ABSTRACT This study investigated the effects of contextual factors, participants¡¦ exposure to the target language, interlocutors¡¦ ethnicity and task language on Chinese and English speakers¡¦ perception of the speech act of apology. The data were collected from sixty English L1 speakers, 60 Chinese L1 speakers and 60 Chinese EFL speakers. They consisted of responses on and of apology to a Scaled-response Questionnaire (SRQ). The SRQ data showed both similarities and significant differences between the two L1 groups under different contextual factors. First, the two groups differed in terms of all the four context-internal factors; i.e. severity of the offense, likelihood to apologize, difficulty of the apology and the acceptability of the apology. As for the SRQ answers concerning the five context-external factors, social distance, social status, speaker gender, interlocutor gender and imposition, there were both similarities and differences between the two L1 groups. For example, both groups considered it less severe to offend strangers and were more likely to apologize to acquaintances and people of equal status. Furthermore, both groups found it more severe to offend and more difficult to apologize to male than to female interlocutors. On the other hand, cross-cultural differences were found in the perception of the severity on low imposition situations and on people of equal status and acquaintances. There were also various cross-cultural differences in the likelihood to apologize and difficulty of the apology perception ratings. Ethnicity did not yield significant results among Chinese L1s. However, low-exposure group rated severity and likelihood to apologize higher than high-exposure group did. Severity of the offense was significantly higher and the difficulty of the apology was significantly lower when the participants were using Chinese L1. When compared with the high exposure group, low exposure group¡¦s perception ratings were higher in the severity of the offense, likelihood to apologize and acceptability of the apology. The results may infer that ethnicity and task language play important roles in learners¡¦ perceptions. Future researches could focus on the relationship between learners¡¦ perception and production to broaden and deepen the understanding of learner language.

This thesis describes how the police apologise, primarily through lexical and syntactic analysis of explicit apology language in letters written by the Scottish police. The unique contribution of this thesis is the identification of two distinct speech acts using apology language; one is an act of payment for an evidenced failing and another is an act of validation of another person’s perspective. This thesis suggests that these two acts may have developed in police use of apology language to manage conflicting pressures on the police, such as to be polite to the multiple audiences for their apologies. Discursive approaches to politeness research often focus on immediate recipient responses as evidence that language is evaluated as (im)polite. This approach is not well suited to written language, where the recipient(s) may be at a distance in both time and space. I amend Terkourafi’s (2005) frame-based analysis, taking insights from scholarship on writing, to develop the application of politeness research to written language. I collected letters written by the Scottish police containing their final decision on complaints made about the police by members of the public. The first stage of my analysis, to detail the production of these letters, establishes that evaluation and opportunities for editing take place among the many writers involved in producing the letters; repetition of particular linguistic forms in particular contexts may be taken therefore as a police institutional understanding that such forms are a polite use of language in particular situations. My analysis of the letters identifies first that the police use apology language where they have been acquitted of wrongdoing, in contrast to public perceptions that the police do not apologise. They distinguish in linguistic form between such situations and where there is evidence of failings, leading me to delineate one act of validation of an addressee’s claim to respect and another in ritual payment for an evidenced failing. The form and function distinctions of these acts lead me to suggest that ‘apology’ needs to be reconsidered as a concept, not a single speech act but a cluster of related acts.

This study aimed to compare the use of apology internal modification patterns between two groups of native speakers (Chinese and English) and EFL learners in the hope to serve as the base for further interlanguage studies. However, rather than following the traditional treatment that focuses largely on intensification of illocutionary indicating devices (IFIDs), this study examined the internal modification of apology under the scope defined by Trosborg (1995) with a proposed functional coding system. Results showed, as predicted by Olshtain (1989), although apology may be a universal act across different cultures in terms of a similar range and preference order of strategies, internal modification varied significantly cross-culturally and seemed to cause problems in learners¡¦ languages. For instance, Chinese speakers tended to use more linguistic devices, both upgraders and downgraders, to mitigate their sense of guilt in situations when English natives chose to adopt more upgrading modality markers to strengthen their apology. Interlanguege speakers of two proficiency levels revealed the same cultural attitude, but failed to match not only English but also Chinese natives in terms of being articulate and eloquent. However, such results only suggest besides the traditional distinction between upgraders vs. downgraders, the functions of modality markers should also be taken into account. In order to obtain a clearer picture of speech act behavior and to draw valid pedagogical implications, more work has to be done considering speakers¡¦ use of both internal and external pragmalinguistic modifications.

Researches on interlanguage speech act of apology have been conducted in a variety of cultures and languages, while little attention has been paid to interlanguage apology made by Chinese EFL learners. Therefore, aiming to obtain a better understanding about how Chinese EFL learners differ from English native speakers in their speech act performance of apology, this study compared the apologies made by native speakers of Chinese and English and Chinese EFL learners at two English proficiency levels. Data for analysis in this study consist of 3600 expressions of apology performed by informants including 60 English native speakers, 60 Chinese native speakers, and 60 Chinese EFL learners¡X30 English-major EFL learners and 30 non-English-major EFL learners. As far as the apology strategies used by the four groups are concerned, results showed, as found by Fraser (1981) and Olshtain (1983, 1989), that the four groups of informants exhibited cross-linguistically valid apology strategies and similar patterns of apology strategy selection and preference order, even when contextual factors were involved. However, the frequency with which apology strategies are used reveals some deviations between EFL learners and NS-E for a number of strategies. Furthermore, proficiency effect is found operative in EFL learners¡¦ interlanguage apology production. Results of this study revealed a positive correlation between EFL learners¡¦ English proficiency and their interlanguage pragmatic competence and their linguistic accuracy in apologizing. For future studies, in order to determine how native speakers and EFL learners function in natural face-to-face interactions, the replication of study in an oral mode, a role-play for example, should be conducted, and either the data gathered from DCTs or from role-plays should be compared with the data gathered through the observation of natural language events to arrive at a more accurate analysis of the apologizing behavior of native speakers and EFL learners. Besides, this study focused specifically on the production of the apology speech act by native speakers of Chinese and English and Chinese EFL learners; however, based on Olshtain¡¦s (1989) claim that the understanding of intercultural differences cannot be limited to production features only without considering the perlocutionary aspect of the speech act from the hearer¡¦s point of view, further work should include the analysis of the responses to apologies to gain a better understanding and present a fuller picture of interlanguage speech act of apology.

Plato’s Apology differs and stands out from the other dialogues in his corpus in regard to its style, structure and content. Socrates’s manner of speech, although inspired by examination and philosophizing, is monological and lacks the dialogical structure that other dialogues showcase. In this thesis I argue that Socrates’s manner of speech demonstrates a weakness of the nature of speech itself. An analysis of diction, expressions, tone, arguments, and topoi in Plato’s Apology will demonstrate that telling the truth is, on its own, not enough to convince or persuade someone.

The validity of the speech act data obtained from different types of elicitation instruments has been widely debated in the Interlanguage Pragmatics literature. This study compared the use of apology strategies and modality markers from apology speech act data collected from two most popular speech act elicitation tasks, namely, Discourse Completion Task (DCT) and role plays. Sixty native speakers of Chinese (NS-C) and sixty EFL learners responded to DCT. Twenty four NS-C and forty EFL learners participated in role plays. Results show that subjects tended to use Direct Expression of Apology, Acknowledge Responsibility and Offer of Repairs as their main strategies in apology situations both on DCT and in role plays. In addition, participants tended to exploit MAXIMIZERs more than MINIMIZERs in both methods. However, differences between two approaches were revealed when frequencies and distributions of apology strategies and modality markers were examined. Role plays elicited overall more apology strategies and modality markers than DCT did. Participants were also found to employ a narrower range of strategies and modality markers on DCT. Because of the feeling of insecurity in face-to-face encounters (Rintell and Mitchell, 1989), EFL-L exhibited more ¡¥play-it-safe¡¦ strategies (Faerch and Kasper, 1989; Trosborg, 1987) by giving more direct apologies, and exploiting more MAXIMIZERs than MINIMIZERs across four situations. When dividing NS-C into two separate groups: English majors (NS-C-EM) and non-English (NS-C-NEM), some in-group differences were revealed. For instance, in role-play data, the preference order for apology strategy choice was different between NS-C-EM and NS-C-NEM. Also, NS-C-EM tended to exploit overall more Chinese particles, a, ba, and ne, than their NS-C-NEM counterparts. The finding suggests that it is necessary to divide NS-C into different groups based on their educational background such as English majors and non-English majors. The present study also pointed out that traditional categorization of apology internal modification which was based on the language system of English may fail to fully capture Chinese apology behaviors. Chinese modal particles which have no English equivalent (Tang and Tang, 1997) have been ignored in the categorization of apology internal modifications in the literature. Thus, a modified coding system which included Chinese particles, namely, ¡§A¡¨ (°Ú), ¡§BA¡¨ (§a), and ¡§NE¡¨ (©O), was proposed based on traditional categorization of apology internal modification developed in the previous studies (Blum-Kulka & Kasper, 1989; Lin and Ho, 2006; Trosborg, 1995). The result indicates that while the previous study (Lin and Ho, 2006) on apology internal modification which excluded Chinese particles has revealed that NS-C exploited less modality markers than their native speakers of English (NS-E) counterparts, the result in the present showed an opposite pattern in that by tagging Chinese particles at the end of the utterances, NS-C were found to modulate their tone more often than NS-E. This might imply the importance of the Chinese particles for NS-C in conveying attitude. Finally, in order to increase the validity of data elicitation methods, further studies addressed to the methodological issue should include the analysis of the responses obtained from naturally occurring data and examine whether both data obtained from DCT and role plays are representative of ¡¥natural speech¡¦ . Also, in order to have cross-cultural and cross-linguistic comparison, speech acts data produced by NS-E, NS-C, and EFL learners collected through DCT, role plays, and naturally occurring data are needed for future researches.

This study compares the speech acts of apology of Saudi learners of English with those of American English native speakers to investigate the intercultural communication competence of second language learners. The investigation is based on 120 apology responses from Saudi learners of English and native speakers of American English. The responses were collected through a discourse completion task. The participants from both groups utilized the same five strategies mentioned by Cohen and Olshtain (1981): apology expressions, explanations, promises of forbearance, acknowledgments of responsibility, and offers of repair. Results showed no difference in the types of apology strategies adopted, but the frequency of using these strategies varied. The frequency of use of the strategies significantly varied only for the offers of repair and promises of forbearance. The results also indicated that the two most universal strategies used were apology expressions and explanations. Furthermore, the most common strategies that were often combined together were expressions and explanations. This study supports Taguchi's (2011) statement on the possible effect of learners' English proficiency on their speech act productions. Moreover, social power has a noticeable impact on students' production of the five apology strategies. Results indicated that the higher the social power of the offended, the more apology strategies he/she seemed to have received. Results from the current study and studies like this are informative to not only the speech act literature but also the study of intercultural communication, the globalization of American universities, and the development of Saudi cultural missions.

Offenders in some restorative justice programs are required to offer an apology as a condition of successful completion of the restorative justice procedure, or else return to court. Apologies can be required even when victims do not attend the restorative justice procedure. Apologising can result in several benefits for apologisers, but previous research suggests that coercion and lack of victim presence in restorative justice procedures may reduce those benefits. Participants (n = 120) took part in a deceptive live study designed to elicit confessions for a transgression and subsequent apologies. In this study, I manipulated coercion (Coerced, Not coerced) and victim presence (Direct, Surrogate, Ambiguous), to test their effects on the outcome benefits that offenders derived from offering an apology. Findings indicated that victim presence and coercion significantly impact outcome benefits for apologisers, including: perceptions of personal responsibility, accountability for consequences, transgression exaggeration and procedural fairness judgments. Implications for restorative justice programs are discussed. / UOIT

This Thesis provides an analysis of Apology Legislation in Canada, more specifically focusing on its influence on Canadian Courts & Contracts of Insurance. Apology legislation, as an amendment to the Evidence Act of a province or a stand-alone piece of legislation, was created to restrict the admissibility of acts or words of remorse or benevolence given by one person to another. Apology Legislation in Canada is said to be a positive measure on the road to making the justice system more accessible, affordable and effective. This piece will explore the framework of Apology Legislation in several common law jurisdictions, leading to an examination of the socio-economic and legal benefits it is purported to confer. This Thesis will also consider legal and policy changes that could help to alleviate the burden on the judicial system while contributing to the creation of a safer and more sustainable health care system in Canada.

This Thesis provides an analysis of Apology Legislation in Canada, more specifically focusing on its influence on Canadian Courts & Contracts of Insurance. Apology legislation, as an amendment to the Evidence Act of a province or a stand-alone piece of legislation, was created to restrict the admissibility of acts or words of remorse or benevolence given by one person to another. Apology Legislation in Canada is said to be a positive measure on the road to making the justice system more accessible, affordable and effective. This piece will explore the framework of Apology Legislation in several common law jurisdictions, leading to an examination of the socio-economic and legal benefits it is purported to confer. This Thesis will also consider legal and policy changes that could help to alleviate the burden on the judicial system while contributing to the creation of a safer and more sustainable health care system in Canada.