A Descriptive-Comparative Analysis of Apology Strategies: The case of Iranian EFL and Malaysian ESL University Students

Abstract

This paper reports on a study that was carried out to describe and compare the apology strategies utilized by Iranian EFL and Malaysian ESL learners in confronting identical apology situations. For this purpose, data were elicited from 15 Iranian and 15 Malaysian students through a Discourse completion tasks questionnaire. The participants were of the same language proficiency. Results of the study showed certain similarities and differences in terms of frequency and typology of strategies used by Iranian and Malaysian students. The findings of this study might be of pedagogical help and significance to teachers, students and those interested in pragmatics in general and apology speech act in particular.