scholarly journals Apologizing in Spanish

Pragmatics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
María-Isabel González-Cruz

This article provides insights into the strategies used by a group of university students of Canarian origin to perform the speech act of apologizing. Though Canarian Spanish has been recognised as one of the most deeply studied dialects in the Hispanic world (Medina 1996; Álvarez 1996; Corrales, Álvarez and Corbella 2007), little has been said about this variety at the socio-pragmatic level, and, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have been carried out on the issue of speech acts, let alone about apologies in Canarian Spanish. This article attempts to start filling this gap by describing the most frequent apology strategies used by one hundred university students at the ULPGC (Canary Islands, Spain) when apologizing in eight different situations. Following the lines of many other studies, we obtained the data through the application of a Discourse Completion Test, slightly adapted from the well-known CCSARP (Cross-cultural Speech Act Realisation Project). Gender differences are explored, along with the role of other situational factors such as degree of familiarity between the participants, severity of the offense and age of the offended person. Suggestions for further work in the fields of intercultural pragmatics and EFL teaching and learning are also given.

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-119
Author(s):  
Aan Anisah Agustini Safari

Background: Different countries may have different cultures that are influenced by their religion, traditions, or norms. These differences affect the way they speak, such as when they are commenting or giving opinions. Due to the way people express speech acts can be varied and lead to misinterpretation because of their differences, the researcher was intrigued to conduct this study. Methodology: This cross-cultural study was carried out to observe and compare the speech act of criticism between Korean and American YouTubers and to investigate the role of their cultural background in influencing the directness level they conveyed. First, the researcher selected three Korean Youtubers and Americans as well with food review content. Second, the researcher watched one video from each channel and took notes on every expression of criticism they used. Findings: The result of this study demonstrates that in American YouTubers speech, direct strategy emerges more frequently than the indirect one. Conversely, Korean YouTubers tend to use the indirect one. The finding also indicates that their speech behavior is related to their cultural norms, in which American culture encourages clear personal opinions, while Korean culture is a restraint to express their opinion or feeling clearly. Conclusion: Due to the considerable difference between Korean and American YouTuber speech, it can be concluded that culture takes a significant part in shaping one’s speech behavior. That is why people with different cultural backgrounds may have different ways of speaking.  Keywords: Criticism; cross-culture pragmatic; directness-indirectness.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-30
Author(s):  
Yaseen Alzeebaree

This study aims to examine Kurdish EFL university students’ development of L2 pragmatic competence by investigating their performance of the speech acts of permission. The methodology of this study was a combined research method, which comprises a quantitative and a qualitative method (mixed method). Total of 97 participants were involved in this research study. 83 (33 males and 50 females) were from four state universities and one private university in the Iraqi Kurdistan region and 14 were native speakers of English. A discourse completion test (DCT) was used to elicit the required data from participants. The study used convenience sampling for the participants because both native and non-native participants were selected on the basis of their availability. The data were coded and analysed quantitatively in terms of overall strategy use and strategy patterns. The findings revealed that there were differences in the frequency and percentages of strategies and semantic formulae in performing the speech act. KEFLUS tended to use more direct and explicit. There were more politeness and implicitness in NSE' behaviours in performing the speech act, which might have resulted from the lack of pragmatic competence of KEFLUS.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Alcón Soler ◽  
Josep Guzmán Pitarch

The benefits of instruction on learners’ production and awareness of speech acts is well documented (see Alcón and Martínez-Flor, 2008, for a review of pragmatics in instructional contexts). However, few studies examine the influence that instruction may have on the cognitive processes involved in speech act production (Félix- Brasdefer, 2008). In order to address this research gap, and taking into account the discussion in research on the concept of attention and related terms such as awareness (see Al-Hejin, 2004, for a review of the role of attention and awareness in second language acquisition research) this paper reports on the benefits of instruction on learners’ attention and awareness during the performance of refusals. Thus, based on a pedagogical proposal for teaching refusals at the discourse level, we focus on the benefits that this pedagogical proposal can have on the information attended to during the planning and execution of refusals. Secondly, we explore whether instruction makes a difference in learners’ awareness of refusals.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Cuneyt Demir ◽  
Mehmet Takkac

<p>Awareness of language or language competency has greatly changed from the focus of language itself as form and structure to language use as pragmatics. Accordingly, it is widely accepted that different cultures structure discourse in different ways. Moreover, studies have shown that this holds for discourse genres traditionally considered as highly standardized in their rituals and formulas. Taking inspiration from such studies, this paper employs a corpus-based approach to examine variations of the apology and thanking strategies used in English and Italian. First the apology itself as a form of social action is closely analyzed and then thanking. This study also pays special attention on analyzing and contrasting apology and thanking strategies in American English and in Italian in terms of Marion Owen’s remedial strategies (Owen, 1983), and Olshtain &amp; Cohen’s semantic formulas in the apology speech act set (Olshtain &amp; Cohen, 1983). The purpose of the study is not only to compare apology and thanking speech acts but to also learn their contextual use. The findings suggest that the status and role of the situation affect the speakers’ choice of apology and thanking strategies, and semantic formulas are of great importance.</p>


Author(s):  
Yamuna Kachru

The central role of English in cross-cultural communication worldwide has made it a unique site for understanding diversity in systems of discourse pragmatics. In contact situations, these differences can help to refine theoretical models, such as the question of how universal speech acts or properties of facework and politeness are. They can also have significant real-world implications in the form of cross-cultural (mis-) communication in globalized contexts. This chapter reviews a selection of examples of speech acts and politeness in World Englishes contexts that use theoretical models to account for variation, but in some instances also challenge elements of such models. The discussion also includes a consideration of variation in surface form as well as variation in discourse other than conversational speech, such as written genres.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Yulia Isnaini

This study was aimed at finding out Speech Acts Analysis on Teaching andLearning Process used by the Teacher in MAN 2 Mataram in Academic year 2016/2017. The method of this research is qualitative research The data of this research were the utterances performed by the Teachers of MAN 2 Mataram. The research instrument was the researcher himself. Participant is the subject from which the data obtained (Arikunto, 2010: 172)The Researcher’s participant actively classification speech act by the Teachers on teaching and learning process.T he instrument of data by using video camera and observation. To analyze the data Based on Louis (2005:181). This study used observation and video recording as an instrument of data collection, the researcher applied coding system. In this research, there are two validity principles applied by the researcher. The results of the research show that there are three classifications of speech act performed by the Teachers in the aching and learning process . The results of the research show that there are three classification of speech act performed by the Teachers in the aching and learning process. they are 4 data of locutionary act , 30 data of Illucotionary act, 7 data of Perlocutionary act . So the total of data were 41 data of speech act are used By the Teachers in MAN 2 Mataram.


Author(s):  
Mutiara Shasqia ◽  
Aulia Anggraini

Teachers and lecturers alike understand that they must consciously use a variety of speech acts to force students to follow their instructions and be motivated to learn on their own. This paper reports the findings of a study designed to investigate the notion of the perlocutionary effect of university students in the classroom resulted from lecturers’ illocutionary acts. The acts were then analyzed the illocutionary act of the lecturers’ talk or speech during specific time using Austin’s speech act theory. This present study built its investigation from data collection on both lecturers and university students through interview and field notes. This study manage to reveals that lecturers freely use speech acts of persuading, angering, and commanding. This study believes that illocutionary acts will still have happened in our interaction's life or communication in many-many context including classroom interaction between lecturer-students communication context.


Author(s):  
Stephen C. Levinson

The essential insight of speech act theory was that when we use language, we perform actions—in a more modern parlance, core language use in interaction is a form of joint action. Over the last thirty years, speech acts have been relatively neglected in linguistic pragmatics, although important work has been done especially in conversation analysis. Here we review the core issues—the identifying characteristics, the degree of universality, the problem of multiple functions, and the puzzle of speech act recognition. Special attention is drawn to the role of conversation structure, probabilistic linguistic cues, and plan or sequence inference in speech act recognition, and to the centrality of deep recursive structures in sequences of speech acts in conversation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-418
Author(s):  
Claudia Bianchi

According to Mitchell Green, speech act theory traditionally idealizes away from crucial aspects of conversational contexts, including those in which the speaker’s social position affects the possibility of her performing certain speech acts. In recent times, asymmetries in communicative situations have become a lively object of study for linguists, philosophers of language and moral philosophers: several scholars view hate speech itself in terms of speech acts, namely acts of subordination (acts establishing or reinforcing unfair hierarchies). The aim of this paper is to address one of the main objections to accounts of hate speech in terms of illocutionary speech acts, that is the Authority Problem. While the social role of the speaker is the focus of several approaches (Langton 2018a, 2018b; Maitra 2012; Kukla 2014; Green 2014, 2017a, 2017b), the social role of the audience has too often been neglected. The author will show that not only must the speaker have a certain kind of standing or social position in order to perform speech acts of subordination, but also the audience must typically have a certain kind of standing or social position in order to either license or object to the speaker’s authority, and her acts of subordination.


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