The apology strategies of Turkish, Polish and Latvian prospective English teachers

The present study is a research into the apology strategy preference and appropriateness of the use of apology speech act of Turkish, Polish and Latvian final year English Language Teaching undergraduate learners in English. The main objective of the study is to find out whether the apology speech act productions of the three groups show difference or similarity. The total number of participants is 45, with 15 participants in each group. A Discourse Completion Test which included 4 apology situations and an appropriateness scale were used as the data gathering tools for this study. The apology strategies found in the responses of the participants were coded. Findings of the study indicated that all three groups use very similar apology strategies with some exceptions. However, Polish participants use a richer variety of strategies than Turkish and Latvian participants. Apart from these, no significant difference was observed among the groups in terms of appropriateness according to the evaluation of a native English speaker.