the simple, formulaic pattern containing only the core element is the most common expression, while frequency decreases as pattern complexity increases. As the author argues, given that previous research has correlated the complexity of apologies with social factors, the analysis of discourse-semantic patterns can provide valuable insights into the expression of apology in social interaction. The usefulness of local grammar in discovering patterns and regularities governing the expression of discourse-semantic meanings is further supported by two other studies, namely apology in Italian (Yu et al. Reference Yu, Su and Bondi2024) and exemplification in Chinese (Su & Fu Reference Su and Fu2023). One issue that may be of relevance is the centrality and peripherality of individual functional elements, which might have been addressed more explicitly. For instance, similarly to the element Intensifier in English apology, the element Initiator, indicating that an apology is going to be made (e.g. Ma in Italian Ma scusa), seems to play a more peripheral role than the core elements Apologising or Forgiveness-seeking. This issue crystallises in section 5.4.3, where the author demonstrates the process of abstracting more general apology constructions from specific local grammar patterns; these constructions contain only the core elements, although they may be modified by optional elements such as Intensifier in the Apologiser-apologising construction (p. 119), for instance in I’m (terribly) sorry. In addition, in table 4.32 (p. 93), which presents the terminology for the local grammar analysis of Italian apologies, the reader may wonder why two of the functional labels – Morphological Apologiser and Morphological Apologisee, referring to the apologiser and apologisee which are expressed morphologically (as in Chied-o scusa or Scus-a) – incorporate a surface-form criterion into an otherwise functional taxonomy.

The main aim of chapter 5, ‘A local grammar approach to identifying speech act constructions’ (pp. 103–27), is to show how speech act constructions can be identified through the lens of local grammar and to argue for the benefits of integrating local grammar and construction grammar. Although the two approaches bear similarities in their functional orientation and focus on form/pattern–meaning pairings, as maintained by Su (p. 103), no attempt has been made to combine them with a view to exploring speech acts. Based on 23 patterns identified in the Spoken BNC2014, Su abstracts five apology constructions: Apologising, Forgiveness-seeking, Apologiser-apologising, Specifying-the-offence and Specifying-the-addressee. The benefits of integrating the two approaches stem primarily from their differences, particularly degrees of descriptive generality. On the one hand, as pointed out by Su (p. 122, inter passim), constructions arrived at via local grammar patterns introduce a middle level of specificity, thus enriching construction grammar methodologically and enabling a more principled and systematic description. On the other hand, as shown in tables 5.6 to 5.10 (pp. 117–19) and in figure 5.1 (p. 121), introducing construction grammar into the local grammar framework enables more attention to be paid to the surface grammatical forms realising speech acts (e.g. person, the verb be, adverbs, prepositional phrases, performative verbs or that-clauses).

Chapter 6, ‘A local grammar approach to diachronic speech act analysis: Changing patterns of apology in contemporary spoken British English’ (pp. 128–52), presents an empirical application of local grammar to contrastive diachronic research. Comparing apology realisation patterns in the Spoken BNC1994 and Spoken BNC2014, Su identifies two major developments: a rise in speaker responsibility, evidenced by the growing use of the ‘making apologies’ strategy at the expense of the ‘seeking forgiveness’ strategy, and greater ritualisation of apology accompanied by attenuation of illocutionary force, manifested in an increase in simple formulaic patterns and a corresponding decline in more complex ones. Recalling previous research on apology and its social interpretation, Su is careful not to draw a definitive conclusion and, instead, oscillates between two, to some extent opposing, explanations: the reduction of social distance and increasing social stratification.

Chapter 7, ‘A local grammar approach to contrastive speech act analysis: The impact of speaker sex and culture on apology’ (pp. 153–79), is divided into two major parts, each dealing with a different demographic aspect, namely sex and cultural background. Some of the main findings are as follows: although women in the 1990s tended to apologise more than men, the opposite is the case in the twenty-first century; while female speakers in the Spoken BNC1994 relied on elaborate patterns and the ‘seeking forgiveness’ strategy more frequently than men, both features declined in the Spoken BNC2014 regardless of sex. Overall, however, both sexes have shifted to simpler and formulaic patterns of politeness. While the diverging tendencies may be attributed to differences in how the two sexes approach the maintenance of social relationships and how they perceive offensive behaviour, the converging tendencies may be attributed to the rise of feminism. In the second part of the chapter, Su reports on Su & Lu’s (Reference Su and Lu2023) research examining how culture affects apology in four English varieties – British English, Hong Kong English, Singaporean English and Indian English. Using the data from the International Corpus of English (ICE), the authors find statistically significant differences in the varieties examined, showing that culture does play a role in how apology is performed. Although the Asian Englishes subcorpora share with the British corpora a preference for short, formulaic apologies, they differ in making explicit reference to the Specification of the offence, which suggests that Asian Englishes ‘might have undergone a mixed process of language indigenisation and pragmatic nativisation’ (p. 179), compromising strategically between the British and their own cultural norms. These findings have important implications for our understanding of intercultural communication. As can be perceived elsewhere in the book, in chapters 6 and 7 Su accentuates the methodological advantages of local grammar for contrastive studies, showing that, compared with quantifying illocutionary force indicating devices at the clause or utterance level, finer-grained quantification at the discourse-semantic level enables a more nuanced comparison of apology expression.

The final chapter, ‘Conclusion’ (pp. 180–96), provides an excellent comprehensive summary of the issues dealt with in the preceding chapters. In response to the absence of any attempts to apply local grammar to language teaching (p. 193), Su proposes five steps for translating research on the local grammar of apology into classroom practice (Introducing key concepts – Exploring the local grammar of apology – Production practice – Consolidation – Exercise and assessment). The initial stages of the procedure are reminiscent of a condensed version of the local grammar approach to speech act and apology research. Furthermore, as the guideline is not designed for any specific teaching or learning context, the stages concerned with practice, consolidation and assessment are, inevitably, rather general and, as the author himself acknowledges, need to ‘be adapted and refined in pedagogical practice’ (p. 193). Consequently, the guideline is less instructive than the reader is led to expect in light of numerous references across the book to the usefulness of local grammar in teaching and learning speech acts.

The book contains two appendices: ‘Appendix 1’ (p. 214) lists low-frequency semantic-discourse apology patterns in the Spoken BNC1994 and the Spoken BNC2014, and ‘Appendix 2’ (pp. 215–18) provides an overview of apology patterns in British English and Asian Englishes in the component of the International Corpus of English.

To conclude, by documenting the speech act of apology in contemporary British English, Hang Su’s book makes a valuable contribution to the cumulative endeavour of identifying local grammars of speech acts and, more ambitiously, of developing a set of local grammars describing all communicative functions.