A Cross-Cultural Study On Speech Act Of Apology

The globalization of world speeds up the pace of cross-cultural communication in China. However, due to different cultures and social norms, misunderstandings or even conflicts may often arise in cross-cultural communication. Speech acts, as the basic unit to express speakers? intention in communication, plays an important role in successful communication. Apology, as one of the speech acts, is frequently used in communication, which is intended to provide support for the hearer who is actually or potentially offended by a violation. Appropriate apology can effectively resolve conflicts and improve mutual communication. This study adopts Trosborg?s eight classifications of apology strategy as theoretical basis, and selects three groups of participants (Chinese natives, American natives and English majors) to solve the following three research questions: 1) What are the tendencies of the apology strategy distribution among the 3 groups of participants? 2) What are the factors affecting the selection of apology strategy? 3) In what aspects do English majors exist pragmatic transfer?In answering these three research questions, the thesis adopts quantitative analysis on the comparative study of three groups of participants (Chinese natives, American natives and English majors) in the selection of apology strategies across eight situations. Meanwhile, qualitative analysis is carried on to investigate English majors? pragmatic transfer. The ultimate goal is to provide valuable implications to successful cross-cultural communication and Chinese EFL teaching by exploring the underlying causes of the findings.The findings from quantitative analysis indicate that there are similarities in the overall distribution of apology strategies among three groups of participants. They all show their highest preference in the selection of strategy 4 (Expression of apology). The frequency of strategy 0 (Refusal to acknowledge guilt or refusal to apologize), strategy 1 (Minimizing the degree of offense), strategy 6 (Promise of forbearance) and strategy 7 (Expressing concern for the hearer) is the lowest. This reveals that strategy 4 is widely used, while some other strategies are situation-specific. There exist significant differences in the selection of apology strategies across some concrete situations. The differences mainly lie in: 1. Influenced by social distance and collectivism, Chinese natives select more strategy 3 (Explanation or account) and strategy 7 (Expressing concern for the hearer) than American natives do. 2. The percentage of strategy 4 (Expression of apology) is higher than the other 2 groups of participants. This indicates that English majors? pragmatic competence needs improving. 3. Americans are more inclined to select strategy 5 (Offer of repair) influenced by low-context culture in America. By analyzing we find three majors factors affecting apology strategy selection are: social distance, value system and context culture.The findings from qualitative analysis indicate there do exist pragmatic transfer in the content of English majors? apology. There are both pragmalinguistic transfer and sociopragmatic transfer.The implications of this research are: 1). In cross-cultural communication, we should notice language differences caused by culture differences, and enlarge our perspective from grammer to pragmatic effect of language. 2). Chinese English teachers should take good use of classroom and extracurricular time to develop students? pragmatic competence and input culture.This thesis enriches the content of cross-cultural study on apology strategy, and provides proof for other speech acts research. Meanwhile, it is of practical guiding effect on successful cross-cultural communication and Chinese EFL teaching.