When corporations are confronted with a crisis, well-crafted CEO apologies can serve to repair, restore, and rebuild a damaged corporate image. In prior research, the use of linguistic resources exhibited in CEO corporate apology discourse for different crisis response strategies has not been sufficiently examined. Drawing on the appraisal framework and subsumed linguistic resources, this study analyzed the discursive construction of crisis response strategies in the corporate apology discourse of leading companies listed in the Fortune Global 2000. The findings revealed an integrated use of crisis response strategies in which attitude appraisal resources predominated, while different types of appraisal resources were deployed in various crisis response strategies to achieve rhetorical persuasion in corporate communication. The proposed framework integrating crisis response strategies in CEO apology discourse with appraisal resources could guide CEOs and crisis communicators to use the right words when composing corporate apologies.

当公司面临危机时，精心设计的CEO道歉可以用来修复，恢复和重建受损的公司形象。在先前的研究中，没有充分检验CEO公司道歉话语中展示的语言资源对不同危机应对策略的使用。利用评估框架和语言资源，本研究分析了《财富》杂志全球2000强公司的道歉演说中危机应对策略的话语建构。研究结果揭示了危机应对策略的综合运用，其中态度评估资源占主导地位，同时在各种危机应对策略中部署了不同类型的评估资源，以在企业沟通中获得口头上的说服力。提议的框架将首席执行官道歉话语中的危机应对策略与评估资源相结合，可以指导首席执行官和危机沟通者在撰写公司道歉时使用正确的词语。