Apologizing Strategies Used by English Department Students of State University of Malang Based on Social Status and Social Distance
| Main Author: | Rokhima Ika Wulandari; English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisor: Drs. Nur Mukminatien, M.Pd. |
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| Format: | PeerReviewed |
| Bahasa: | eng |
| Terbitan: |
, 2009
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
http://karya-ilmiah.um.ac.id/index.php/sastra-inggris/article/view/733 |
Daftar Isi:
- This thesis is a socio-pragmatic study about the apologizing strategies used by English Department Students of State University of Malang to nine people based on social status and social distance differences. The social status here includes lower-, equal-, and higher- status whereas the social distance includes an intimate person, a familiar person, and a stranger. The apologizing strategies were collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) modified from Wouk (2006). By using DCT, getting large numbers of respondents and collecting the data, and constructing to account for variation in speech act realization determined by social status and social distance and combining all possible variables (social status and social distance) can be done easily. In this study, DCT consists of nine situations in which the respondents were expected to give responses in the form of apologizing strategies to the nine people on different occasions. The first scenario was apologizing to lower status and intimate persons (their little brother/sister). In the second situation, the respondents had to apologize to lower status and familiar persons (their students). In the third situation, the respondents had to apologize to a stranger of lower status (an office boy). In the fourth situation, the respondents were expected to apologize to equal status and intimate persons (their boyfriend/girlfriend). In the fifth situation, the respondents were expected to apologize to equal status and familiar persons (their classmate). In the sixth situation, the respondents were expected to apologize to a stranger of equal status (another student). In the seventh situation, the respondents had to apologize to higher status and intimate persons (their mother). In the eighth situation, the respondents had to apologize to higher status and familiar persons (their boss). Finally, the respondents were expected to apologize to a stranger of higher status (a lady). The data found were placed in one of the Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) taxonomy of apologizing strategies. If a response could not be classified in that taxonomy, it is marked as a new response. The result of this study showed that English Department students tended to use multiple strategies or the combination of two or more strategies. The respondents rarely use a single strategy in apologizing. However, the strategy was used differently. Take an example, ‘I am dreadfully sorry, Madam. If you please, I would clean your blouse.’ This data consists of two strategies; intensifier of apology by using intensifying adverbial and offering of repair. Another example is ‘Boss, I’m sorry for making that foolish mistake. I’ll retype it soon and I promise I’ll never do the mistake again.’ That example consists of four strategies; Illocutionary force indicating device (IFID), expressing responsibility by using admission, offering of repair, and promise of forbearance. IFID is the most common type of apologizing used by the respondents. Most of the respondents used it in the form of simple apology such as ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘forgive me.’ Another frequent semantic formula used is expressing responsibility by using admission of facts. This semantic formula is commonly used with IFID but it can also occur alone such as ‘I can’t attend your party because I have to accompany my mother to go to hospital.’ Offering of repair is also commonly used in several situations in these findings. Besides the semantic formulas proposed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989), there are six new semantic formulas which occur in these findings. Those six semantic formulas are request of apology, suggestion, asking something, asking someone to do something, asking for something, and downgrading by acting of teasing. Based on the findings, it can be seen that social status and social distance does influence the respondents in using apologizing strategies. The more intimate the respondents, the stronger the feeling of apologizing of their offence. The higher the status of the hearer, the stronger the feeling of apologizing for their offence and the more polite expression used. This research only investigated the apologizing strategies based on social status and social distance differences and the data for this study were from a DCT which did not reflect the naturally occurring speech. Therefore, a more extensive study is needed to contribute more to the real application of socio-pragmatic theory. A study about the influence of other social factors in apologizing might be interesting.