A Corpus-based Analysis of Linguistic Politeness (Apology) in Sudanese EFL Oral Discourse

Abstract

This study is entitled “A Corpus-based analysis of Linguistic politeness (Apology) in Sudanese EFL Oral Discourse” A study at Sudan University of Science and Technology –Education College, English language Department –4th and 3rd year. It isan attempt to bridge the gap on this area of study, to outline the most commonly used apology strategies by Sudanese EFL learners and to investigate the effectiveness of the methods of teaching apology to the Sudanese EFL learners. The researcher used different tools for collecting data. The first tool is questionnaire. Two questionnaire are designed for the EFL teachers and learners at (Sudan University of science and Technology- College of education English department).A random sample of 60 EFL Sudanese learners participated in this study. The second tool is Multiple-Choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT), where the test taker is required to choose the correct response (the key) from several given options. It includes fifteen different scenarios and six alternatives. Sixty informants have been randomly selected from 2015-2016, 4th and 3rd year English language students at Education College at Sudan university of Science and Technology. The questionnaires and the multiple choice discourse completion test are analyzed using SPSS computer program. The researcher has reached to the following findings: the Sudanese EFL learners use implicit apology in their spoken discourse, the Sudanese EFL learners prefer to use “an offer of repair” as an apology strategy, proper methods are used to teach apology speech act to the Sudanese EFL learners,the Sudanese EFL learners managed to adapt the English language culture and use apology strategies in the right way, the Sudanese EFL learners’ curriculum includes the speech acts and mainly apology strategies.