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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0723106-222313 |
| Date | 23 July 2006 |
| Creators | Shih, Hsiang-yi |
| Contributors | Yuh-Huey Lin, Feng-Fu Tsao, Syu-Ing Shyu |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0723106-222313 |
| Rights | withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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