Abstract
Generally, people are apologizing after they make a mistake or do certain acts which offense others. But the context in which the apology needs to be said in every culture can be different. Therefore, EFL learners may fail to use appropriate apology strategy within the context since they are interfered by their L1 culture. However, the case of Richy, an adult EFL learner originally from Java, is a bit different. He apologizes by saying “I’m sorry for my bad English” before he starts speaking. This unique phenomenon leads me to observe and interview him to gain an answer to what factors which might affect him to do so and how that act will influence his speaking. The result shows that Richy’s act was affected by cultural and psychological aspects where he got a pragmalinguistic failure in using his speech act of apology and tried to reach his need for safety through it. By reaching his need, he felt more motivated and gained his self-efficacy in delivering his speech.
Highlights
Apology is a common occurrence in everyday life, in the maintenance of friendships
The use of the wrong strategy in stating apology may lead to what we called as pragmalinguistic failure which is much affected by the transfer of L1 culture to the target language culture
An apology is commonly stated after the apologizer doing an act which he or the person who deserves the apology consider it as an offensive one
Summary
Apology is a common occurrence in everyday life, in the maintenance of friendships. In the speech act of apology, Asians tend to apologize more than Americans (Gallup in Tavucis, 1991) It shows that the context of apology between those two cultures is different. As EFL learners, there might be limited knowledge about this act of apology due to cultural background. This is what I believe, happened to many Indonesian EFL learners and Richy is not the exception. Richy, he always starts it with ‘sorry for my bad English’ Does apology need to be delivered even people do not make any mistake yet? This paper is aimed to find the answer to why EFL learners need to apologize before they are delivering a speech
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