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A comparative Analysis of apology Speech acts between
American English and Iraqi Kurdish
Rawshan Ibrahim Tahir
School of language, Literacies and Translation
University Sains
Malaysia
Ambigapathy Pandian
School of language, Literacies and Translation
University Sains
Malaysia
Abstract
The present study is a comparative analysis of apology speech acts in both native speakers of
Kurdish and native speakers of American English. It aims at finding out the similarities and
differences in the strategies used to apologize in both languages. Therefore, a Discourse
completion Task (DCT) questionnaire consisted of 15 situations was used to collect the data
from 50 native speakers of English and 50 native speakers of Kurdish language. The findings
revealed that both languages used similar five main strategies to apologize which confirm the
universality of speech acts. However, the differences came out in the use of sub-strategies of
an explicit expression of apology; native speakers of English used more an expression of
regret strategy to perform an apology while native speakers of Kurdish used offer of an
apology strategy more to apologize. Furthermore, the differences occurred in the frequency of
strategies used to apologize in both languages. The study also revealed the occurrence of
other new strategies in Kurdish Language that did not exist in English language.
Key words: speech acts, apology strategies, DCT, native speakers of English and
Kurdish.
1. Introduction
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Differences in social rules and norms among languages may cause problems in cross-
cultural communication which can be mitigated by identifying and increasing awareness of
pragmatic rules of each language (Meier, 2010). To investigate pragmatic rules in any
language, it is essential to conduct comparative studies on speech acts used in different
cultures to find points of similarities and differences that may exist to avoid communication
breakdown.
One of the speech acts that has give a lot of attention in sociolinguistic field is an
apology speech act (Brown & Levinson, 1987). An apology is a very culture-sensitive speech
act which varies greatly from one culture to another (Trosborg, 1995). The function of
apology is to maintain harmony between the speaker and the hearer, and thus, people expect
to apologize when they think they have violated social norms (Olshtain & Cohen, 1983). An
apology is a speech act in which communication breakdown can easily occur, as it is a face-
threatening act. Similar to other speech acts such as refusal and requests and hence, its usage
requires full understanding to avoid miscommunication (Brown & Levinson, 1987). A
situation that is considered severe and requires a sincere apology in one culture may not be
sever in another culture (Bergman and Kasper, 1993). Thus, the order, frequency and the
kind of strategies used in one culture may not be appropriate in another culture. For this
reason, it is of vital importance to recognise the types and rules of apology in different
languages because apologizing in a second language may not be an easy task (Borkin &
Reinhart, 1978). Therefore, this study makes a comparative analysis to investigate apology
speech act in both English and Kurdish culture to find out the points of similarities and
differences that may exist in both languages. Finally, the results were to be used to improve
communicative language teaching as well as to encourage the teaching of speech acts.
2. Review of Literature
Goffman (1971) considered an apology as “remedial interchanges,” that is directed at
restoring social harmony after an actual or implied offence has taken place. Apologies
constitute a way of maintaining social order and they are called for when social norms are
violated (Olshtain & Cohen, 1983). According to Holmes (1990), an apology is described as
“social acts conveying meaning” (p, 155). She believed that they are politeness strategies
which aim to remedy an offence by the speaker. Obviously, different cultures interpret and
consider offenses differently, and, therefore, the degree of necessity for an apology varies
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according to different cultures. This means that the choice of apology strategies is related to
the severity of such a face-threatening act which needs to be used to save face.
Olshtain (1989), in a study on cross-cultural speech act realization patterns, used DCT
to compare apology strategies used by Hebrew, Australian English, Canadian French, and
German native speakers. The findings revealed that the speakers of all four languages used
similar Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFID), such as “I’m sorry”, and preferred the
expression of responsibility. The study concluded that on a global level of analysis, “different
languages will realize apologies in similar ways” (Olshtain, 1989, p. 171).
Al-Hami (1993), on the other hand, investigated the apology strategies used by
Jordanian learners of English and discovered that Arabs express less remorse than native
speakers of English. Instead, Jordanian learners offer more explanations for the
circumstances that led to the offence. In contrast, the native speakers of English are more
inclined than the Arab learners to acknowledge lack of intent, appeal to offer a repair, and
give a promise of forbearance.
While most cross-cultural studies on apology speech act are based on elicited data.
Chamani and Zareipur (2010) investigated apology speech act based on naturally occurring
data from real-life situations from native speakers of British English and Persian. The
findings postulated that both British English and Persian language use relatively the same set
of apology strategies, with significant different preferences whereby Persians used more IFID
while apologizing.
Therefore, despite the rich literature on cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics in
different languages, as discussed above, there is still insufficient research on the apology
speech acts that compare English and Kurdish culture in terms of the strategies used to
apologize. Based on the above contexts, this study hopes to fill the existing gap in the
literature on cross-cultural pragmatics as well as a contribution to Blum-Kulka, House and
Kasper’s (1989) claim to include non-western languages in the studies of speech acts, i.e.
Kurdish language. Nevertheless, the aim of this study is to extract and categorize apology
strategies in order to make comparison in the use of these strategies in both languages. As a
result, the following research questions are raised.
1. What are similarities and differences between native speakers of Kurdish and native
speakers of English in terms of type of strategies?
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2. What are similarities and differences between Kurdish and English Languages in
terms of frequency of strategies?
3. Are the strategies used in Kurdish language formulaic in structure as in English
Language?
3. Methodology
3.1 Participants of the Study
One group of 50 native speakers of English and one group of 50 native speakers of
Kurdish were selected to collect data. The native speakers of the Kurdish language group
were undergraduate students at Salahaddin University in Kurdistan region of Iraq. They were
selected from different fields of sociology, geography, Kurdish, Persian, psychology
departments, while English data were selected from the undergraduate native speakers of
American English studying in Malaysia. Their age were ranged between 22-30 years old.3.2
Research Instruments
The instrument employed for data collection in this study was discourse completion
test (DCT) questionnaire. The DCT questionnaire consisted of 15 items adapted from
previous studied on apology speech act Olshtain and Cohen, (1983); Blum-Kulka and
Olshtain (1984); Bergman and Kasper, (1993).
The reason behind using DCT is that it allows for a large amount of data to be
collected in a short period of time (Fukushima, 2000), while factors such as age, gender and
status differences of interlocutors are also easily controlled. Kasper and Dahl (1991) and
Afghari (2007) stated that DCT has been used extensively in research on the L2 pragmatic
ability and is largely considered as one of the major instruments of data collection especially
in studies on apologies and requests.
The DCT Questionnaire consists of 15 scenarios describing different situations in
which an apology to be performed. Each situation is categorized based on the social status of
the interlocutors, the social distance between the interlocutors, and offense type to find out
how participants react in different social contexts. Therefore, the participants were asked to
put themselves in those hypothesized situations and to write their responses as natural as
possible according to how they would actually respond in the given situations.
The same instrument was used to collect data from Native speakers of Kurdish.
Therefore, the instrument was translated into Kurdish language. Then, the DCT questionnaire
was back translated (Kasper & Rose, 2002; Cheng, 2005; Liu, 2007) into English by a
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proficient Kurdish–English bilingual professor from an English department at Salahaddin
University to ensure accuracy of the translation. Finally, both English copies (original
English and back translated to English version) were given to a native speaker of English to
compare the original English and the back translated English version to check on the
reliability of the translation.
3.3 Data Analysis
After the DCT questionnaires were collected from the respondents, the responses to
the DCT were categorized and coded into semantic units. The coding scheme used to analyze
the data was adopted from Olshtain and Cohen’s (1983) taxonomy of apology speech acts.
The following is the description of five main strategies used by Olshtain and Cohen
(1983). The literal Kurdish translation of the expressions and sentences is also provided.
1. An expression of apology
A. An expression of regret, e.g., I’m sorry/ sorry (bibura)
B. An offer of apology, e.g., I apologize (daway leburdin dakam)
C. A request for forgiveness, e.g., forgive me (bimbura/ bimbxsha)
2. An explanation or account of the situation, e.g., There was traffic jam (regau ban
qalabaligh bu).
3. An acknowledgement of responsibility
A. Accepting the blame, e.g., It was my fault (halay min bu).
B. Expressing self-deficiency, e.g., I was confused (sarqal bum/ agadar nabum).
C. Recognizing the other person as deserving apology, e.g., you are right (mafi xota/ haqi
xota).
D. Expressing lack of intent, e.g., I didn’t mean to (mabasstim nabu).
4. An offer of repair, e.g., let me get you a new one (ba danayaki trit bo bikirmawa).
5. A promise of forbearance, e.g., It won’t happen again (dubara nabetawa).
On the other hand, if the offender rejects to apologize, s/he either prefer not react at all or if
so, she/he may refer to any of the following strategies
1. A denial of the need to apologize, e.g., There was no need for you to get insulted
2. A denial of responsibility, e.g., it was not my fault.
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According to Olshtain and Cohen (1983), the two strategies of a. an explicit
expression of apology and c. an acknowledgment of responsibility are general strategies,
while the other three strategies of explanation, repair and forbearance are situation specific.
According to them, these two strategies of A and C are probably used in every language.
Olshtain and Cohen (1983) stated that these performative utterances of sorry, apology,
excuse, and forgive can be used in any situation in any language, whereas acknowledgment
of responsibility is used when the speaker acknowledges the responsibility for the damage he/
she has done to the hearer, i.e. he/ she admits that an offence has been committed towards the
hearer that requires to be restored with the use of an apology expressions. Meanwhile,
admitting or not admitting a fault is related to the speaker’s willingness to apologize
(Olshtain & Cohen, 1990).
Strategy C acknowledging responsibility consists of four sub-strategies. In the first
strategy accepting the blame, an apology is expressed explicitly, whereas, in the other three
strategies of self- deficiency, recognizing hearer as entitled to an apology, and lack of intent,
an apology is expressed implicitly. Olshtain and Cohen (1990, p.159) acknowledged that the
strategy of accepting the blame (i.e. it is my fault) has the highest level of intensity because
the offender acknowledges the responsibility of an offense in an explicit way. The other three
strategies of self- deficiency as in (I was confused, I didn’t see), recognizing others as
deserving apology as in (you are right), and lack of intent as in (I didn’t mean to) are
described as having a low intensity. Victims usually perceive these strategies as honest
apologies, all pressure will be put on the speaker’s face, but they have a great influence in
restoring relationships (Olshtain and Cohen, 1990).
The other three strategies (i.e. B, D, and E) are used when the speaker apologizes
indirectly. Cohen and Olshtain (1985, p.157) described these strategies as situation- specific
and “semantically reflect the content of the situation”. In strategy (B. an explanation or
account), the speaker tries to apologize indirectly by giving more explanation and describing
the situation which caused him/her to commit the offense, as in (the bus was late) to explain
the reason for being late to a meeting. Cohen and Olshtain (1991) point out that giving
explanations or accounts may be acceptable in some cultures but not others. In some cultures
where public transportation is unreliable, giving explanations is accepted as it is considered
as normal to be late for a meeting; but in other cultures where public transportation is
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reliable, an explanation or giving justification to apologize is not accepted or may be
considered as an offence (Cohen et al. 1986, p.52).
The strategy (D) an offer of repair is also situation specific. It is described as a
compensatory act. The speaker tries to compensate the hearer for any kind of damage he/she
had caused to the hearer. This strategy is used only when the actual damage has occurred
(Cohen & Olshtain, 1990).
The last strategy is (E) a Promise of Forbearance. This strategy puts a lot of
responsibility on the speaker. Hence, it is less frequently used compared to other strategies
(Marquez Reiter, 2000, p. 165). By using this strategy, the speaker promises him/herself not
to commit an offence again in the future.
The data was analyzed based on all the strategies used by the two groups to find out
the possible differences and similarities between them; therefore, the participants may have
used other strategies, for example, intensifiers and alerters or any other strategies that are not
included in Olshtain and Cohen’s taxonomy. The use of intensification in which the
illocutionary force of the apology can be intensified is achieved by the use of adverbials, such
as ‘really’ as in ‘I’m really sorry’ and ‘so’ as in “I’m so sorry.” Intensification is usually an
attribute of explicit expressions of apology. On the other hand, alerters are elements whose
function is to alert the hearers to ensuing speech acts, for example, title/role (professor),
pronoun (you), first names, nicknames, and endearment terms (Blum-Kulka et al, 1989).
All the above-mentioned strategies were used to express an apology, either single strategy
used to perform an apology or any combination or sequence of strategies are used (Blum-
Kulka, et al., 1989, p. 289). To choose a single or a combination of strategies depend on the
situations and interlocutors and the relationship between them to use any semantic formula.
4. Results
Table 1 showed that both used similar types of strategies to apologize; however, the
results demonstrated that native speakers of Kurdish and native speakers of English are
different in the number of strategies used in the fifteen situations. The total number of
strategies used by native speakers of English is higher than the number of strategies used by
native speakers of Kurdish. In terms of frequency of use of each strategy for both groups,
strategy A (41.34%, 33.25% respectively) is the first most frequently used strategy and
strategy B (16.86%, 20.54% respectively) is the second most frequently used strategy. The
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third most frequent strategy for native speakers of English is D (15.97%), which is much
higher than the fourth most frequent strategy of C (8.82%).
For native speakers of Kurdish , the third most frequently used strategy is C (20.31%)
followed by the fourth most frequently used strategy is D (7.61%). Furthermore, both groups
used fewer strategies of E, F, H, other and I.
Table 1: Frequency of all strategies by NSE and NSK
Strategies
NSE
NSK
F
%
F
%
A
647
41.34
437
33.25
B
264
16.87
270
20.54
C
152
9.62
267
20.31
D
250
15.97
100
7.61
E
51
3.26
44
3.34
F
3
.19
5
0.38
G
150
9.58
48
3.65
H
50
3.19
56
3.94
I
4
.26
44
3.34
Other
8
.51
43
3.27
Total
1565
100
1314
100
Note: NSE = native speakers of English; NSK = native speakers of Kurdish; a = an expression of apology; b= an
explanation; c = an acknowledgment of responsibility; d = an offer of repair; e = a promise of forbearance; f =
no apology; g = intensifiers; h = alerter; I= concern for the hearer
Furthermore, statistical analysis using independent sample t-test was used to
determine the differences in the use of apology strategies between native speakers of English
and native speakers of Kurdish. Independent t-test was necessary to find out if there was a
significant difference in the use of strategies between native speakers of English and native
speakers of Kurdish. The information presented in table 4.6 indicates that overall significant
value is (0.00). Therefore, the significant value is less than 0.05 (P< 0.05) which indicates
that there is a statistically significant difference among the results obtained by the groups.
Table 1 presents the result of t-test analysis indicated that there are differences between
Native Speakers of English and native speakers of Kurdish in using eight strategies for an
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apology. Finding revealed that there is no significant difference between Native Speakers of
English and Native Speakers of Kurdish in using strategies A (t= -1.73, P>.05) and B (t=
.099, P>.05) for an apology. Moreover, results show that there is significant difference
between native speakers of English and native Speakers of Kurdish in using strategies C (t =
5.20, P<.05), D (t = -10.10, P<.05), E (t = 2.20, P<.05), F (t = -12.77, P<.05), G (t = .000,
P<.05) and H (t = 3.91, P<.05).
Table 2: Independent sample t-Test for NSE and NSK
Strategy
T
Df
Sig.(2-
tailed)
A
-1.73
72.25
0.087
B
.099
67.01
0.922
C
5.20
78.44
.000
D
-10.10
98
.000
E
2.20
98
.000
F
-12.77
75.67
.000
G
4.45
98
.000
H
3.91
56.56
.000
Note: NSE = native speakers of English; NSK = native speakers of Kurdish; a = an expression of apology; b= an
explanation; c = an acknowledgment of responsibility; d = an offer of repair; e = a promise of forbearance; f =
no apology; g = intensifiers; h = alerter *the mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level
Furthermore, Table 3 displays the sub-strategies of strategy A ‘an expression of
apology’ by native speakers of English and native speakers of Kurdish. As mentioned
previously that strategy A has three sub-strategies: A1, an expression of regret; A2, an offer
of apology; A3, a request for forgiveness.
Table 3: Frequency of sub-strategy A by NSE and NSK
Sub-Strategies
NSE
NSK
F
%
F
%
A1- An expression of regret
540
83.46
189
36.07
A2-An offer of apology/IFID
64
9.89
258
49.24
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A3-request for forgiveness
43
6.65
77
14.69
Total
647
437
Table 3 presents that native speakers of English used strategy A1 as the first most
frequently used strategy followed by strategy A2, while native speakers of Kurdish used
strategy A2 as the most frequently used strategy followed by strategy A1. However, both
languages used strategy A3 as the least frequently used strategy.
Furthermore, the number of strategy A1 used by native speakers of English is higher
than that of native speakers of Kurdish, whereas native speakers of Kurdish used more
strategies A2 and A3 than native speakers of English
In terms of sub-strategy C acknowledgment of responsibility, table 4 displayed that
strategy C2, expressing self-deficiency is highly used native speakers of English, native
speakers of Kurdish, i.e. it is the first most frequently used strategy by both groups. Followed
by strategy C1, accepting the blame for native speakers of English. While native speakers of
Kurdish used strategy C4, expressing lack of intent more frequently. Strategy C4 has lest
frequency for native speakers of English, while native speakers of Kurdish used strategy C3
is used less frequently. However, the results of statistical analysis have shown that there
were significant differences between native speakers of English and native speakers of
Kurdish in the use of strategies C2 and C4.
Table 4: Frequency of strategy C used by NSE and NSK
Sub-Strategies
NS-E
NS-K
F
%
F
%
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C1- Accepting the blame
61
39.87
35
16.20
C2- Expressing self-deficiency
83
54.25
120
55.56
C3- Recognizing the other person as deserving apology
5
3.27
8
3.70
C4- Expressing lack of intent
4
2.61
53
24.54
The study displayed the use of other strategies that were not recognized in Olshtain and
Cohen’s taxonomy. These strategies are divided into two groups: 1. concern for the hearer
and embarrassment; 2. Other strategies.
5. Discussion
The study found that both native speakers of English and native speakers of Kurdish
used similar overall patterns of apology strategies in similar contexts. This finding supports
the claim that the use of apology strategies is cross-culturally universal (Fraser, 1981; Blum-
Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; Olshtain, 1989; Bergman & Kasper, 1993; Trosborg, 1995). It also
indicates that apology in Kurdish language is formulaic in structure as in English. However,
there were differences in the overall number of strategies used in the fifteen situations
between native speakers of Kurdish and native speakers of English with the frequency of
strategies used by native speakers of English being higher than those used by native speakers
of Kurdish.
In terms of the use of each strategy, the results showed that strategies A, an
expression of apology and B, an explanation or account are the first and the second most
frequent strategies used by both native speakers of Kurdish and native speakers of English.
This finding is in line with Holmes (1990) and Kondo (1997) who found that these two
strategies are the main strategies used to apologize by native speakers. The strategy that was
used less frequently by both groups is strategy E promise of forbearance which also supports
the findings of previous studies on apology speech acts (Cohen & Olshtain, 1981; Olshtain,
1989; Holmes, 1990; Bergman & Kasper, 1993; Trosborg, 1995). This strategy rarely occurs
in communication because it is situation specific i.e. it is closely tied to the situation that
determines whether it is necessary to make a promise that the offence will not be repeated. In
addition, native speakers of English used strategies A an explicit expression of apology, B
explanation or account, D an offer of repair, E promise of forbearance, and G intensifier
more than native speakers of Kurdish while native speakers of Kurdish used strategies C an
acknowledgement of responsibility, F no apology, H alerter, I concern for the hearer, and
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others more than native speakers of English. Finally, the results indicated that there are no
statistically significant differences in the use of strategies A an expression of apology and B
explanation or account between native speakers of English and native speakers of Kurdish
but statistically significant differences were found in the use of strategies C acknowledgment
of responsibility, D an offer of repair, E a promise of forbearance, F no apology, G
intensifier, and H alerter.
Strategy A an expression of apology was the most frequently used strategy by both
native speakers of English and native speakers of Kurdish. However, the findings showed
that native speakers of English used this strategy more than that of native speakers of
Kurdish. This finding concurs with Olshtain and Cohen’s (1983, 1990) and Trosborg’s (1995)
studies on apology speech acts which posits that native speakers of English use more
varieties of expressions of apology such as I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I’m so sorry and so
on. This indicates that native speakers of English are more intense users of apology speech
acts.
In terms of the use of sub-strategies, it is found that native speakers of English used
A1 an expression of regret such as ‘I’m sorry’ as the most frequent strategy and A3
requesting for forgiveness such as ‘excuse me; please forgive me’ the least frequent used
strategy. This finding is similar to the findings of Cheng’s (2005) and Chang’s (2008)
postulate that Americans prefer to use ‘I’m sorry’ more than other expressions to apologize.
While native speakers of Kurdish used strategy A2 ‘an offer of apology’ in expressions such
as ‘I apologize’ in Kurdish ‘daway leburdin dakam’ more than A1 an expression of regret
and A3 a request for forgiveness. This supports Wierzbicka’s (1991) claim that different
expressions has been made a kind of routine by different language groups. In Kurdish, there
are three types of A an explicit expression of apology, they are, bibura (sorry), daway
leburdin dkam (I apologize), and lem bibura/ bimbura (forgive me/ excuse me). However,
there are no differences in the distribution and uses of these three apology formulas. Unlike in
English, whereby strategy A2 an offer of apology (daway leburdin dakam) is used more
frequently than A1 an expression of regret and A3 a request for forgiveness. However,
strategy A2 an offer of apology is an equavallent to ‘I’m sorry’ in English and hence is used
interchangeably. The reason behind the use of more strategy A2 an offer of apology’ by
native speakers of Kurdish is probably due to the literal translation used by the researcher to
code the data as in Kurdish, the expression ‘Daway leburdin dakam’ also means “I’m
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sorry”. Although, strategy A2 an offer of apology is used in more formal context in the
English language, it can be used in both formal and informal contexts in Kurdish.
Furthermore, only strategy A1 is used more in English while in Kurdish, they used more
strategies A2 and A3.
In terms of strategy B an explanations or account of cause of violations, the findings
showed that native speakers of Kurdish used this strategy more than native speakers of
English. This observation is similar to Yeganeh (2012) who studied apology strategies of
Iranian Kurdish. For example, he cites a situation where the speaker instead of holding
responsibility and making repair, tries to focus on the cause of the problem and giving
justification by saying ‘I’m sorry, but everybody makes mistakes’ when the speaker forgot to
pass on an urgent letter to the boss. This indicates that native speakers of Kurdish in such
situations prefer to apologize indirectly rather than acknowledge responsibility for the
offense, i.e., to apologize directly.
In terms of strategy C an acknowledgment of responsibility, native speakers of
Kurdish used this strategy more than native speakers of English. Several previous studies
found that native speakers of English (e.g. Olshtain 1983; Blum Kulka et al., 1989; Trosborg,
1995) uses this strategy more. However, the differences occurred in the use of sub-strategies,
although both native speakers of English and native speakers of Kurdish used strategy C2
expressing self-deficiency as the first most frequently but it was used more by native speakers
of Kurdish. Furthermore, native speakers of English used sub-strategy C1 accepting the
blame more than C4 expressing lack of intent, while native speakers of Kurdish used strategy
C4 more than C1. This indicates that native speakers of Kurdish prefer to apologize indirectly
as Hassan (2014) stated that in Kurdish culture people tended to give the right to the hearers
instead of blaming themselves.
With regard to the use of strategy D an offer of repair, native speakers of English
used strategy this strategy more than native speakers of Kurdish. This finding is different
from Sugimoto’s (1997) findings based on a study of apology speech act of Japanese and
American English speakers which postulated that Americans didn’t offer repair in order to
avoid responsibility or weaken their position or place themselves in an obligatory position.
In terms of strategy E, promise of forbearance, native speakers of English used this strategy
more than native speakers of Kurdish. This result is also different from Trosborg (1995) and
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Olshtain (1989) which indicate that native speakers of English rarely use this strategy.
However, the use of this strategy was dependent on the situations given in the questionnaire.
With regard to strategy F no apology; it was found that this strategy had very low
frequency compared to the other strategies used to apologize by both native speakers of
Kurdish than native speakers of English
In terms of strategy G, intensifier, it was found that this strategy was highly used by
native speakers of English compared to native speakers of Kurdish. This is due to the fact that
in some severe situations, native speakers of English used more than one intensifier as
indicated in the following example “really so so sorry” or in the use of different intensifying
adverbials such as ‘terribly, awfully, very, alongside the adjective sorry. This means that
native speakers of English showed a high intensity of apology. However, in Kurdish
language, there are limited words to show intensified apology, for example only intensifiers
such as ‘zor’ (very), and ‘barasti’ (really) are used. Sometimes these words are combined
together to express a profound apology in severe situations such as ‘ barasti zor daway
leburdin dakam’ (really so sorry) or the ‘zor’ (very) can be repeated to intensify the apology
based on the situation. Furthermore, native speakers of Kurdish used other strategies to mark
the sincerity of their apology through the use of alerters and acknowledgement of their
mistake/error. For example, they may say ‘daway leburdin dakam barez,,barasti
sharmazarim’ (‘I’m really sorry friend, I’m really embarrassed’) which can be regarded as
having similar weight to: I’m really so, so, so, sorry. The study found that native speakers of
Kurdish used strategy H alerter more than native speakers of English, possibly because
native speakers of Kurdish in most of the situations used alerter , like ‘barez’ (dear) ,
‘bram’ (brother), ‘hawre’ (friend) to mark that their apology was sincere and as a sign of
respect to the offended person. Furthermore, native speakers of Kurdish tended to swear by
God or the Quran in their apologies such as ‘baxway and ba quran’ to make their apologies
more persuasive and more powerful. These reflected the social characteristics of the Kurdish
culture.
Furthermore, social status and familiarity play an important role in the use of alerts
especially in the use of addresses in Kurdish society. In Kurdish culture, it is not necessary to
use both the title and his/her surname when addressing a professor. Hence, speakers of
Kurdish would only use titles, such as mamosta (teacher/ professor), instead of surnames and
titles, such as mamosta Smith (Professor Smith). However, in English, the surname is mostly
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used after the title, for example, one would say (Professor Smith) instead of (Professor).
Nevertheless, it is quite common for professors in the United States and Europe to be
addressed by their first names without any formal forms of address. Thus an alerter is not
only used to ‘alert the hearers’ attention to the ensuing speech act’ (Blum-Kulka et al, 1989,
p. 277) but also to indicate the social role and social relationship.
Some new strategies occurred in this study that do not belong to the above taxonomy
and they were categorized as the other strategies which occurred in a very low frequency
compared to five main strategies mentioned in Olshtain and Cohen’s taxonomy, they are ;
concern for the hearer, expression of embarrassment, self castigation, asking the victim not
to be angry. Strategy concern for the hearer is used more by English speakers (12 times)
than by native speakers of Kurdish (7 times) e.g. Hope I didn’t upset you. However, strategy,
an expression of embarrassment ‘sharmazarim’is used only by native speakers of Kurdish
which occurred (33 times). native speakers of Kurdish use ‘sharmazarm’
I’m embarrassed
to replace an apology most of the time or alongside the apology strategy especially in
offensive situations. This indicates that the speaker intends to show his/her uncomfortable
feelings towards a mistake they had committed. Another strategy which is only used by
native speakers of Kurdish thanking. Only native speakers of English use strategy ‘self-
castigation’ I’m the one to be offended. This indicates that the use of these strategies is
culture-specific.
6. Conclusion
The present study aimed at comparing apology strategies used by native speakers of
Kurdish and Native speakers of English. The data were collected from identical DCT
questionnaire to find out the similarities and differences in the use of apology strategies in
both cultures. The finding of this study demonstrated that both groups used similar main
strategies to apologize, both used an explicit apology and an explanation as the first and the
second most frequently used strategies and both groups. Furthermore, the study came across
the occurrence of new sub-strategies which were mainly observed in the performance of
native speakers of Kurdish such as an expression of embarrassment, gratitude. The finding of
this study can be used as baseline information for future pragmatic studies in Kurdish
language. Another contribution of this study is in the field of cross-cultural communication. It
provides valuable information about culture differences between English and Kurdish. This
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will assist both learners of English, learners of Kurdish as well as EFL learners to realize
culture differences and cultural norms in the strategies used to apologize.
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