Iraqi EFL learners´ ability in using apology

Abstract EN

In the last two decades, many studies have been conducted to investigate speech act performance in general, and apology speech act in particular.

The study of speech acts can provide us with better understanding and new insights into the interdependence of linguistic forms and socio cultural context.

The objective of this paper is to investigate how the performance of learners of English differs in their performance in realize an apology speech act.

Therefore, the study aimed at answering the following questions: 1.

What are the apology expressions used in the given situations by Iraqi EFL students in the Department of English ? 1.

How do students in Thi-Qar university respond apologetically in the given situations? 1.

What apology strategies do they use? 2.

The following hypotheses are posed in this study : 1.The students lack the recognition and production ability of using apology strategies but the students’ performance in the recognition part is still better than their performance in the production part of the test.

1.

The students tend to use certain formulaic expressive such as sorry, pardon rather than use grammatical structure.

1.

Females tend to use particular types of linguistic forms rather than males in expressing apology.

They use long sentences and expression to express apology.

Males and females use more than one strategy in the same situation.

This study aims at finding the common apology expressions used by students in different situations.

The fundamental goals behind the present study are to evaluate the third year subjects’ at the college of Education University of Thi-Qar mastery of speech act of apology and to know whether they are able to produce the proper form of apology.

In addition to examine how far the subjects are capable of recognizing and producing apology.