Comparing Apology Patterns of Indonesian and Thai ELF University Students
Keywords:
Intercultural Communication, Apology, Thai, Indonesian, EnglishAbstract
The performance of speech acts, like apologies, between individuals from different cultural backgrounds who communicate using English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) can result in either harmony or conflict, but it frequently leads to misunderstandings due to their culturally subjective nature. The current study was undertaken to investigate how Indonesian ELF undergraduate students and Thai ELF undergraduate students apologized in English. The study employed a set of a Discourse Completion Test and involved 42 students majoring in English from a university in Indonesia and 32 students majoring in English from a university in Thailand. The subjects’ responses were coded according to the apology strategy framework with six major strategies, one of which included nine sub-strategies.
The results showed that both Indonesian and Thai students predominantly utilized 13 apology strategies, which were largely similar but varied in their sequencing. Additionally, the apology strategies employed by Thai ELF students were associated with those utilized by Indonesian ELF students, signifying a statistically significant difference between the strategies used by the two groups (X2 = 117.60, p < .05). Also, the results revealed variations in the categories of Explanation of account, Concern for the hearer, and Taking on responsibility. Accordingly, the Indonesian cohort exhibited a notably stronger inclination towards speaker-focused apology strategies than their Thai counterparts; conversely, the Thai group demonstrated a significantly greater preference for hearer-focused apology strategies than the Indonesian participants. Additionally, the nature of apologies used in both subject groups reveals the influence of cultural backgrounds, including religious beliefs and social values.
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