Linguistic representation of blame and responsibility in public corporate apologies

Abstract

This article examines the linguistic representation of blame, responsibility, and remedial action in public apologies issued by technology companies. Eight authentic statements describe five crises in 2022–2024. Particular attention is paid to two Yandex statements addressing the same incident but different linguistic audiences. The analysis combines discourse pragmatics, examination of grammatical agency, and context-sensitive identification of metaphorical uses. The findings show that acknowledging a failure does not necessarily entail accepting direct causal responsibility for it. Expressions of regret, attribution of the incident, and commitments to corrective action constitute analytically distinct moves. Metaphorical expressions can frame crisis severity, remedial progress, and the value of trust, but do not in themselves demonstrate an apology’s sincerity. The two Yandex statements differ in the presentation of corporate agency and emotional positioning despite referring to a shared event. These observations are preliminary and do not warrant broad claims about national communicative conventions.