Apologies and Compliment Responses: A Case of Pre-service EFL Teachers

Apology may be defined as “a compensatory action for an offense committed by the speaker which has affected hearer” (Marquez-Reiter, 2000, p. 44), and a compliment is another speech act "which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than speaker... positively valued hearer" (Holmes, 1986, 485). The focus of this paper find out strategies are employed Turkish pre-service EFL (English Foreign Language) teachers while apologizing responding compliments especially with equal-status interlocutors, whether these show differences between females males. Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) was administered 27 teachers. WDCT included six apology seven response scenarios. data were analyzed mainly using framework Blum-Kulka Olshtain (1984) apologies, coding scheme Ruhi (2006) responses. Main findings study suggest that participants frequently used strategy regret apologizing, they preferred use appreciation compliments. In addition, chi-square test applied see any significant males in This gender-based comparison resulted no statistical difference except only one overall results imply investigating pragmatic knowledge students majoring ELT through their realizations vital first step organizing appropriate interventions aiming at improving expanding knowledge.