Role of Monolingualism/Bilingualism on Pragmatic Awareness and Production of Apology Speech Act of English as a Second and Third Language

The present study investigated the pragmatic awareness and production of Iranian Turkish and Persian EFL learners in the speech act of apology. Sixty-eight learners of English studying at several universities in Iran were selected based on simple random sampling as the monolingual and bilingual participants. Data were elicited by means of a written discourse self-assessment/completion test (WDSACT) with 10 situations asking the participants to evaluate the appropriateness of the given acts on a 5-point Likert scale. Participants were also required to produce the appropriate acts for the described situations when evaluated as being inappropriate. Native speakers evaluated as being inappropriate for the given situations. Alternatives were coded. Results provided almost insignificant differences between the 2 groups in terms of their perceptions of the appropriate and inappropriate acts and illustrated the monolingual/bilingual learners’ tendency towards using all superstrategies of apology, except for the case of “Responsibility Expressions” and “Promises of Forbearance.” Lack of cultural awareness and literacy in the Turkish language, the case of subtractive bilingualism in Iran, and insufficient pragmatic input may be sources of pragmatic failure on the part of the bilinguals.