LINGUIST List 27.3566
Sun Sep 11 2016
Diss: Student-Instructor Apologies: How Are They Produced and Perceived?
Editor for this issue: Kenneth Steimel <kenlinguistlist.org>
Date: 02-Sep-2016
From: Dongmei Cheng <dongmei.cheng
tamuc.edu>
Subject: Student-Instructor Apologies: How Are They Produced and Perceived?
E-mail this message to a friend Institution: Northern Arizona University
Program: Applied Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2013
Author: Dongmei Cheng
Dissertation Title: Student-Instructor Apologies: How Are They Produced and Perceived?
Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
Pragmatics
Subject Language(s):
English (eng) Dissertation Director:
Randi Reppen
Mary McGroarty
Dissertation Abstract:
Despite the emerging emphasis on the importance of teaching speech acts, teachers often find it difficult to enable second language learners to carry out important pragmatic functions at crucial times during university studies. This study reports a multipronged approach in describing apologies made by students to instructors in academic contexts. Various features of student apology productions are presented, as well as self and audience perceptions of communicative effectiveness, collected from both the student apologizers and instructor addressees.
Apologies were collected from 60 native English speakers (NS) and 63 nonnative English speakers (NNS). Participants generated apologies via email (n = 63) or recorded speech (n = 60) for three typical academic situations: missing a lecture, missing an appointment, and turning in an assignment late. Apologies were analyzed for their semantic, linguistic, and selected acoustic characteristics. In both spoken and emailed apologies, NNSs used semantic strategies different from NSs; their apologies were usually shorter and contained a narrower range of stance markers. In making spoken apologies, NNSs demonstrated slower speech rates but wider pitch ranges than NSs. Perceptual data collected via verbal protocols showed that NS and NNS students differed in their understanding of the severity of situations, power relationships, and social distances. Both groups reported receiving minimal formal instruction on making apologies.
Instructor (n = 150) perceptions of student apologies gathered via online surveys showed that although instructors gave higher mean ratings to NS apologies, those did not always receive higher ratings than NNS apologies. Instructors valued the fact that students took responsibility in apologizing, offering specific explanations, and writing or uttering the message politely and respectfully. Poorly rated apology messages usually had multiple grammatical mistakes, did not contain sufficient or valid evidence, and inconvenienced the instructors or made rude requests.
Natural student-instructor apologies were identified from emails (n = 106) and the office-hour sub-register of spoken corpora of academic communication (n = 15). Linguistic and semantic characteristics of authentic emailed apologies were largely in line with those of elicited emailed apologies.
Good academic communication affects student success. This research not only sheds light on ways to identify problems in student apologies but also suggests the necessity of integrating pragmatic advice into traditional language instruction in second language classrooms.
Page Updated: 11-Sep-2016