A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (apologies) by Saudi and Irish females

This thesis will investigate the realization patterns of the speech act of apology employed by native Saudi Arabic and native Irish English females, by using 6 different social situations. Moreover, it will examine the differences and similarities between these two groups in terms of apology strategies. The study will also investigate the influence of the culture on the ways in which each group realizes their apologies. Additionally, this study will be based on western studies. However, in the last two decades, many studies have been conducted to investigate speech act performance in general, and apology speech act in particular. But most of these studies have focused on western languages. Also, more recently, a number of studies have been carried out in eastern languages, with only a few in Arabic language, so research on apologies made by native Saudi Arabic speakers or Arabic learners of English can be considered scarce, and that is why I’m interested in conducting this research.
Background:
Speech Act and Cross- Cultural Studies of Apology in Arabic:
To investigate the speech act of apology among Saudi female learners, there are many studies in Arabic that have looked at this same field, especially in the apology strategies, and there are some studies which have attempted to make interlanguage pragmatics studies in Arabic. For instance, there is a study conducted by Rizk (1997), who investigated apology strategies used by many English learners of different Arab nationalities. The result of the study illustrated similarities between the apology strategies used by native and non-native speakers of English in all situations, except one. Also, there is a study conducted by Nureddeen (2008). This study attempted to illustrate the type and extent of use of apology strategies in Sudanese Arabic. She used a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and 1082 responses were examined. The results of the study showed a picture of the politeness in the Sudanese culture. Moreover, Alzumor (2011), in his study of Inter –language and cross culture on apologies in Arabic and English he investigated English apology strategies which were used by Arab learners of English in India. His study consisted of three groups: Arab students, American group, and British group. The results of the study showed that the linguistic realization of apology in the different apology situations by English speakers and Arabic speakers assign varied degrees of severity to the same situations which is attributed to cultural differences.

Research questions:
1- Which apology strategies are used by Saudi and Irish participants?
2- Do Saudi and Irish English participants vary in terms of apology strategies and why?
3- How do the participants realize their apology strategies with regards to the specific language (words, phrases) they use?

Purpose of the study:
This study aims at finding the common differences and similarities between the apology strategies used by native Saudi and Irish speakers, in different social situations. Also , it aims to find out how exactly with regards to the language used do the participants realize their apology strategies and what is the influence of the culture role.
Participants in the study:
15 Irish students in UCC and
15 Saudi students in Cork.
Methodology:
In this study, the DCT questionnaire will be used and it consists of six apology situations constructed specifically to elicit an apology (six situations in English for Irish and six situations in Arabic for Saudi participants).

References:
Al-Zumor, Abdol Wahid. 2003. Apologies in Arabic and English: An inter-language
and cross-cultural study.

Selo, I. (2004). A Socio linguistic study of Apology in Iraqi Arabic. Irbid Lil-Buhooth Wal-Dirasat , lrbid, .Jordan 33-78.

Blum-Kulka, S., Olshtain, E., 1984. Requests and apologies: A crosscultural
study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP).
Applied Linguistics

Kasper, Gabriele. 2000. Data collection in pragmatics research. Culturally Speaking:
Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey

Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper (eds.). 1989.
Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Bonikowska, Malgorzata P. 1988. The choice of opting out. Applied Linguistics

Holmes, J. (1989). Sex Differences and Apologies, one Aspect of communicative competence , Applied Linguistics, 10. 194-212.

Brown, P., and S. Levinson (1978) Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In E.N. Goody (ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 256-289.
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