Sincerity, Intonation, and Apologies: A Case Study of Thai EFL and ESL Learners

Dissertation Proposal Abstract

The purpose of this study is to compare the ability to deliver the speech act of apology by two groups of Thai learners of American English: those who study English as a foreign language (EFL) in Thailand and those who study English as a second language (ESL) in the United States. Learner apologies will be investigated with respect to judgments of sincerity by native speakers. The major objective of this study is to determine how the following aspects of apology: intonation patterns, sincerity conditions, and task types, contribute to the speakers’ success in performing intended apologies as indicated by the native speakers’ judgments.

The participants in this study will be females aged between 18 and 35. Fifteen EFLs, 15 ESLs, and 10 native English speakers will be audio-recorded while individually act along with an interlocutor in role-play scenarios written in such a way to prompt the speakers to apologize to the interlocutor. Based on the scenarios, the speakers are prompted to produce both sincere and insincere (ostensible) apologies. In the first task type, the speakers will freely use semantic formulas of their choice to perform apologies but in the second task type, based on the same scenarios, they will use provided scripts to express their apologies. The recorded apologies will be randomized, grouped, and submitted to native speakers of American English (N=60) for their judgments of whether or not they think the speaker of each apology token is sincere.

The native speakers’ judgment results will be used as a measure of success in delivering the intention in the production of apologies on the speakers’ part. The three groups of speakers will be compared in terms of the extent of their success in delivering sincere versus insincere apologies, and open versus scripted role-play tasks. Scripted apologies will then be analyzed for intonation patterns to determine if there are intonation correlates of perceived sincere and insincere apologies.

The quantitative data will be analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results will be discussed in light of previous research into differences in grammatical and pragmatic abilities between EFLs, ESLs, and native speakers of English.

Saowanee Treerat

Ph.D. Candidate

Department of Second Language Studies

Indiana University Bloomington