Assessing the pragmatic competence of Arab learners of English: The case of apology

Abstract

This paper aims at assessing the pragmatic competence of Arab EFL learners at the tertiary level. The learners’ ability to use the speech act of apology was assessed through a specially designed discourse completion test that consisted of nine items. The study aimed at answering the following questions. (1) What strategies do the participants use to express the speech act of apology? (2) What politeness strategies do the participants use in realizing this speech act? (3) What pedagogical implications may such a study have? It was found that the participants used 10 direct apology strategies and no indirect ones. It is recommended that speech acts be accorded more systematic attention at the secondary and tertiary levels of education.

Keywords

• apology
• Arab EFL learners
• pragmatic competence
• speech acts