A pragmatic study of Chinese EFL learners’ speech act of apology

【Abstract】Pragmatic competence is an important ingredient in Language learners communicative competence. Making apology is one of the speech acts that are the most face threatening for the speakers. This study aims to investigate how Chinese EFL learners， specially， the students of Non-English-Major perform the speech act of apology and to examine whether a Chinese EFL leaner will use different apology strategies in different situations.

【Key words】pragmatic competence； Chinese EFL learners； apology

【作者簡介】任俊超，三亚学院外国语学院。

1.Introduction

Since the notion of “communicative competence” was advanced by Hymes （1972）， it has been gradually accepted in language pedagogy. Communicative competence “includes knowledge the speaker-hearer has of what constitutes appropriate as well as correct language behavior and also of what constitutes effective language behavior in relation to particular communicative goal” （Ellis， 1994， p.13）. In recent decades， foreign language teachers have gradually realized that one central goal of foreign language teaching is to make language learners master the rules of perceiving and producing language that is appropriate to a specific situation and make them truly effective communicators in the target language. In this sense， the ability to perform the appropriate speech act in a particular situation is regarded as an important aspect of pragmatic competence. As far as the speech act of apology is concerned， apology is very common and important in our daily communication. According to Brown and Levinson （1987）， apology is one of the speech acts that are the most face threatening for the speaker. And inappropriate apology can lead to misunderstanding and embarrassment between the speaker and hearer， causing communication breakdown. The speech act of apology has been studied by many researchers from the perspectives of inter-language， cross-cultural， intra-language （Cohen & Olshtain， 1981； Fraser， 1981； Olshtain & Cohen， 1983； Olshtain， 1989； Holmes， 1990； Suszczynska， 1999； Rose， 2000）. In China， the limited study of the speech act of apology mainly concerns quantitative study of some routinized apology phrases （Liu Si & Liu Runqing 2005）. Therefore， this study aims to investigate how Chinese EFL learners， specially， the students of Non-English-Major perform the speech act of apology and to examine whether a Chinese EFL leaner will use different apology strategies in different situations.

2. Method

The participant I invited in this study is an 18-year old freshman who majors in Business Management. He has studied English for more than 6 six years. Even though he received exam-oriented English instruction all the time as most ELF learners in China， he personally paid more attention to oral English than the average. He has passed College English Test （Band 4）， which is a well-establish language proficiency test. Considering all the mentioned above， he could be considered as an intermediate English learner. Besides， according to the interview before the role-play， the participant probably never received any explicit pragmatic instructions in English class.

The open role-plays with 5 different specific situations are used in this study. The study aims to investigate the potential effects two factors power relation （P） and imposition ranking （R） have on the choice of apology strategies used by the informant. Therefore， the factor social distance is kept constant.

An email with the attachment consists of the six role-play scenarios and instruction was sent to the participant before the role-play. The participant was allowed to ask any questions about the comprehension of the given situations， and given sufficient time to prepare on the ground that the student is non-native speaker and need time to construct the words he would use. The data was collected by tape recording. The participant was informed the whole process would be record but he did not know the purpose of this study， that is， to investigate his pragmatic competence.

Among the many categorizations of apology strategies， the five classified by Olshtain and Cohen （1983） are frequently employed by research. Therefore， the preliminary data was analyzed in their framework proposed.

3. Date analysis

In scenario 1， the participant is a student who makes an apology to his professor （P-） for forgetting return the book in time （R-）.

Transcription：

01 Professor： Did you bring me the book？

02 Participant： Im terribly sorry Professor， but I was in a total mess this morning that I have forgotten to bring the book. Sorry.

03 Professor： EN？ WELL？

04 Participant： I know that I had promised you that I would bring it to you today. But this morning I got up a bit late and I missed the bus to the school. So I didnt have time to go back and get the book. Im sorry again.

05 Professor： Oh， I see.

06 Participant： I promise I would bring it tomorrow. Would that be OK？

07 Professor： OK.

08 Participant： Thank you.

Analysis：

Line 2： At first， participant apologizes and he intensifies his apology by using adverbial “terribly”. And then he uses “but” to explain the reason why he did not bring the book immediately and to mention the offence. He intensifies his apology by saying “sorry” again.

Line 4： After professor shows that he is listening and waiting for more information， he firstly admits error. And then he gives further explanations with more details. More importantly， he suggests if there were enough time， he would have gone back to get the book. This may ease the mood of the listener. And by say “Im sorry again” he intensifies his apology for the third time and the word “again” may make his interlocutor aware of that.

Line 6： Participant makes a promise for the future.

Line 8： He shows appreciation for Mr. Zhangs forgiveness.

In scenario 2， the participant is a professor who makes an apology to his student （P+） for not finishing reading his paper in time （R-）.

Transcription：

01 Kino： Hello， professor， what do you think of my paper？

02 Participant： Hi Kino. Nice to see you here. I have to tell you that I havent finished reading your paper yet. I just caught a bad cold and have been staying in bed.

03 Kino： Oh dear. Im very sorry to hear that. How are you feeling now？

04 Participant： Much better. Thank you. Anyway I just want to tell you that I will give you feedback as soon as possible. And by the way， from what I have read， you did not bad.

05 Kino： Really？ Thank you so much Professor. Theres no need to hurry. Youre your time and do take care of yourself.

06 Participant： I will Kino. See you soon.

07 Kino： Bye Professor.

Analysis：

Line 2： The participant does not make an apology immediately. Instead， he gives the reason why he did not finish reading the paper. But he uses “I have to…” to show he is sorry to some extent.

Line 4： Still， participant shows no regret. He just shows thanks to Kinos care. But he makes a promise for the future. Besides， he gives compliments to Kinos paper， which could be a distraction from the embarrassing situation. In other words， he moves to another topic， a safer one.

Line 6： Still， no apology strategies are used.

In scenario 3， the participant makes apology to his best friend （P=） for being late for birthday party （R-）.

Transcription：

01 Participant： Happy birthday， buddy. Im so sorry Im so late. Howd party go？

02 Kino： Come on. What happened to you？

03 Participant： It was the cake. I ordered a couple of days ago for a strawberry cake， but today when I got there they had a chocolate one.

04 Kino： Oh no.

05 Participant： Yes I know you hate chocolate cake. So I asked them to make a new one and it was really slow ‘cause its all hand-made.

06 Kino： You are so sweet， bro.

07 Participate： Anyway here I am here with the RIGHT cake. I just hope I didnt miss the best part.

08 Kino： No， not a bit. We are all waiting for you. Come on in.

Analysis：

Line 1： The participant shows his sorry at the beginning.

Line 3： After his friend asks why he is late， participant explains the reason.

Line 5： He gives further explanations with more details.

Line 7： He offers repair by emphasizing “the RIGHT cake”.

In scenario 4， the participant makes apology to his professor （P-） for being breaking a vase which is quiet valuable to the professor （R+）.

Transcription：

01 Participant： Im terribly sorry Professor…

02 Mr. Zhang： It was a gift from an old friend.

03 Participant： Im really sorry Professor...I didnt mean it...

04 Mr. Zhang： He died a few years ago. This was his last gift to me.

05 Participant： Sorry...I...I dont know what to say. Is there anything I can do？ I am so careless…I am terribly sorry...what can I do for your loss？ Maybe it can be repaired in some way， let collect the pieces and find someone can repair it. I mean it.

06 Mr. Zhang： Alas… It seems to be the only way. Ok lets collect the pieces then.

07 Participant： Ok， let me do this， you have a rest. I am sorry again， sincerely， sorry.

Analysis：

Line 1： At first， the participant shows his sorry immediately， and intensifies his apology by using the word “terribly”.

Line 3： He repeats his sorry and again intensifies his apology by using another word “really”， and then expresses lack of intent： “I didnt mean it”

Line 5： After his friend tells how valuable the vase is， the participant is shocked and falls into deep regret. He cannot express how sorry he is （“I dont know what to say”）. He emphasizes his regret again and offers repair.

Line 7： He repeats his sorry and intensifies his apology， but this time he uses a new adverb—sincerely.

In scenario 5， the participant is a management and he makes apology to his subordinate named Kino （P+） for being breaking a vase which is quiet valuable to Kino （R+）.

Transcription：

01 Participant： Im sorry Kino...

02 Kino： s a gift from an old friend.

03 Participant： Oh， I am so sorry Kino...

04 Kino： He died a few years ago. This was his last gift to me.

05 Participant： Oh my God， I am so so so so sorry. Is there anything I can do？ What can I do for your loss？ Maybe it can be repaired in some way. I mean it.

06 Kino： Alas… It seems to be the only way. Ok let me collect the pieces then.

07 Participant： Lets collect together. I am so sorry again； I know how you feel now. I promise it will be repaired. Trust me.

Analysis：

Line 1： At first， the participant gives an expression of regret.

Line 3： He uses the word “so”， and expresses sorry word by word to intensify his regret.

Line 5： After Kino tells how valuable the vase is， the participant is shocked and falls into deep regret. He intensifies his apology by repetition of the word “so”. And then he offers repair.

Line 7： He repeats his sorry， intensifies his apology and offers repair by making a promise. Surprisingly， he shows his sympathy and tries to comfort Kino by saying “I know how you feel now”. This cannot be classified any strategy mentioned above.

4. Discussion and conclusion

By comparing the performance of the six scenarios， the study found that the informant knew some strategies while performing speech acts of apology and he can change the apology strategies according to the variations of situations. For example， when the factor imposition ranking varies， the participant uses “really sorry”， “terribly sorry” more frequently and repeats his regret in （R+） situations more than he does in （R-） ones. It is worth noticing that in Scenario 2， he does not express any regret or apology. It suggests that he is aware of the power plays a decisive role in deciding what apology strategies should be used. However， the data shows that he only uses “Im sorry” to express his regret. An offer of apology such as “I apologize” is not found in the dialogues. Considering language proficiency of the participant， he should know the words “apology” or “apologize” very well. I interviewed him about the reason for this after the study. He told me that an article on the Internet says that “apology” was too formal for daily conversation so he tried to avoid using such words in the dialogues. This， apparently， shows that L2 pragmatic knowledge need explicitly taught to our students in class.

An interesting finding in this study is that the participant uses a strategy which in not included in the framework proposed by Cohen and Olshitan （1983）， that is， to show sympathy. For instance， in Scenario 5， he shows his understanding about Kinos pain by saying “I know how you feel.” It suggests the analytic framework could be further developed in future.

To sum up， even though only one participant is involved in this study， it could still support one of major previous findings： the pedagogical intervention of pragmatics is quite needed in Chinese English classroom and it is be hoped to invite further development in categorization of apology strategies.

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