Apologies in South Asian Varieties of English: A Corpus-Based Study on Indian and Sri Lankan English

Abstract Despite notable recent exceptions (for instance Funke, 2020), corpus-based research into South Asian Englishes has so far concentrated on structural features. Thus, empirical pragmatic in said varieties is still sparse, although there been increasing interest variational pragmatics world (Schneider & Barron, 2008). For instance, requests have examined both native and non-native of English. However, studies apologies largely focussed first-language English (Deutschmann, 2003). Against this background, the present study investigates apology patterns two second-language English, Indian Sri Lankan their historical input variety British With help spoken parts respective components International Corpus multifactorial analyses—including an improved form random forests that explicitly takes interactions between several predictors account—model choice sorry as opposed to other forms. Findings suggest quantitative differences use which are influenced by factors such type apology, topic age or combinations factors. In sum, suggests forms frequencies sensitive speakers’ regional background sociobiographic well contextual parameters.