The Pragmatics of Apology Speech Act Behaviour in Iraqi Arabic and English

324 Pages·2017·4.2 MB·English

by  Ayad Ahmed

The Pragmatics of Apology Speech
Act Behaviour in Iraqi Arabic and
English

A Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in
English Linguistics
Ayad Hammood Ahmed

De Montfort University- UK
2017
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To: My dear wife: MARWA and my lovely son: AYOOB

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Abstract
This study is concerned with examining the speech act of apology by Iraqi Arabic native
speakers (IANs) and Iraqi English foreign language learners (EFLL). It aims at examining
the strategies and functions of apologies produced by two groups of participating speakers
as well as their perceptions of apology. This study is significant and necessary for the field
of pragmatics and politeness theories. It represents a new cultural study that has not been
previously examined. From pragmatic and politeness perspectives, all previous research
has focused on the realization of apologies rather than how they are perceived. To fill this
gap, the current study is believed to be the first that examines both producing and
perceiving apology in terms of politeness1 (producing actual speech acts) and politeness2
(perceiving them). The apologies elicited in this study were represented by written and
spoken responses. The former was elicited by a Discourse Completing Task followed by a
Scale Response Task while the latter was stimulated by an Open Role Play followed by a
Semi-Structured Interview. In both cases, the situations designed for eliciting apologies
were systematically different and varied according to the social status, gender, age and
social distance and the severity of offence.
The main results showed that the choice of apology strategies was highly influenced by the
collectivistic nature of Iraqi culture as well as the socio-religious conceptualization of
apology. The results also showed that, unlike the Iraqi Arabic native speakers, the Iraqi
EFL learners were less aware of pragmatic competence than of grammatical competence.
The perception of apologies achieved by the Semi-structured interview revealed the
participants’ conceptualization of apologies in different contexts. Thus, from a functional
perspective, we found that the functions of apologies performed in L1 (Iraqi Arabic) were
different from the function of apologies performed in L2 (English). Further, the Iraqi
Arabic native speakers tended to use extended apologies for certain offences while the
Iraqi EFLL employed a single apology strategy or a non- apology strategy.

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Acknowledgement

I would like to express my gratitude and acknowledgement to my supervisors: Prof.
Lixian Jin, Prof. Martin Cortazzi and Dr. Debbie Le Play for their continuous support and
assistance during the years of writing my thesis, they had valuable comments, suggestions,
and revisions that made this study more valuable.
I would like also to thank my sponsor the Higher committee for education development in
Iraq for granting me the opportunity to pursue my study in the UK. Many thanks to all its
members and I wish all the best to them.
My thanks also should be extended to the external assessors who have evaluated the data
of the present study: Prof. Dr. Zaidan Omar, Anbar University, Iraq; Assistant Prof. Dr.
Nassier Al-Zubaidi, Baghdad University, Iraq and Dr. Hazim Hakoosh, Anbar University,
Iraq and Andrew Cohen, University of Minnesota, USA. I would like also to express my
sincere thanks and gratitude to the Iraqi Arabic recruiting participants as the main subject
of the present study during the time of data collection.
I should also extend my thanks and gratitude to my family especially my wife and parents
who have always been with me with their spiritual support, patience and endurance during
the long journey of study in the UK.

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Table of Contents
Definition of significant terms ______________________________________________ 14
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW ___________________ 1
Chapter One _____________________________________________________________ 1
1.1 Introduction __________________________________________________________ 1
1.2 Research questions ____________________________________________________ 3
1.3 The significance of the study _____________________________________________ 3
1.4 The structure of the study _______________________________________________ 4
Chapter Two _____________________________________________________________ 6
Pragmatics and Cultural Considerations ______________________________________ 6
2.1 Pragmatics: Preliminaries: ______________________________________________ 6
2.2 Pragmatics and Culture: Overview________________________________________ 7
2.2.1 Cultural Context ____________________________________________________ 8
2.3 Language and Culture ________________________________________________ 11
2.3.1 Hofstede's Model of culture ___________________________________________ 12
2.3.1.1 Individualism and Collectivism _______________________________________ 14
2.3.1.2 High Context and Low Context communication __________________________ 17
2.3.1.3 Masculinity vs. Femininity __________________________________________ 18
2.4 Cultural Variability and Cross Cultural Pragmatics _________________________ 20
2.5 Interlanguage Pragmatics and Pragmatic competence ________________________ 25
2.5.1 Pragmatic Competence ______________________________________________ 27
2.5.2 Pragmatic transfer __________________________________________________ 32
2.6 Chapter Summary ___________________________________________________ 35
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Chapter Three: Theories of Politeness _______________________________________ 38
3.1 Traditional Theories of Politeness: _______________________________________ 38
3.1.1 Leech’s theory of Politeness ___________________________________________ 43
3.1.2 Brown and Levinson’s Theory of Politeness _______________________________ 47
3.1.3 Goffman’s Model of Face _____________________________________________ 56
3.2 Modern Views of Politeness ____________________________________________ 59
3.3 Concluding Remarks _________________________________________________ 71
Chapter Four: The Speech Act of Apology ____________________________________ 74
4.1 Apology: Definitions and Functions ______________________________________ 76
4.2 Empirical Studies on Apology ___________________________________________ 81
4.2.1 Inter-Language studies: ______________________________________________ 82
4.2.2 Cross Cultural Studies _______________________________________________ 86
4.3 Strategies of Apology _________________________________________________ 90
4.3.1 Direct Strategies____________________________________________________ 91
4.3.2 Indirect Strategies __________________________________________________ 91
4.4 The Strategies Determiners_____________________________________________ 92
4.4.4 The gender of interlocutors ___________________________________________ 93
4.5 Types of Offence _____________________________________________________ 94
4.6 Apology: Social variables ______________________________________________ 96
4.6.1 Social Status _______________________________________________________ 96
4.6.2 Gender ___________________________________________________________ 97
4.7 Summary and Research Questions _______________________________________ 98
PART TWO: METHODOLOGY ___________________________________________ 101
Chapter Five: Research Methodology ______________________________________ 101
5.1 Research Approaches ________________________________________________ 101
5.2Quantitative Approach vs. Qualitative Approach ___________________________ 102
5.3 Mixed Method Approach (MMA) _______________________________________ 103
5.4 Data Collection Methods______________________________________________ 104
5.4.1 Data Collection Methods Excluded ____________________________________ 106
5.4.1.1. Natural observation ______________________________________________ 106
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5.4.1.2. Corpus-based research ____________________________________________ 106
5.4.1.3 Unstructured interview ____________________________________________ 107
5.4.1.4 Telephone interview: ______________________________________________ 108
5.4.1.5 Field notes ______________________________________________________ 108
5.5 Data Collection Methods Adopted ______________________________________ 109
5.5.1 Written Discourse Completing Task (WDCT) ____________________________ 109
5.5.1.1 The Rationale of Using WDCT ______________________________________ 110
5.5.1.2 Designing the DCT _______________________________________________ 112
5.5.2 Scale Response Task _______________________________________________ 113
5.5.2.1 The Rationale of using Scale-Response Task (SRT)_______________________ 114
5.5.2.2 Designing the Scale- response Task ___________________________________ 114
5.5.3 Open Role Play ___________________________________________________ 115
5.5.3.1 The rationale of Using Role Play _____________________________________ 116
5.5.3.2 Designing Open Role Play __________________________________________ 117
5.5.4 Semi-Structure Interview (SSI) _______________________________________ 117
5.5.4.1 The Rationale of using Semi-structured interview ________________________ 118
5.5.4.2 Designing Semi- Structured Interview: ________________________________ 121
5.6 Designing the Situations ______________________________________________ 121
5.7 The Participants ____________________________________________________ 122
5.8 Procedure of Data Collection __________________________________________ 123
5.8.1 Pilot Study _______________________________________________________ 123
5.8.2 Data Validity _____________________________________________________ 125
5.9 Interpreting the Data ________________________________________________ 127
5.10 The Research Questions and the Methodology ____________________________ 128
5.11 Data Coding Scheme ________________________________________________ 131
5.12 Concluding Remarks _______________________________________________ 132
PART THREE: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIONS _________________ 134
Chapter Six: Apologies via DCT and SRT ___________________________________ 134
6.1 Apology Strategies by DCT____________________________________________ 134
6.1.1 Iraqi Arabic Apologies and Iraqi EFL Apologies __________________________ 134
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6.2.1.1 Apologies across situations _________________________________________ 135
6.3 Discussion for the overall findings ______________________________________ 174
6.3.1 Most Frequent Strategies: ___________________________________________ 174
6.3.2 New and Unusual Strategies__________________________________________ 183
6.3.2.1Non-verbal Behaviour _____________________________________________ 184
6.3.2.2 Metaphor ______________________________________________________ 185
6.3.2.3 Proverbs _______________________________________________________ 186
6.3.2.4 Irony __________________________________________________________ 187
6.3.2.5 Blaming the offended person: _______________________________________ 190
6.3.2.6 Swearing: ______________________________________________________ 191
6.4 The Perception of Apologies by Scale Response Task ________________________ 195
6.4.1The Perception of Regret Degree ______________________________________ 196
6.4.2The perception of offence degree_______________________________________ 198
6.4.3 The perception of apology imposition___________________________________ 201
6.4.4The perception of Accepting Apology ___________________________________ 202
6.5 Summary of Scale- Response Task Results ________________________________ 204
6.6 Concluding Remarks ________________________________________________ 205
Chapter Seven __________________________________________________________ 207
Apologies via Open Role Play and Semi-Structured Interview ____________________ 207
7. Data Analysis for Open Role Play Data: ___________________________________ 207
7.1 Overall Apology Analysis by Strategies __________________________________ 208
7.2 Apology Strategies __________________________________________________ 211
7.2.1 IFIDs (expression of apology)_________________________________________ 211
7.2.1.1 The structure of Iraqi Arabic (IFIDs) _________________________________ 211
7.2.1.2 The position of IFIDs in L1 and L2 ___________________________________ 212
7.2.1.3 Intensified IFIDs _________________________________________________ 212
7.2.2 Acknowledgment of Responsibility ____________________________________ 215
7.2.2.1 Expressing lack of intent ___________________________________________ 216
7.2.2.2 Expressing Self-deficiency __________________________________________ 217
7.2.2.3 Accepting Blame _________________________________________________ 218
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7.2.2.4 Denying responsibility _____________________________________________ 219
7.2.3 Account/Explanation _______________________________________________ 221
7.2.4 Offer for repair ___________________________________________________ 223
7.2.4.1 Direct offer of repair ______________________________________________ 226
7.2.4.2 Indirect Offer of repair ____________________________________________ 229
7.2.5 Promise for repair _________________________________________________ 231
7.2.6 Promise for forbearance_____________________________________________ 233
7.3 Extended Apologies__________________________________________________ 236
7.3.1 Sequences of Apology Samples: _______________________________________ 236
7.4 Apology Analysis by Strategies: Summary ________________________________ 245
7.5 Semi-structured interview Analysis _____________________________________ 246
7.5.1 The conceptualization of apology ______________________________________ 247
7.5.2 Apology and Imposition _____________________________________________ 249
7.5.3 Apology and Gender _______________________________________________ 250
7.5.4 Apology and Social Distance and power _________________________________ 252
7.6 General perception of Politeness in Iraqi Arabic ___________________________ 253
7.7 Concluding Remarks ________________________________________________ 255
Part Four: Conclusions __________________________________________________ 259
Chapter Eight __________________________________________________________ 259
Theoretical and Empirical Conclusions, Limitations, Pedagogical Implications,
Suggestions for further Research and a Reflective Statement ____________________ 259
8.1 Theoretical and General Conclusions ____________________________________ 259
8.1.1 The Overall differences between apologies in Iraqi Arabic and English: ________ 263
8.1.2 The Model of performing apology speech acts in Arabic and EFL context: ______ 269
8.2 Limitations ________________________________________________________ 275
8.3 Pedagogical Implications _____________________________________________ 277
8.4 Communicative Approach for teaching apologies in English __________________ 278
8.5 Suggestions for further Research _______________________________________ 280
8.6 Reflective Statement _________________________________________________ 280
BIBLIOGRAPHY _____________________________________________________ 282
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