The modifying strategies used by deaf students in the speech act of apologizing

This research examines the strategies deaf students use for modifying the illocutionary force of apologies and compares their use to that of hearing counterparts. Deaf students' use of modifying strategies in apologies was chosen to identify what this population considers essential in realizing an apology and to identify how the deaf population's view of elements necessary to realize an apology differs from the hearing population.;Data were obtained from high school students using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and a Questionnaire on Apologies. Responses for the DCT were collected in written English from deaf and hearing respondents, in American Sign Language (ASL) from deaf respondents, and in spoken English from hearing respondents. Data were analyzed according to apology strategies identified by Olshtain (1989), and according to modifying strategies identified by Trosborg (1987), House and Kasper (1981) and several new modifying strategies identified through this research.;Results from the Questionnaire on Apologies showed that with elements of the socio-pragmatic set, deaf and hearing students responded similarly to apology situations. Results from the DCT showed that deaf and hearing populations using the three modes of communications (written English, ASL, spoken English) relied on the same strategies to realize their apologies. This observed similarity of apology strategy use between the two groups resulted from the deaf students' extensive formal and informal exposure to English as well as the influence of the English presentation format of elicitation stimuli.;Results of the study also showed that hearing subjects used twice as many modifying strategies in their apologies as did deaf subjects regardless of communicative mode. This observed difference between groups resulted partly from reduction of modification because students had not acquired English skills enabling them to formulate modification. Such insufficient English skills may have resulted from both insufficient comprehensible input and insufficient modification instruction. Other factors contributing to the observed difference include deaf students' view of the unimportance of modification and lack of sufficient time to incorporate modification. Finally cultural transfer and negative language transfer contributed to deaf students' low use of modifying strategies.