Italian scusa from politeness to mock politeness

In Contemporary Italian forms derived from the lemma scus- "excuse" are perceived by speakers as the prototypical realization of the speech act of apology being the most common forms used to apologize and to remedy a breach of etiquette. The same forms are also used to politely ask a permission or to hedge performatives perceived as too direct. In all cases, by using these forms the speakers aim at maintaining or restoring interpersonal relations. However, sometimes scusa and variants do not position the speaker as being regretful, but reinforce dissent, challenge or sarcasm. In such contexts, the forms are used to implement impoliteness or exacerbate an impolite message. Through a corpus of comedies (18th and 21st centuries), we investigate how the frequency of use of these forms has changed in the centuries. Secondly, we analyse how the mixed nature of apologies, i.e. their strategic and normative values, favours their uses in (im)polite messages, what forms are used to enact them, through mock politeness, and if their frequency has changed with time. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.