the speech act of apology made by vietnamese efl learner an interlanguage pragmatic study = lời xin lỗi của người việt nam học tiếng anh

LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Mean ratings of social factors by English and Vietnamese informants n=29 and Vietnamese informants n=30 19 Table 2 The use of Strategies with respect to +P EN Spea

Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm

Ha noi – 2012

Ha noi – 2012

Part A: INTRODUCTION

2.2.1 Informants 14

2.2.2.1 Variables manipulated in data collection instruments 15

3.1 Apologies by EFL Learners and English native speakers 22

3.2 Apologies by English native Speakers and Vietnamese native Speakers 30

Part C: CONCLUSION

2 Implications for Teaching and Learning English in Vietnam 39

3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 40

APPENDIXES

Appendix C: Figure 4 (Apology strategies by EN Speakers and VN Speakers) XIX

Appendix D: Figure 5 (Apology strategies by EN Speakers, EFL Learners

and VN Speakers)

XX

Second language Metapragmatic questionnaire Discourse Completion Task Social Distance

Relative Power Ranking of Imposition Situation

Strategy

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Mean ratings of social factors by English and Vietnamese informants

(n=29) and Vietnamese informants (n=30)

19

Table 2 The use of Strategies with respect to +P (EN Speakers & EFL Learners) 22

Table 3 The use of Strategies with respect to =P (EN Speakers & EFL Learners) 25

Table 4 The use of Strategies with respect to -P (EN Speakers & EFL Learners) 27

Table 5 The use of Strategies with respect to +D (EN Speakers & EFL Learners) 28

Table 6 The use of Strategies with respect to –D (EN Speakers & EFL Learners) 30

Table 7 The use of Strategies with respect to +P (EN Speakers & VN Speakers) 30

Table 8 The use of Strategies with respect to =P (EN Speakers & VN Speakers) 32

Table 9 The use of Strategies with respect to -P (EN Speakers & VN Speakers) 33

Table 10 Apology strategies by EN Speakers, EFL Learners and VN Speakers

across the six situations

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Apology strategies in +P settings (EN Speakers & EFL Learners) 22

Figure 2 Apology strategies in =P settings (EN Speakers & EFL Learners) 25

Figure 3 Apology strategies in =P settings (EN Speakers & EFL Learners) 27

Figure 4 Apology strategies by EN Speakers & VN Speakers in the six situations XIX

Figure 5 Apology strategies by EN Speakers, EFL Learners & VN Speakers XX

Part I: INTRODUCTION

1 Identification of the problem

To become effective communicators nowadays, it is essential for English foreign language (EFL) Learners to gain communicative competence Communicative competence, according to Ellis, ―entails both linguistic competence and pragmatic competence‖ (Ellis, 1994:696) Linguistic competence is the ability to use the linguistic rules of a given

language Pragmatic competence, on the other hand, is ―the ability to use language

effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context‖ (Thomas, 1983:94) Likewise, Bialystok (1993) claimed that pragmatic competence is the ability to make use of different language functions, the ability to understand the speakers‘ underlying intention; and the ability to modify the speech according to contexts

Recently, increasing attention has been paid to pragmatic competence due to the fact that foreign language learners who have good knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary but lack sociolinguistic awareness may encounter communicating problems with native speakers because of their incompetence to use sociolinguistic rules properly

or interpret those words correctly Moreover, in accordance with Thomas (1983), native speakers often forgive the phonological, syntactic and lexical errors made by L2 speakers but usually interpret pragmatic errors negatively as rudeness, impoliteness or unfriendliness Thus foreign language speakers need to have more than pure linguistic competence in order to be able to communicate effectively in a language and know how a language is used

by members of a speech community to accomplish their purposes (Hymes:1972) In other words, it can be justifiably suggested that foreign language speakers need to use the target language in both linguistically and socially appropriate ways

Over the past few decades, language teaching in the world has witnessed a shift from the focus on the development of learners‘ linguistic competence to the development of learners‘ communicative competence Many empirical studies on learners‘ pragmatic competence on the basis of diverse speech acts have been conducted in variety of cultures and languages to gather information on what appropriate use of linguistic forms

in different sociocultural contexts actually comprises (e.g., Bergman & Kasper, 1993; Blum-Kulka, 1991; Ellis, 1992; Trosborg, 1987, 1995; Yu, 1999a, 1999b, 2005; Shardakova, 2005; Bataineh, 2006, 2008) Those studies have contributed greatly to a better

understanding of the use of linguistic forms in different languages and cultures and further

to avoiding cross-cultural miscommunication

On response to this trend, some Vietnamese researchers investigated similarities and differences in the realization of speech acts such as requesting, inviting, disagreeing, greeting, giving and receiving compliments, apologizing, promising made by speakers of English and Vietnamese Among these speech acts, apology is considered a highly-recurrent and routinized act Kasper (1996) stated that in any speech community, participants need to engage in remedial verbal action upon committing an offense, that is to apologize However, this kind of speech act is still under-researched in Vietnam Van (2000), Phuong (2000) and Trang (2010) are some of Vietnamese researchers working on this topic up to now However, their studies mainly compared and contrasted the realization

of apology between two groups of language, English and Vietnamese Native Vietnamese speakers‘ speech act behavior which can influence Learners‘ performance of the target language was understudied Thus, gaps are still there to fill in pragmatics, especially in the interlanguage speech act of apology In this study the aim is to compare the speech act of apologies among EN speakers, English EFL learners and VN speakers

2 Aims of the study

This study aims at identifying Vietnamese EFL learners‘ deviations linguistically in the production of apology in relation to English native speakers in the contexts studied In particular, the study attempts to find out how much Vietnamese learners of English can approximate native speakers in the apology strategy use as well as responding to contextual factors involved in the contexts

3 Objectives of the study

The study will uncover the deviations in using apology strategies by Vietnamese EFL learners in some contexts studied Particularly, it uncovers:

1) differences in the use of apology strategies by EN Speakers and Vietnamese EFL Learners

2) differences in the use of apology strategies by EN Speakers and VN Speakers

4 Scope of the study

Due to limited time, it is impossible to cover all interlanguage pragmatic matters This study just focus on the language used by Vietnamese learners of English in formulating

in the speech act of apology in relation to the three social parameters (P, D and R) in the

contexts studied In other words, the survey concentrates on verbal communication Moreover, the survey mainly considers the acceptance of apologies and ignores all the cases where apologies are refused As a result, the theoretical frameworks applied to this study are pragmatics and the speech act theory

5 Significance of the study

This study will be an attempt to fill in a gap in the area of interlanguage pragmatics where learners‘ production of linguistic acts has not taken into consideration enough Thus, the study will be a reference material for not only English language learners to improve their knowledge on the interlanguage pragmatics but also their communicative competence

6 Method of the study

Quantitative is mainly used in this study In other words, all the conclusions and

considerations are based on the analysis of the empirical studies and statistics processed

Chi-square test In addition, such methods as descriptive, analytic, comparative and contrastive are also utilized to describe and analyze, to compare and contrast the database so

as to bring out differences in using apology strategy by English and Vietnamese speakers

7 Organization of the study

This study is divided into three parts as follows:

Part A is the introduction of the study including the identification of the problem, the

aims, the objectives, the scope of the study, the significance, the research method as well as the organization of the study

Part B contains 3 chapters Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical issues relevant to the

study including pragmatics, speech act theory and some previous studies on interlanguage

apologies Chapter 2 discusses issues of methodology and outlines the study design, data

collection instruments, reliability and validity test of the data collection instruments,

procedure of data collection, selection of subjects and analytical framework Chapter 3

presents the data analysis and discusses the findings on the choice of apology strategies used

by EN speakers, EFL learners and VN speakers in relation to the variables of Power (P), Social Distance (D) and Ranking of Imposition (R) in the contexts under studied Some pragmatic transfer on interlanguage apology is also mentioned in this chapter

Part C provides an overview of major findings and interpretations, implications,

limitations and suggestions for further research

Part B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides overview of the theoretical background of the research It is divided into three main sections Section 1.1 discusses the key notions of pragmatics Section 1.2 discusses the speech act theory and its categories This is followed by section 1.3 in which some previous studies on interlanguage apology are discussed

1.1 Pragmatics

1.1.1 Overview

Since Morris‘s original definition, there have been numerous attempts to explain pragmatics Levinson (1983) claimed that pragmatics comprises the study of language usage, to be distinguished from syntax, which is the study of combinatorial properties of words and their parts, and from semantics, which is the study of meaning Based on Levinson‘s claim, Leech (1983) redefined pragmatics as ―any background knowledge assumed to be shared by the speaker and the hearer and contributes to the hearer‘s interpretation of what the speaker means by a given utterance‖ (Leech, 1983:13) and he

also distinguished pragmatic meaning which is relative to a speaker or user of a language from semantic meaning which is purely a property of expressions in a given

language And in this trend, Crystal proposed: ―pragmatics is the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter

in using language in social interactions, and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication‖ (Crystal, 1985: 240)

According to Leech (1983), pragmatics can be divided into two components: one

is pragmalinguistic, referring to the pragmatic strategies, routines, and a large of linguistic forms to convey communicative action, and the other is sociopragmatics, referring to the social perceptions underlying participants‘ interpretation and performance of communicative action Similarly, Cohen (1996) proposed two distinct levels of abilities required for pragmatic competence: one is sociocultural ability to choose speech act appropriate for the given contexts and the other is sociolinguistic ability to choose the actual language forms for realizing the speech act

1.1.2 Interlanguage Pragmatics

According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics,

Interlanguage is the type of language produced by second and foreign language learners

who are in the process of learning a language Before 1970s, interlanguage studies were generally carried out to see grammatical development of L2 learners However, by the emergence of communicative competence approach, interlanguage studies gave emphasis to the interactional and communicative dynamics of L2 performance Thus, the term

‗interlanguage pragmatics‘ came into existence According to Kasper (1998), interlanguage pragmatics investigates the learners‘ development and the use of pragmatic knowledge in second language (L2) context In other words, it examines non-native speakers‘ comprehension, production, and acquisition of linguistic action in L2, or put briefly, interlanguage pragmatics investigates how L2 learners develop the ability to understand and perform action in a target language (Kasper & Rose, 2002) Kasper and Rose‘s (2002) definition highlights two important aspects of interlanguage pragmatics research First, it

emphasizes that both production and comprehension are part of language learners‘

pragmatic competence in their L2 Thus, second/foreign language learners do not only have

to be able to produce utterances that are regarded as contextually appropriate by their target audience, they also have to be aware of what constitutes appropriate linguistic behaviour in

a variety of social situations in their L2 This shows the link between culture and pragmatic competence in a second/foreign language

The growing interest in interlanguage pragmatics reflects the enormous developments in the theoretical and empirical study of pragmatics A lot of researches on interlanguage pragmatics have been conducted by now Most of them have focused on L2 pragmatic use, investigating cross-cultural perception and comprehension of illocutionary forces, cross-cultural pragmatic success and failure, and the impact of contextual factors on selection of semantic formulas, realization strategies, and linguistic forms and have found that languages differ significantly as to when a particular form should be performed and with what strategy (e.g., Takahashi, 1996; Trosborg, 1987, 1995) And the finding that different cultures have different conventional language use implies that L2 learners have to learn the conventions of language use in order to behave appropriately in terms of use of native-like routines and the social values of the target language community

1.1.3 Pragmatic Transfer

The term transfer is generally used to refer to the effect of the existing knowledge on

the acquisition of new knowledge The notion of transfer was first introduced during the

1940s and 1950s Later on, Ellis (1994: 341) took a more general approach to transfer and stated that ―the study of transfer involves the study of errors (negative transfer), facilitation (positive transfer), avoidance of target language forms, and their over-use‖ With the

attention given to pragmatics and pragmatic competence, pragmatic transfer gained more interest In its crudest sense, pragmatic transfer can be described as ‗the transfer of pragmatic knowledge in situations of intercultural communications‘ (Zegarac & Pennington, 2000: 167) Similarly, Kasper (1992: 207) defined pragmatic transfer as ―the

influence exerted by learners‘ pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures other than L2

on their comprehension, production, and acquisition of L2 pragmatic information‖

Under the claim of pragmatic transfer, it is assumed that cross-cultural miscommunication is often caused by the interference of learners‘ L1 sociocultural norms and conventions with the realization of speech acts in a target language (Takahashi, 1996) A lot of interlanguage pragmatic studies have been conducted to examine what is negatively transferred from L1 to L2 contexts Some of them investigated L1 transfer in learners‘ perception as to a certain speech act and overall speech style, while others investigated L1 influences on learners‘ production of speech acts in L2 (e.g., Bergman & Kasper, 1993; House & Kasper, 1987; Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1985; Trosborg, 1987, 1995; Byon, 2005) These studies clearly demonstrated that transfer exists at the pragmatic level, but in different types Due to the inseparable relationship between language and culture, Kasper (1992) identified two types of pragmatic transfer: sociopragmatic transfer and pragmalinguistic transfer This sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic dichotomy is not only useful in cross-cultural pragmatic research and in language learning and teaching, but it also provides an adequate framework for the study of pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatics (Bou, 1998) The details of these two types are as follows:

Sociopragmatic transfer has been found to be operative in learners‘ perceptions

of contextual factors, such as imposition, social status, and social distance (Takahashi & Beebe, 1993); learners‘ assessment about whether a particular linguistic action is socially appropriate (Robinson, 1992), and learners‘ overall politeness style adopted in contexts (Blum-Kulka, 1982; Garcia, 1989) Therefore, Kasper (1992) claimed that both context-external factors and context-internal factors have effects on sociolinguistic transfer and claimed: ―sociopragmatic transfer is operative when the social perceptions underlying

language learners‘ interpretation and performance of linguistic action in L2 are influenced

by their assessment of subjectively equivalent L1 contexts‖ (Kasper, 1992: 209)

On the other hand, pragmalinguistic transfer has been found to be operative in learners‘ use of conventional means and forms, affecting the illocutionary force and politeness values of interlanguage utterances (Bodman & Eisenstein, 1988; House, 1988; House & Kasper, 1987) And Kasper (1992), dealing with illocutionary force and politeness values, provided ―pragmalinguistic transfer‖ a definition as ―pragmalinguistic transfer shall designate the process whereby the illocutionary force or politeness value assigned to particular linguistic material in L1 influence learners‘ perception and production of form-function mappings in L2‖ (Kasper, 1992: 209)

1.2 Speech acts

According to Austin (1962), speech acts are acts performed by utterances like giving orders or making promises These speech acts, considered the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication, are performed in authentic situations of language use (Searle 1969: 16) Yule (1996:47) states that ―Action performed via utterances is generally called speech acts‖ That is because of the fact that people, in communicating, do not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words but also perform actions via those

utterances For example, when the teacher says to a student ―You should show me your

homework ‖, he is performing the action of ordering the student to show him his homework

Another example is that in the saying ―Anh ăn sáng chưa ?”, the Vietnamese speaker does

not really want to know whether the hearer has had breakfast or not Instead, he is simply producing a greeting routine In real life communication, such sorts of sentences have their uses quite independent from their lexical and grammatical forms

It is obvious that speech acts, to name a few of them as apologizing, complaining, inviting, promising, requesting, ordering, always serve certain communicative functions There is no one utterance-one function limitation A single utterance can have more than one function and vice versa, several turns may be taken to accomplish a single act For

example, the utterance “This room is quite hot” can be used to perform the acts of statement or request A speech act can contain just one word, as in ―Sorry!” to perform an apology, or several words or sentences like ―I’m sorry, I forgot your invitation I just let it

slip my mind‖

1.2.1 Three-dimension speech acts

According to Austin (1962), a speech act consists of three related acts, namely (a)

locutionary act, (b) illocutionary act and (c) perlocutionary act The details are as follows:

Whenever speakers produce an utterance, they perform a locutionary act The sentence ―I’ve just come here‖ or ―David is my teacher‖ is cited as an obvious instance of

this Besides, people usually do not make utterances without having any purpose At dinner

for example, ―Can you pass me the salt?‖ the speaker does not utters that sentence to ask a

question but intends the listener to pass the salt In this case, the intended meaning is a request This kind of act via utterances which speakers produce with communicative

purpose in mind is generally known as an illocutionary act The illocutionary act is the

function of the utterance that the speaker has in mind, i.e., the communicative purpose that

is intended or achieved by the utterance Another example is the statement ―It’s cold in

here‖ This sentence can have the illocutionary force of a statement, an offer, an

explanation, or a request It might be uttered by someone who is experiencing cold in a room to just comment on the weather It can also be uttered by a person who intends to

close the windows so that everyone in the room feels warmer Perlocutionary act occurs when speakers want a speech act to have an effect on what they utter When saying ―Can

you pass me the salt?‖, the speaker wishes the act of passing the salt to be performed: This

is its perlocutionary force Austin‘s work opened an entirely new filed in pragmatics, namely speech acts

These three dimensions of speech acts are performed simultaneously and are related

when an utterance is produced As in an another example ―It is really dark here”

(locutionary act), the illocutionary act is performed with the meaning ―I would like to have the light on‖ and the perlocutionary effect might be that someone turns on the light Of the

three dimensions, it is the illocutionary act that puts the communicative force into the utterance Thus, it is the most important and the most discussed Indeed, the term ―speech acts‖ is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance An interesting thing is the same locutionary act may carry different illocutionary

forces in different contexts For instance, ―I’m sorry‖ may count as an apology or a refusal

as follows:

(apology) A: Now you come at last What kept you?

B: I’m sorry The streets were so crowded

(refusal) A: Would you like to go out for coffee tonight?

B: I’m sorry I’m busy tonight

1.2.2 Classification of speech acts

Building on Austin‘s work, Searle (1969) claimed that the basic unit of human linguistic communication is illocutionary acts which are rule-governed forms of behavior

He set up five types of speech acts as follows:

(1) Representatives are the kinds of speech acts which state what the speaker believes to be

the case or not, for instance, asserting, describing, concluding, etc

She went home yesterday (informing)

(2) Commisives are the kinds of speech acts that create an obligation on the part of the

speaker; that is, the speaker commits himself/ herself to some future actions They express

what the speaker intends such as promising, threatening, refusing, etc

I promise to take you to the zoo (promising) (3) Directives are the kinds of speech acts that the speaker makes an effort to get the hearer

to do something They express what the speaker wants such as commanding, ordering, requesting, suggesting, etc

Could you close the window? (requesting) (4) Declaratives are the kinds of speech acts in which declarative statements are

successfully performed and no psychological state is expressed:

Chairman: I declare the meeting open (declaring) (5) Expressives are the kinds of speech acts by which the speaker expresses his attitudes and

feelings about something They both express psychological states such as thanking, apologizing, complimenting, welcoming

The skirt is beautiful (praising)

Based on Austin‘s and Searle‘s, Hymes (1972) proposed a distinction between speech situation, speech events, and speech acts This distinction provides a framework for studying communicative competence And in this framework, speech situation is placed

at the top, speech events comes second, and speech acts are at the bottom According to this framework, there are many speech situations in a speech community (e.g., meals, parties, auctions, and conferences); however, they are not governed by consistent rules Speech events are restricted to activities directly governed by rules of speech (e.g., lectures, introductions, advertising) Speech acts, as at the bottom of this scale, refer to the acts

performed by speaking (e.g., giving reports, giving advice, agreeing, complaining, apologizing), and are thus defined in terms of discourse functions

Scholars, like Austin, Searle, and Hymes, made great contribution to building up the preliminary speech act theory From their theories, it is realized that when people communicate with others by issuing utterances, they not only make prepositional statements about objects, contents, and situations, but also fulfill social functions, such as greeting, inviting, refusing, apologizing, complaining, through the use of a string of fabricated words, namely speech acts (Nunan, 1999)

1.2.3 Speech act of Apology

A speech act of apology, as Marquez-Reiter (2000: 44) stated, is a ―compensatory action for an offense committed by the speaker which has affected the hearer‖ Similarly, Holmes (1990:156) gives the definition of an apology as a speech act addressed to remedy

an offence for which the apologizer takes responsibility, and thus to restore equilibrium between the apologizer and the person offended According to Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984a), there are three preconditions for the apology act to take place (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984a: 206): (1) The apologizer did a violation or abstained from doing a violation; (2) A violation is perceived by the apologizer only, by the hearer only, by both the apologizer and the hearer, or by a third party as a breach of a social norm; (3) A violation is perceived by at least one of the parties involved as offending, harming, or affecting the hearer in some way Simplified by Trosborg (1995), the precondition for the apology act is as follows: ―There are two participants: an apologizer and a recipient of the apology When a person has performed an act (action or utterance), or failed to do so, which has offended another person, and for which he/she can be held responsible, the offender needs to apologize That is, the act of apologizing requires an action or an utterance which is intended to set things right.‖ (Trosborg, 1995: 373)

1.2.4 Apology strategies

Apology strategies are the methods used by individuals to perform the speech act of

apology There are a number of researchers who have developed systems for classifying apology strategies in various ways

A categorization of apology strategies that would be constantly revisited by many other scholars was made by Olshtain and Cohen (1983) They proposed seven categories, as well, but divided into two parts The first part contains five main categories of apologies in

cases where the offender feels the need to apologize, namely an expression of apology, an explanation or account of the situation, an acknowledgement of responsibility, an offer of repair, and a promise of forbearance Each of these categories has several sub-categories in order to make a further delimitation of strategies The second part contains two strategies for the case when the speaker does not feel the need to apologize These are a denial of the need

to apologize and a denial of responsibility

Olshtain and Cohen‘s (1983) taxonomy was also modified by Holmes (1990), who believed that it was necessary to rearrange these strategies in order to make them clearer Thus, she divided apologies into four main categories, each category having sub-classifications The first one is ―an explicit expression of apology‖ and contains the subcategories ―offer apology/IFID,‖ ―express regret,‖ ―request forgiveness.‖ The second main category is represented by ―an explanation or account, an excuse or justification.‖ The largest group, ―an acknowledgment of responsibility,‖ contains ―accept blame,‖ ―express self-deficiency,‖ ―recognize H as entitled to an apology,‖ ―express lack of intent,‖ ―offer repair/redress.‖ Finally, the last category is ―a promise of forbearance‖

Bergman and Kasper (1993) distinguished seven different apology categories According to them, the most commonly used category seems to be the Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID) such as in ―I‘m sorry.‖ The other strategies are intensified IFID (―I‘m terribly sorry‖), taking responsibility (―I haven‘t finished it yet‖), giving an account of the reasons that led to the action that requires an apology (―I was suddenly called to a meeting‖), minimizing the effects and severity of the action (―I‘m only 10 minutes late‖), offering repair or compensation (―I‘ll pay for the damage‖), and verbal redress (―It won‘t happen again‖) The last one seems to be very close to the minimization category, if we take into account the example used by the authors, ―I hope you didn‘t wait long‖ (Bergman & Kasper, 1993: 86)

A slightly different taxonomy was proposed by Trosborg (1995), who distinguished four categories including 8 strategies The first two strategies, namely ―opt-out‖ and

―minimize‖, come from the speaker‘s not accepting that an apology is necessary The remaining five categories are the result of the speaker accepting the fact that there is a need for an apology: acknowledge responsibility, explanation, IFIDs, offer of repair, promise for forbearance and concern for the hearer

As a conclusion, there are many different categorizations of apologies Thus, when creating the taxonomy for a study one should choose those categories that are suitable for the objectives of the study In this study, the model of apology strategies used to analyze the data was the combination of strategies conducted by Olshtain and Cohen (1983), Trosborg (1995) and Holmes (1990)

1.3 Previous Studies on Apology

For the past thirty years, there have been a number of empirical studies on EFL

Learners‘ apology production of the target language at different proficiency levels

Focusing on native language influence on the learning of target language, Cohen and Olshtain (1981) explored how Hebrew speaking learners of English as a second language did things with their interlanguage of English, and discovered that the non-native use of apology semantic formula was generally fewer than that of the native speakers By this, the

study displayed the transfer of Hebrew features into realization of apology making

Trosborg (1987) used role-plays to compare the apologies of native speakers of English, native speakers of Danish and three levels of Danish EFL learners The results demonstrated that learners of English notably are dissimilar from native English speakers in their use of modality markers

Bergman and Kasper (1993) examined apology realization by Thai learners of English by means of 20 DCT situations The result demonstrated negative transfer of an L1- based preference for given semantic formulas of apology The statistical analysis also showed that 50% of the differences in the use of apology strategies could be attributed to

advanced learners transferred more negative pragmatic

Kim (2001) analyzed Korean and EFL speakers‘ apology behaviors in terms of different social variables with particular attention to pragmatic transfer of L1 norms The

findings of his study demonstrated the influence of social factors: social distance, social status, age, gender and severity of offense In regard to the ―social status‖ factor, EFL speakers transferred their L1 pragmatic norms into English when using the ―alerter‖ strategy With respect to the ―age‖ factor, EFL speakers in the Equal -age group showed the

transfer phenomenon from their native pragmatic norms to English Finally, concerning the

―gender‖ factor, EFL speakers in the male-female group also transferred L1 pragmatic norms by using a higher proportion of the ―repetition‖ strategy than he remaining groups

Ilknur Istifci (2009) investigated the act of apologizing with subjects from two different levels of English proficiency (intermediate & advanced) to find out whether there are similarities and differences between Turkish EFL learners and English native speakers and whether they approach native speaker apology norms The data were gathered by a Discourse Completion Test that had 8 apology situations The results of the study revealed some similarities and differences between the two groups Their L1 can be said to have an influence on their use of apologies, especially intermediate level subjects transfer native

Turkish speaker norms into English

In Vietnam, Van (2000) examined the realization patterns of apology made by Vietnamese Learners of English compared English native Speakers through the DCT The results showed that Learners differed from English group in the use of

Explanation/Account, Offer of repair, Concern for the hearer and Intensifiers These

differences seemed to result from the transfer of their L1 pragmatic norms into English In another study, Trang (2010) investigated apologies made by Vietnamese Speakers of English and American Speakers of English through the DCT and the findings showed the differences in the use of apology strategies due to different perceptions on social factors

In summary, research into interlanguage apologies has shown that although learners have full access to the same apology strategies as native speakers, their apologies still diverge from the native speakers‘ norm as negative transfer appeared in most studies The divergence has been produced due to these causes: adherence to different principles of politeness, preference for different strategy-orientations, and quantitative differences in strategy using and in overall verbal production, ect Therefore, studies on speech act of apologies, particularly on the scope of interlanguage apologies, should await further research applied in as many new contexts as possible The present study is a response to

such a call

Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY

The previous chapter has established the framework of the theoretical background for the present study This chapter outlines the research questions, the research design including the selection of informants, the data collection instruments, the procedure, the validity and reliability test for data collection instruments and the coding framework used in the study

2.1 The research questions:

In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the research questions below were addressed:

1) How do Vietnamese EFL Learners differ from EN Speakers in their use of apology strategies in the contexts studied?

2) How do VN Speakers differ from EN Speakers in their use of apology strategies in the contexts studied?

2.2 Research design

2.2.1 Informants

According to Selinker (1972), the design for an interlanguage study needs three data sources: (1) the L1 baseline data from native speakers of the learners‘ native language (NL);

(2) the IL data from the learners; and (3) the target language baseline data from native

speakers of the learners‘ target language (TL)

In this study, data were collected from the three groups of informants Their ages ranged from 20 to 30 and they were all university students To ensure compatibility, informants coming from very rural backgrounds were excluded In all groups, the number

of males and females were evenly distributed

The first group (TL) included 30 English native (EN) Speakers They were students

at University of South Australia To eliminate the speakers from other language backgrounds, in the questionnaire for native speaker informants, there was an extra item to find out if they spoke any other language(s) at home

The second group (NL) included 30 Vietnamese native (VN) speakers They were studying at Thai Nguyen College of Education Their English was much limited compared with that of Vietnamese learners The reason was I wished to get rid of the reverse transference from L2 to L1 which might happen if they knew English fairly well In the questionnaire for this group, one question referring to their level of English was added

Then, questionnaires from informants with intermediate and advanced level of English were eliminated from the analysis to be on guard of reverse transference

The third group (IL) included 30 Vietnamese EFL learners They were doing English as their major at Thai Nguyen College of Education They were in their third year and their level of English proficiency was intermediate or above

2.2.2 Data collection instruments

In this study, the data of the apology speech act made by EN Speakers, VN Speakers and Vietnamese EFL Learners were elicited through a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) since it was proved to bring some outstanding advantages over other methods such as ethnographic, role – play or multiple choice methods First of all, the DCT enables the researchers to elicit data from the large sample of subjects easily, using the same situations where contextual variables are controlled Second, it is an effective means of creating an initial classification of semantic formulas and strategies that will occur in natural speech Third, DCT is seemingly used to study the stereotypical perceived requirements for a socially appropriate response and is a good way to gain insight into social and psychological factors that are likely to affect speech and performance, that is to say, it avoids those very context specific constraints that influence authentic data (Cohen, 1996)

According to Tam (1998), to overcome the reliability problems in the use of DCT, the study should be divided into two main phases: (1) The metapragmatic questionnaire (MPQ) was designed for validity and realiability test of internal and external factors; (2) The DCT was designed to elicit apology tokens from the three groups of informants This section also discusses the design of the two questionnaires including variables manipulated

in data collection instruments and the content of the MPQ and DCT

2.2.2.1 Variables manipulated in data collection instruments

This section discusses the variables manipulated in the questionnaires for data collection of the study The three variables used in this study were based on Brown and Levinson‘s (1987: 76) theory as follows:

+ The relative social distance (D) refers to the degree of solidarity and familiarity between interlocutors and in this study it has the following values:

(1) + D (unfamiliar) = Speaker and Hearer do not know or identity with each other They are strangers interacting due to social/ life circumstances

(2) – D (familiar) = Speaker and Hearer know or identity with each other They are quite familiar with each other

+ The social power (P) has the following values:

(1) +P (high power) = Speaker has a higher rank, title or social status than Hearer

(2) =P (equal power) = Speaker and Hearer are equal in rank, title or social status

(3) – P (low power) = Speaker has a lower/less rank, title or social status than Hearer

+ The ranking of imposition (R) is related to the degree of severity of offense In this study,

R was kept constantly high under study It means great severity of offense in this study The reason why R was kept fairly high is due to its frequency in everyday conversations

As R was kept constantly fairly high through situations but P and D varied systematically, there were constellations assumed to underline the situations:

- Speaker has higher power than Hearer; they are familiar with each other (+ P, - D)

- Speaker has higher power than Hearer; they are unfamiliar with each other (+ P, + D)

- Speaker and Hearer are equal in power; they are familiar with each other (= P, - D)

- Speaker and Hearer are equal in power; they are unfamiliar with each other (= P,+ D)

- Speaker has lower power than Hearer, and they are familiar with each other (- P, - D)

- Speaker has lower power than Hearer; they are unfamiliar with each other (- P, + D)

A bank of 18 real – life situations based on Brown and Levinson‘s theory were designed to elicit the subjects‘ assessment of the social variables in the contexts Some situations were adapted from Van‘s study (2000) Based on the analysis result of the MPQ, 6 situations found to be both valid and reliable would be used for data collection through the DCT

2.2.2.2 The content of the questionnaire

As mentioned above, two types of questionnaires were used in this study: the MPQ and the DCT The situations in the MPQ and DCT questionnaires were designed to reflect real life situations In order for the informants to be able to decide what/how to respond in a relevant way to a certain situation, clear instructions were given at the beginning of each questionnaire Personal information about the subjects‘ backgrounds such as age, gender, language was obtained by a first section of each questionnaire The followings are the details of each questionnaire

2.2.2.2.1 Metapragmatic questionnaire (MPQ)

The MPQ was intended to tap the subjects‘ assessment of the social variables in the contexts (Tam, 2005) That is to say, the MPQ aimed to test the validity and reliability of

the 18 real – life situations (see Appendix A1 + A2 for full version of MPQ) in which

variables‘ constructs were reflected in previous section Subjects rated their assessment of each variable on a three-point scale as in the sample item given below:

METAPRRAGMATIC QUESTIONAIRE Instruction: Could you please read the following situations on the following pages and tick

the answer in the appropriate box?

Situation 11: You are a staff manager You kept a student waiting for half an hour for a job

interview because you were called to an unexpected meeting

How well acquainted are the Speaker and the Hearer? Not at all A little bit Very well How do you rate the social status of the Speaker with

respect to the Hearer?

How do you rate the seriousness of the Hearer‘s offense? Not serious Quite serious Serious

Results of the MPQ provided reliable data on how the subjects under study assessed the social factors of the context studied

2.2.2.2.2 Open-ended Discourse Completion Task Questionnaire (DCT)

The DCT was intended to elicit apologies from the informants It comprised the six situations (selected from 18 situations in the MPQ) in accordance with the purpose of the research, reflecting the constructs of variables discussed in the previous part Each situation

was followed by a question: ―What would you say?‖ Following is a sample of the DCT

Instruction: Please read the six brief situations calling for an apology below After each

situation, please write down exactly what you might say in a normal conversation

Situation 11: You are a staff manager You kept a student waiting for half an hour for a job

interview because you were called to an unexpected meeting

What would you say to that student when you return?

………

………

The questionnaires used for this study has 2 versions One was in English for EN Speakers and EFL Learners The other is in Vietnamese for VN Speakers A full version of MPQ and a version of DCT including the six most valid and reliable situations were

provided in Appendix A(1,2) and B(1,2,3)

2.2.3 Procedure

As we discussed above, the purpose of the MPQ was to ensure that the questionnaire used to collect data on apology was valid and reliable In order to achieve these goals, the MPQ was randomized Then the English version was administered to the English informants and the Vietnamese version was completed by the native speakers of Vietnamese No time limits were imposed on completing the questionnaire

The results of the MPQ by English subjects were used as the baseline for the selection of the reliable situations for the DCT Meanwhile, the results by Vietnamese speakers were kept for comparing the choice of apology strategies in later analysis Afterwards, from the situations in the MPQ, the ones which satisfied constellation of P, D and R-values as required by the research design were selected and rearranged, and the DCT was prepared and administered To make it consistent, informants were still those who rated social factors in the MPQ The data collected were then coded using the coding system in section 2.4 of this chapter The results from the statistical analysis of all apologies were reported in chapter 3

2.3 Results of the MPQ

Firstly, I rejected situations with mean scores of R less than 2 Situations with mean scores of R between 2 and 3 were accepted The reason for this is that in this thesis, as explained above, I attempted to keep R fairly high through situations Secondly, I scanned for situations in which P and D had mean scores close to the value required for each constellation of these variables Situations with mean scores most similar and closest to the value required for P and D were chosen for data collection

Table 1 presents the results of the ratings by the English and Vietnamese informants

The six highlighted situations are those which satisfy the criterion above These are situations that the subjects evaluated as having P, D and R nearest to the values required to answer the research questions

Firstly, situations with low mean scores of R (less than 2) were rejected Therefore, situations 4, 7, 10, 15, 17, 18 were not accepted Then, with the rest of the situations as seen from Table 1, situations 2, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16 (the highlighted situations) were selected from each constellation of P and D for the following reasons:

For the constellation of -P;-D, situation 6 was chosen since this situation, in comparison to the rest situation, had the mean score of P nearest to 1 (1.03), the mean score

of D nearest to 3 (2.43), and the mean score of R more than 2 (2.87)

Table 1 Mean ratings of social factors by English informants (n=30) and Vietnamese informants (n=30)

R was highest (2.63) compared with the other situations in the constellation

For the constellation of =P, -D, situation 8 was chosen since the mean score of P was exactly to 2, the mean score of D was closest to 3 (2.67), and the mean score of R were high (2.73)

For the constellation of =P, +D, situation 16 was chosen since the mean score of P was nearest to 2 (2.03), the mean score of D was exactly to 1, and the mean score of R was quite high (2.87)

For the constellation of +P, -D, situation 2 was chosen because it had the score of R was 2.37, which means that the severity is high, satisfying the first condition for a reliable situation as determined for this study Compared with other situations in the group, in terms

of the score for P and D, it had the values closest to the score of 3 (2.87 for P; 2.93 for D)

For the constellation of +P, +D, situation 11 was chosen since it was the only situation with the mean score of R greater than 2 (2.33), satisfying the first condition for this

study In addition, situation 11 had the mean score of P nearest to 3 (2.87) and the mean score of D nearest to (1.07)

After all the things were considered, the six reliable situations selected for the DCT were as follows:

+P; -D (high power – familiar): Situation 2 (Cinema)

+P; +D (high power – unfamiliar): Situation 11 (Interview)

=P; -D (equal power – familiar): Situation 8 (Camera)

=P; +D (equal power – unfamiliar): Situation 16 (Car)

-P; -D (low power – familiar): Situation 6 (Essay)

-P; +D (low power – unfamiliar): Situation 14 (Food)

2.4 Coding system

As mentioned previously, as R was kept constantly high, the survey just focused on the acceptance of apologies and ignored all the cases where apologies are refused Therefore, the model of apology strategies used to analyze the data of this study was the combination

of strategies conducted by Olshtain and Cohen (1983), Trosborg (1995); Holmes (1990) and could be categorized as follows:

(1) An expression of apology: For this category, an apology is done via an explicit

illocutionary force indicating device (IFID) (Searle, 1969) It was the most commonly used

strategy in the present study An expression of apology includes the followings:

a An expression of regret, e.g I’m sorry

b An offer of apology/IFID, e.g I apologize

c A request for forgiveness, e.g Excuse me/ Forgive me/ Pardon me

(2) An explanation or account: An explanation in this study is an expression that gives an

account of the cause of the offence In other words, the speaker explains why violation or damage happened Both explicit and implicit explanations have been considered

E.g The traffic was terrible

or My car broke down

(3) An acknowledgement of responsibility: This term refers to expressions in which the

apologizer admits to having responsibility for the offence In this study taking on responsibility is limited to expressions in which the respondent explicitly takes

responsibility for the offense as the followings:

a Explicit self-blame, e.g It is my fault/ my mistake

b Lack of intent, e.g I didn’t mean to upset you

c Expression of self-deficiency, e.g I was confused/ I didn’t see you/ I forgot

d Expression of Embarrassment, e.g I feel awful about it

e Justify hearer, e.g You’re right to be angry

(4) An offer of repair: The Speaker may attempt to repair or pay for the damage caused by

the offence An offer of repair is usually expressed explicitly E.g I’ll pay for the damage While expressing an offer of repair is usually associated with the future time, expressions that show that the repair has already been done are also classified as offer of repair in this

study An offer of repair often appeared mostly in combination with other strategy in the

subjects‘ performances

(5) Promise for forbearance: In certain situations, the speaker may promise not to repeat

the offense in the future E.g It won’t happen again While in most studies of apologies, promise of forbearance is a separate category In Bergman and Kasper (1993) it is classified

alongside ‗concern for the hearer‘ as verbal redress In this study it is seen that each strategy

reflects a different attitude and is therefore considered as separate strategy

(6) Concern for the hearer: In some cases, the apologizer may show concern or sympathy

toward the complainer's condition "E.g I hope I didn’t upset you/ Are you all right? In some previous studies, this strategy was not explicitly addressed (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain 1984; Holmes, 1989) In the present study, the informants applied a few occurrence of this

strategy

This chapter has covered the issues concerning with the research questions, the research design, the results of the MPQ and the analytical framework for the coding of the data The next chapter will report the results of the data analysis on the apology responses via the six reliable situations from the DCT

Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As we saw in Chapter 2, the two social dimensions that were systematically varied

in this study were Power and Social Distance, while Imposition was kept constantly high

This Chapter investigates the effect of these dimensions on the use of apology strategies

by Vietnamese EFL Learners and EN Speakers in Section 3.1, by EN Speakers and VN Speakers in Section 3.2 as well as briefly discusses the pragmatic transfer on Learners‘ apologies in Section 3.3

3.1 Apologies by Vietnamese EFL Learners and English native speakers

3.1.1 In high power settings (+P)

In the settings where the Speaker had greater power than the Addressee, EN Speakers

differed greatly from Learners in the use of an expression of apology and an

acknowledgement of responsibility strategy Table 2 gives the values for the two situations

with +P and Figure 1 is its graphic representation

Table 2: The use of Strategies with respect to +P

Strat Situation 2 (+P, -D) - Cinema Situation 11 (+P, +D) - Interview

EN speakers EFL learners Sig

- not significantly different

Strat1 = An expression of apology Strat2 = An explanation or account Strat3 = An acknowledgement of responsibility

Strat4 = An offer of repair Strat5 = Promise for forbearance Strat6 = Concern for the hearer

As seen in Table 2 and Figure 1, most EN Speakers used an acknowledgement of

responsibility strategy (72.4%) and an offer of repair strategy (65.5%) for Sit.2

(Cinema) The forms of apology such as ―Sorry I forgot to pick you up Never mind we

can go tomorrow‖ (EN25, Sit.2) or ―I’m so sorry I couldn’t take you to the movies I’ll

Strat.1 Strat.2 Strat.3 Strat.4 Strat.5 Strat.6

take you tomorrow and we’ll go to a special restaurant to celebrate your birthday too‖

(EN4, Sit.2) were overwhelmingly used by EN Speakers Interestingly enough, along

with an offer of repair strategy, most Learners also used an explanation or account for the same situation Out of thirty Learners, nineteen (63.3%) employed an explanation for their offense and eighteen (60%) opted an offer of repair strategy Thus the semantic formulae such as ―I’ve been so busy with my work today I will take you to

the cinema on the nearest day instead‖ (L15, Sit.2) or ―My motorbike broke down on the way home I will take you to the cinema tomorrow, ok?‖ (L21, Sit.2) were

commonly found in Learners‘ data

In Sit.11 (Interview), the percentage of EN Speakers using an expression of

apology and an acknowledgement of responsibility was significantly higher than that

of Learners (79.3% & 69% vs 46.7% & 36.7%) The data shows that EN Speakers

often used phrases such as ―I’m sorry for being late for this interview‖ (EN13, Sit.11)

or ―I’m sorry I have kept you waiting‖ (EN4, Sit.11) Learners, on the other hand,

often spent time explaining why he/she was late in this situation and the apology

expressions such as ―I was called to an unexpected meeting I’ve tried to come back

earlier but I couldn’t‖ (L6, Sit.11) or ―I’ve had an important meeting‖ (L28, Sit.11)

were usually used by Learners

Although EN Speakers and Learners seemed to use similar apology strategies for these +P settings, the frequency with which they used these strategies was significantly different As can be seen in table 2 while 72.4% of EN Speakers (n=21)

took responsibility for Sit.2 (Cinema), only 40% of Learners (n=12) did so (p≤0.05) Similarly, in Sit.11 (Interview) while 69% of EN Speakers (n=20) used this strategy,

only 36.7% of Learners (n=11) did so (p≤0.05) Moreover, with respect to the use of

an expression of apology, more EN Speakers (79.3%) opted for this strategy than

Learners (46.7%) did (p≤0.01)

It appeared that Power had different influences on the two groups in the

formulation of apology While EN speakers enjoying higher power chose to use an

expression of apology in combination with an acknowledgement of responsibility,

Learners preferred an explanation or account This discrepancy seems to be related to

the cultural differences in the perception of obligations and rights of the party involved Obviously, EN Speakers rated the seriousness of these two situations as

higher than Learners did (2.87 vs 2.53) Thus, they tended to give more apologies than Learners Particularly, in the case of the Interview situation, although the Speaker was

a manager who held much power in the workplace, EN Speakers admitted the responsibility and gave an expression of apology for the offense In Vietnamese context, in contrast, a person with higher power tended to avoid doing this because

they are afraid of losing the face Instead, they give an expression of apology followed

by an explanation or account with the hope to receive the sympathy from the

Addressee

3.1.2 In equal power settings (=P)

In the settings where the Speakers had equal power as the Addressee, EN Speakers and Learners manifested some differences in the use of some apology strategies Table 3 lists the occurrence number and frequency percentage of the six major apology strategies used by EN Speakers and Learners and Figure 2 is its graphic representation

The results show that EN Speakers noticeably differed from Learners in the use of

an explanation, an offer of repair or concern for the hearer strategy As presented in Table

3 and Figure 2, 65.5% of EN Speakers (n=19) offered repair or compensation for Sit.8

(Camera) and 86.2% of EN Speakers (n=25) did so for Sit.16 (Car) The semantic formulae

such as ―I’ll take it to be fixed‖ (EN2, Sit.8), or ―I’ll get it repaired or buy you a new one‖ (EN24, Sit.8), or ―I’ll give you my insurance details‖ (EN5, Sit.16) or ―My car insurance

will cover the cost of repairs‖ (EN18, Sit.16) were overwhelmingly used by EN Speakers

for these two situations In the same situations, in contrast, only 46.7% of Learners (n=14)

used an offer of repair strategy for Sit.8 and 50% of Learners (n=15) did so for Sit.16 The

frequency with which the two groups used this strategy for Sit.16 (Car) was significantly different (p≤0.005) Fewer Learners using this strategy can be associated to Learners‘ lack

of pragmatic knowledge in this situation In addition, in the same strategy Learners‘ semantic formulae were also completely different from EN Speakers‘ ones Some common

structures by Learners were ―I’ll pay for the repairs‖ (L17, Sit.16) or ―I’ll repair it for you‖ (L11, Sit.8) or ―I’ll compensate you a new one‖ (L16, Sit.8) It seemed that in these cases

Learners directly transfer from L1 language to L2

Table 3: The use of Strategies with respect to =P

Strat Situation 8 (=P, -D) - Camera Situation 16 (=P, +D) - Car

EN speakers EFL Learners Sig

p≤0.05 EN speakers EFL Learners p≤0.05 Sig

- not significantly different

Strat1 = An expression of apology Strat2 = An explanation or account Strat3 = An acknowledgement of responsibility

Strat4 = An offer of repair Strat5 = Promise for forbearance Strat6 = Concern for the hearer

In the use of an explanation or account strategy, Learners used this strategy more

than twice compared with EN Speakers did (43.3% and 46.7% vs 17%) in the two situations and the difference in Sit.16 (Car) was also significant (p≤0.05) With regard to situation 16, when the Speaker ran the car into the back of another car and got it badly dented, few EN speakers tended to either personally admit the fault or spend time explaining why the accident happened This is because in Australia such kind of responsibility would be taken care of by the insurance company Admitting the fault may lead in the increase in their insurance cost In Vietnamese context, it is different Many Learners gave explanations for the violation to get the sympathy from the Addressee as

explained in previous section and some phrases such as ―It’s too dark here‖ (L1, Sit.16) or

―cars are parked too close to each other‖ (L15, Sit.16) were commonly found in Learners‘

data

Apart from the differences in the use of an explanation and an offer of repair strategy, Learners and EN Speakers also differed in the use of concern for the hearer

strategy As seen in the table 3 and Figure 2, in Sit.8 (Camera) while 56.7% of Learners

(n=17) used the concern for the hearer strategy, only 27.6% of EN Speakers (n=8) did so

(p≤0.05) Similarly in Sit.16 (Car) while 36.7% of Learners (n=11) used this strategy for

0 20 40 60 80 100

Strat.1 Strat.2 Strat.3 Strat.4 Strat.5 Strat.6

their apology, only 13.8% of EN Speakers (n=4) did so (p≤0.05) Some common utterances

such as ―I hope you are alright‖ (L3 Sit.8) or ―I hope I did not upset you‖ (L6, Sit.8) were found in Learners‘ data for Sit.8 (Camera) and some other forms such as ―You didn’t get

hurt, did you?‖ (L8 Sit.16) or ―Is there any wrong with you and your car?” (L21, Sit.16)

were often used by Learners for Sit.16 (Car)

In short, in the settings where the Speaker and the Addressee were of equal power,

Learners tended to be similar to EN Speakers in the use of an expression of apology, an

acknowledgement of responsibility and the promise for forbearance strategy However, they

deviated from EN Speakers in the use of the rest apology strategies

3.1.3 In low power settings (-P)

The results show that Learners employed more apology strategies than EN Speakers

in the settings where the Speaker had less power than the Addressee Furthermore, what they intended to communicate may be different due to the differences in the rate of Imposition and Power Table 4 shows the results of the findings and Figure 3 presents the results in a histogram

Table 4: The use of Strategies with respect to -P

Strat Situation 6 (-P, -D) - Essay Situation 14 (-P, +D) - Food

EN speakers EFL learners Sig

p≤0.05 EN speakers EFL learners p≤0.05 Sig

Strat4 = An offer of repair Strat5 = Promise for forbearance Strat6 = Concern for the hearer

Figure 3: Apology strategies in -P settings

In Sit.6 (Essay), Learners used more apologies than EN Speakers, except for the

promise of forbearance strategy As presented in Table 4 and Figure 3, while 80% of

Learners (n=24) used an expression of apology strategy for the offense, only 37.9% of EN

Speakers (n=11) did so This difference was statistically significant (p≤0.001) Moreover, the percentage of Learners providing an explanation for this situation was approximately

twice as high as that of EN Speakers (33.3% vs 17.2%) The differences in the use of these

strategies can result from the different views on the act of plagiarism between the two cultures EN Speakers consider plagiarism an illegal action, a very serious offense (2.87) while this offense was rated as less severe by VN Speakers (2.53) (see Table 1) With EN Speakers‘ rigid principles, their professor can hardly forgive his student‘s infraction Explicitly apologizing in this case will undoubtedly result in a potential punishment, even a suspension or an expulsion Naturally, many EN Speakers avoided apologizing or admitting responsibility for this serious offense Instead, they gave a promise for forbearance The

utterance ―It won’t happen again‖ (EN22, Sit.6) was found in some English respondents‘

data On the contrary, with VN Speakers‘ flexible behavioral principles, a sincere apology for the committed offense in this case can be accepted by a Vietnamese professor Some

semantic formulae such as ―I’m so sorry I don’t know the rules I promise I will never do it

again‖ (L13, Sit.6) or ―I won’t do it again Please, forgive me‖ (L26, Sit.6) were commonly

used by Learners

In Sit.14 (Food), Learners and EN Speakers were significantly different in

using an expression of apology, an acknowledgement of responsibility and an offer of

repair strategy It can be seen from Table 4 that the percentage of EN Speakers

choosing an expression of apology and an offer of repair strategy was much higher

than that of Learners (96.6% & 86.2% vs 66.7% & 43.3%) Conversely, the

percentage of Learners acknowledging responsibility was more than twice as high as that of EN Speakers (43% vs 17%) These differences were statistically significant (p≤0.01) EN Speakers tended to avoid acknowledging the responsibility for this offensive act since it was often related to the job definition (Olshtain, 1989) In this case, the waiter was expected to be careful with serving the food He might lose his job if he gave an acknowledgement of the commitment Instead, they expressed regret for what happened

and offered a repair Some formulae such as ―I’m sorry I will get you the right order now‖ (EN19, Sit.14) or ―I’m so sorry I’ll bring the beef you ordered right now I will bring you a

free dessert later too‖ (EN2, Sit.14) were overwhelmingly used by EN Speakers In

contrast, in the same setting Learners were willing to admit the responsibility, explain for the offense, but tended to avoid offering a repair Vietnamese people assessed this type of

mistake less serious than EN Speakers (see Table 1) Some common utterances such as ―I’m

sorry for this unexpected dish There are so many customers‖ (L12, Sit.14) or ―Sorry for the inconvenience It’s too crowded here‖ (L20, Sit.14) were found in Learners‘ data

Overall, in spite of the relative similarity in the trend of apology strategy choice, Learners and EN Speakers were different in the frequency with which strategies were used

in the settings where the Speaker had less power than the Addressee This can be associated with the differences in the socio-pragmatic between the two groups, which will be clearly explained in section 3.3

1.1.4 In familiar settings (-D)

The following table lists the occurrence number and frequency percentage of the six

major apology strategies used by EN speakers and Learners in relation to familiar settings

Table 5: The use of Strategies with respect to -D

Strat Situation 2 (+P, -D) Situation 8 (=P, -D) Situation 6 (-P, -D)

EN speakers Learners EN speakers Learners EN speakers Learners

Strat.1 17 58.6 16 53.3 23 79.3 22 73.3 11 37.9 24 80 Strat.2 13 44.8 19 63.3 5 17.2 12 40 5 17.2 10 33.3 Strat.3 21 72.4 12 40 12 41.4 10 33.3 7 24.1 8 26.7

Strat1 = An expression of apology

Strat2 = An explanation or account

Strat3 = An acknowledgement of responsibility Strat4 = An offer of repair

Strat5 = Promise for forbearance Strat6 = Concern for the hearer

Results show that in the settings where the Speaker was familiar with the Addressee, Learners and EN Speakers seemed to be similar in the choice of overall patterns of apology

strategies However, Learners used an explanation or account and concern for the hearer

strategy more often than EN Speakers did in the same situations The difference in the use

of an explanation or account strategy for Sit.8 (Camera) was significant (p≤0.05) In Sit.6 (Food), the percentage of Learners using an explanation or account strategy was

approximately twice as high as that of EN Speakers (33% vs 17%) Thus, the apologies

such as ―I am busy finishing my work‖ (L2, Sit.2) or ―I didn’t know the rules‖ (L8, Sit.6) were often found in Learners‘ data The fact that many Learners often used an explanation

or account and concern for the hearer strategy is perhaps associated with socially cultural

Conventions in Vietnam context As explained previously, in the familiar settings Vietnamese people often try to explain for the offence with the hope to get the sympathy and forgiveness from the Addressee Moreover, a few Vietnamese people expressed their concern to ―restore equilibrium with the person offended‖ (Holmes,1990)

On the other hand, EN Speakers employed an expression of apology and

responsibility strategy more often for the familiar high and equal power situations (cinema

and camera situations) than Learners did and the frequency with which an

acknowledgement of responsibility strategy was used by the two groups for Sit.2 (Cinema)

was significantly different (p≤0.05) and some common utterances used were ―I’m sorry I

couldn’t take you to the movies today‖ (EN10, Sit.2) or ―I seemed to have broken your camera‖ (EN3, Sit.8) were found in EN Speakers‘ data It seemed that in Vietnam, people

enjoying equal and higher power tended to avoid acknowledging the responsibility for the offense they made to the lower power familiar Addressee because they are afraid of losing

face However, in familiar low power situation (Sit.6-Essay), more Learners chose an

expression of apology and an acknowledgement of responsibility strategy for the offense

than EN Speakers and the frequency with which an expression of apology strategy was used was significantly different (p≤0.001) The most frequently used formula was ―I forgot to

cite the source Please, forgive me‖ (L3, Sit.6) In this situation, as explained in previous

section, acknowledging responsibility followed by a sincere apology might get the Addressee‘s forgiveness

3.1.5 In unfamiliar settings (+D)

Table 6 lists the occurrence number and frequency percentage of the six major

apology strategies used by EN speakers and Learners in relation to unfamiliar settings

Table 6: The use of Strategies with respect to +D

Strat Situation 11 (+P,+D) Situation 16 (=P,+D) Situation 14 (-P,+D)

EN speakers Learners EN speakers Learners EN speakers Learners

Strat.1 23 79.3 14 46.7 26 89.7 28 93.3 28 96.6 20 66.7 Strat.2 16 55.2 18 60 5 17.2 14 46.7 8 27.6 7 23.3 Strat.3 20 69 11 36.7 6 20.7 8 26.7 5 17.2 15 50 Strat.4 8 27.6 5 16.7 25 86.2 15 50 25 86.2 13 43.3

Strat1 = An expression of apology

Strat2 = An explanation or account

Strat3 = An acknowledgement of responsibility Strat4 = An offer of repair

Strat5 = Promise for forbearance Strat6 = Concern for the hearer

In the settings where the Speaker was unfamiliar with the Addressee, the two groups

of respondents differed in the choice of the more commonly used strategies More EN

Speakers employed an offer of repair for the three situations than Learners Also, in the

unfamiliar high and equal power settings, EN Speakers acknowledged responsibility more but gave explanation less than Learners and the trend was quite the reverse in the unfamiliar low power situation It seemed that the social power and Imposition influenced on the use of apology strategies for the +D situations rather than the social distance in these situations

3.2 Apologies by English native Speakers and Vietnamese native Speakers

3.2.1 In high power settings (+P)

Findings of apology strategy use by EN Speakers and VN Speakers in high power settings reflect a significant difference between the two groups of informants (see Table 7 and Appendix C)

Table 7: The use of apology strategies with respect to +P

Strat Situation 2 (+P, -D) - Cinema Situation 11 (+P, +D) - Interview

EN speakers VN Speakers Sig

- not significantly different

Strat1 = An expression of apology Strat2 = An explanation or account Strat3 = An acknowledgement of responsibility

Strat4 = An offer of repair Strat5 = Promise for forbearance Strat6 = Concern for the hearer

It can be seen from Table 7 that VN Speakers used an explanation or account far

more frequently than EN Speakers did in the two situations studied To be specific, while

most VN Speakers (70%) provided an explanation or account for Sit.2 (Cinema), nearly a

half of EN Speakers (45%) did so (p≤0.05) The semantic formulae such as ―Trên đường về,

xe của mẹ bị hỏng Mẹ phải chờ sửa xe nên về muộn‖ (VN5, Sit.2), ―Hôm nay bố bận quá‖

(VN24, Sit.2) or ―Mẹ bị tắc đường nên về muộn‖ (VN7, Sit.2) were overwhelmingly used

by VN Speakers for the cinema situation Similarly, the percentage of VN Speakers

choosing an explanation strategy for Sit.11 (Interview) was higher than that of EN Speakers

(76,7% vs 55.2%) In this situation, the more frequently used forms of apology included

―Tôi bận họp đột xuất‖ (VN4, Sit.11) or ―Cuộc họp kéo dài hơn tôi tưởng‖ (VN10, Sit.11) Moreover, more VN Speakers chose concern for the hearer strategy than EN Speakers for

Sit.2 (Cinema) (16.7% vs 10.3% respectively) and Sit.11 (Interview) (13.3% vs 3%

respectively) Some utterances such as ―Chắc con mong mẹ lắm phải không‖ (VN1, Sit.2)

or ―Cậu chờ lâu chưa?‖ (VN15, Sit.11) were used by a few VN Speakers

Conversely, EN Speakers employed an acknowledgement of responsibility strategy

much more often than VN Speakers did As it appears in Table 7, while 72.4% of EN Speakers (n=21) used this strategy for Sit.2 (Cinema), only 43.3% of VN Speakers did so

(p≤0.01) The popular forms of apology for this situation such as ―I couldn’t take you to the

cinema today‖ (EN12, Sit.2) or ―I forgot to pick you up‖ (EN8, Sit.2) were found in EN

Speakers‘ data Likewise, in Sit.11 (Interview), while 69% of EN Speakers (n=20) took

responsibility for the offense, only 33.3% of VN Speakers did so (p≤0.01) In addition, the

number of EN Speakers gave an expression of apology for this situation was significantly bigger than that of VN Speakers (p≤0.001) The common apology formulae such as ―I’m

sorry I have kept you waiting‖ (EN23, Sit.11) or ―Sorry for the delay‖ (EN12, Sit.11) were

used by EN Speakers

To sum up, in relation to +P settings, although EN Speakers and VN Speakers had the similar apology strategies, they showed the disagreement on the frequency with which some apology strategies were used (see Appendix C for the graphic representation) These dissimilarities can be due to the differences in socio-pragmatic between two cultures While

EN Speakers were willing to admit the responsibility and provide an expression of apology for the offence they made in spite of their higher power, VN Speakers tended to avoid doing this Instead, they gave expalations to mitigate the responsibility for the violation over which they had no control

3.2.2 In equal settings (=P)