Reliability and Validity of Data Gathering Instruments - Research Proposal Example

Inasmuch as Ismail’s study, which dealt with female Saudi students, has provided such useful insights on the cross-cultural dimension of the apology speech act, it is interesting to find out if such findings are consistent for male Saudi students who are learners of English.An apology is essentially a social act, the aim of which is to maintain good relations between interacting members of society (Alfattah, 2010). Apologies form an important part of the social appropriateness and linguistic realization rules, because “face-saving maxims are believed to lie at the heart of face-to-face interaction and the social recognition of an individual’s face is very important” (Trosborg, 1987, p. 147). In an apology, there are two important orientations at work: a defensive stance that aims to save the apologizer’s own face, and a protective stance toward saving the face of the apology’s recipient.

In today’s global community, this interaction could be between members of different cultural orientations, a situation which poses specific problems. Torborg points out that although learners of a foreign language may be proficient in that language with respect to grammar and vocabulary, such students could still fail to communicate effectively because they lack competence in the social-appropriateness nuances, as well as knowledge of the linguistic realization rules required to convey their intended communicative acts.

It is therefore important to understand how effectively persons employ apology when communicating in a foreign language.