Email Apologies by Native and Nonnative English Speakers: What Do They Do? Why do They Do It? Dongmei Cheng Nothern Arizona University

Email Apologies by Native and Nonnative English Speakers:

What Do They Do? Why do They Do It?

Dongmei ChengNothern Arizona University

Research Goal

To explore the use of email apologies written by native and nonnative English speaking students to instructors in college settings.

Research Questions1. How are the various semantic

strategies used by native and nonnative English speaking students in their email apologies to instructors?

2. How are the various stance markers used by native and nonnative English speaking students in their email apologies to instructors?

a) Modals & semi-models; b) hedges; c) amplifiers; d) conditionals

3. What are the thoughts and considerations of the participants in writing the apology emails?

Participants Total N=40 (NES=21; NNES=19) NESs (Female=13; Male=8)

Freshmen who are taking the first-year composition course

NNESs (Female=3; Male=16) Advanced learners in the IEP program at NAU 12 come from mainland China 5 Arabic, 1 Japanese and 1 Korean L1

students. Mean length of English language instruction: 7.42 years Mean length of stay in the U.S.: 11.04 months

Participants

Group Mean SD

NES 18.57 .51

NNES 19.89 1.37

Participants’ Age:

Previous instruction on email writing:

self-reported by 4 NESs and 3 NNESs—instruction on email format

(e.g. greeting & closing remarks)

Materials A written instruction sheet containing

the following three prompts: You have missed today’s class. Write an

email to your instructor regarding this. You have missed today’s appointment with

your instructor. Write an email to him/her regarding this.

You have turned in your paper late. Write an email to your instructor regarding this.

Materials

Creation of the prompts: The three situations—1) Class

absence; 2) Missed appointment; and 3) Late paper were the most common ones in the natural emails sent by the same student population as the participants in this study.

Analysis A coding scheme for semantic strategies (See handout):

1. Expression: sorry, apology, apologies, apologize, etc.2. Acknowledgement: It’s totally my fault.3. Explanation: My computer broke down.4. Repair: I hope we can schedule another meeting. 5. Promise: I promise this won’t happen again. 6. Statement: This is Tom from your English class. 7. Asking: Thank you for your understanding. 8. Combination: I’m sorry for missing class today.

Adapted from the coding scheme by Cohen & Olshtain (1981)

Analysis Linguistic devices (Handout Table 1)

Stance Markers: lexical/phrasal features that show stance

Modals (& semi-modals): can, could, have to Hedges: Words/phrases that have the effect of

toning down the message, e.g. I hope, I know, I was wondering, possible, possibly

Amplifiers: Words/phrases that lend emphasis to the message, e.g. very, so, sincere(ly), really

If-Conditionals: If I missed anything in class today, would you please let me know?

Analysis Coding procedure (Continued)

All emails (63 NES emails & 57 NNES emails) were divided into T-units (a T-unit=an independent clause with all its dependent clauses).

T-units recoding after a week: 99.07% intra-rater reliability Numbers of T-units (for norming purposes): NES NNES Class Absence 116 64 Missed Appt 107 70 Late Paper 117 66 Total 340 200

Analysis

Coding procedures (continued) Each T-unit was assigned with a code (1-7)

corresponding with the semantic strategy types in the coding scheme. For combination strategies, codes such as 16 or 63 were assigned.

A second coder independently coded 50% of the data after a brief training using non-sample emails.

Analysis

Coding procedures (continued) Overall inter-rater reliability : 85.07% (60 emails)

Class Absence: 84.69% (20 emails) Missed Appointment: 87.10% (20 emails) Late Paper: 83.51% (20 emails)

Major disagreement: Strategy 3 (Explanation) vs. Strategy 6 (Statement)

I was not able to make it in time because of traffic. Combining Strategy 3 and 6 into one resulted an inter-rater

reliability of 95.31%.

Analysis

Normed frequency = (Raw counts/total T-units) * 100 Normed frequencies were used for

all statistical procedures. Alpha was preset at .05.

Quantitative Results RQ1: the use of semantic strategies

RQ1.1. Does each speaker group use each type of semantic strategy differently across the three scenarios?

(within-group difference) Friedman tests (nonparametric alternatives to one-

way repeated-measure ANOVAs)) RQ1.2. Is there a difference in the use of each type of

semantic strategy between the NES and the NNES group in each scenario and overall?

(between-group difference) Mann-Whitney tests (nonparametric alternative to

independent t-tests)Note: Refer to Figure 1 on handout

Quantitative Results

NESs’ use of semantic strategies (RQ1.1) Acknowledgement of inconvenience/self-

blame: Missed Appt>Class Abse “ I am thoroughly disappointed in myself for not

being fully organized and forgetting our meeting date.”

“I realized that you have taken time out your day in order to assist me on my work.”


NESs’ use of semantic strategies (RQ1.1) Offers of repairs: Class Abse>Late Paper Missed Appt>Late Paper

“I will do my part to see to it that this does not happen again, or that I notify you prior.”

“If there is anyway that we could make it up later on in the week at our convenience, that would be great.”


NNESs’ use of semantic strategies (RQ1.1): Statement of name/event: Class Abse>Missed Appt Late Paper>Missed Appt

“This is Mary.” “I am your student, Mary.”

Quantitative Results NNESs’ use of semantic strategies

(RQ1.1) Combination strategy:

Class Abse>Missed Appt Missed Appt>Late Paper

“I have missed today’s class because of headache.” “I missed it (it=the appointment), because today PIE

is hectic all day.” “I am sorry to miss your class today, because I met

with some unexpected trouble.”

Quantitative Results Semantic strategy use between NESs and

NNESs (RQ1.2) Expression of apology:

NNESs>NESs (Missed Appt) NNESs>NESs (Total)

Combination strategy: NNESs>NESs (Class Abse) NNESs>NESs (Late Paper) NNESs>NESs (Total)

Offer of repair: NESs>NNESs (Class Abse)

Quantitative Results RQ2. the use of stance markers (See Figure 2 on handout)

(modals; hedges; amplifiers & conditionals) RQ2.1. Does each speaker group use the four types of

stance markers differently in each of the three scenarios and overall?

(within-group difference) (Friedman tests) RQ2.2. Does each speaker group use each of the four type

of stance markers differently across the three scenarios? (within-group difference) (Friedman tests) RQ2.3. Do the two speaker groups use stance markers

differently in response to each of the three scenarios and overall? (between-group difference) (Mann-Whitney tests)


RQ2.1. the use of four types of stance markers within one speaker group: the four stance markers appeared in

different frequencies in the emails written by both groups.

NNESs most preferred to use modals to show stance, while NESs most preferred to use amplifiers.

Conditionals were the most rarely used ones by both groups.

Quantitative Results RQ2.2. the use of four types of stance

markers within the NES group: The four most frequently used modals by NESs

were would, could, can and will. Amplifiers were used significantly more often

than hedges and conditionals in response to all three scenarios, and they were even used more frequently than modals in response to late paper.

Quantitative Results and Discussion

Most of the modals used by NESs were embedded in requests or promises of non-occurrence, typically appeared towards the end of the email messages:

“If I missed anything in class today, would you please let me know so that I can make them up?”

“I was wondering if there was any way you could let me know what the homework is for the next class period.”

“I promise I will never miss the following classes.”

Quantitative Results & Discussion

The wide range of amplifiers used by NESs: Class Abse: “It seems that I have unfortunately come

down with the swine flue.” Missed Appt: “I am very sorry” . “I would greatly appreciate if you would allow me to

schedule another time emotionally-loaded adjectives and adverbs such as

“deeply”, “sincere(ly)”, “completely”, “thoroughly”, “mistakenly” and “swamped” .

Late Paper: “I take full responsibilities for the consequences of it.”

“I’m hoping I can still get some sort of credit for this assignment.”

Quantitative Results & Discussion

RQ2.2. the use of four types of stance markers within the NNES group: The most frequently used modals by NNESs were

can, will and could. a very small range of amplifiers with almost none

emotionally-loaded adjs/advs. The three major amplifiers were “very”, “so” and

“really”.


RQ2.3 between-group difference in the use of stance markers NESs utilized significantly more amplifiers,

conditionals and total stance markers than NNESs in their apology emails.

Qualitative Results from Retrospective Interviews

Perceptions of language use and educational exposure Use respectful/polite language

using apology-related politeness markers , especially the word “sorry” was mentioned by more NNESs (15 out of 19) than by the NESs (10 out of 21).

using other politeness markers, especially an expression to show thanks towards the end of the email was mentioned more by the NESs (12 out of 21) than by the NNESs (3 out of 19). The NESs attributed their reasons for using the expression thank you or thank you for your understanding to good manners.


Perceptions of language use and educational exposure Language transfer

NES: transfer from informal communication “i am very sorry that i missed todays appointment. is

there any way we can reschedule? i have been very busy and it completely slipped my mind i am very sorry. i hope you can understand where i am coming from. Thank you.”

NNES: transfer from L1 “I am your student, **. I am sorry i turned in the paper

late. I hope you will not be angry about that.”


Perceptions of language use and educational exposure Use specific language

In explaining their reasons in providing an account for their “wrong-doings” in the emails, all 21 NESs articulated that in order to be polite to the instructors, it was necessary to explain the detailed reasons to avoid any misunderstandings. However, only 10 NNESs mentioned that they think it is necessary to provide clear reasons to their instructors.


Perceptions of situation differences Severity of the situation: A missed

appointment with the instructor was considered as the most severe “wrong-doing” among the three.

NNESs’ awareness of the different concept of an appointment in the U.S. compared to their home culture.

Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Summary of Quantitative Results:Within-group differences

NESs used four types of semantic strategies (acknowledgement, repair, asking & combination) differently across scenarios, whereas NNESs used two types (statement & combination) differently.

Modals were found to result a significant difference in usage across the three scenarios for both groups.

Summary of Quantitative Results:Between-group differences

NNESs used more expressions of apologies and combination semantic strategies than NESs.

NESs used more amplifiers, conditionals and total stance markers than NNESs.

Summary of Qualitative Results

Perceptions of language use and educational exposure Use respectful/polite language Use specific language Language transfer

Perceptions of situation differences Difference in severity Cultural concept of missing an

appointment

Participants Both groups were recruited from the

freshman composition course at NAU. NESs: from a session taught by the

researcher (female, nonnative, in her 20s) NNESs: from a session taught by a native-

English-speaking American (male, in his 40s).

The two sessions used the same curriculum . Both instructors went through the same teacher training in the composition program.

Procedure Setting: 50-minute computer lab session Instructor explained the details of the research. Instructor asked for volunteers to participate. The participants signed informed consent,

completed background surveys and sent three emails in response to the three prompts in the written instruction sheet.

The ESL instructor forwarded his students’ emails to the researcher.

Analysis Coding procedures

Total sample size=120 (emails) NES: 63 emails; NNES: 57 emails

The emails were compiled into six separate word documents:

NES_Class Abse; NES_Missed Appt; NES_Late Paper; NNES_Class Abse; NNES_Missed Appt; NNES_Late Paper

The length of the main message of each email was obtained through the automatic word count tool on Microsoft Word 2007.

Results on the Mean Length

Results and discussions

RQ1: any difference in the mean email length between the two groups? Independent t-tests In all three scenarios, the American

students wrote significantly longer emails than the ESL students (p<.05).

Results and discussion

RQ3. the use of linguistic devices The use of politeness markers

RQ3.1. Is there a difference in the use of each type of politeness markers between the American and the ESL groups in their apology emails?

(Between-group difference) RQ3.2. Does each of the speaker groups

(American vs. ESL) use each type of politeness markers differently across the three scenarios?

(Within-group difference)

Analysis

Linguistic Devices Politeness Markers: words that are

related to apologies or other speech acts (i.e. thanking & requests) showing politeness

Apology-related: apologize, sorry, apology, apologies and excuse.

Others: thank(s) and please. Stance Markers

Analysis

Coding procedures (continued) The emails were coded for two major

types of linguistic devices along with their sub-types.

Politeness markers: sorry, apologize, apology, apologies, excuse, thank(s) and please.

“Find” function on Microsoft Word 2007 Hand-check for left-out words due to spelling

mistakes

Analysis Coding procedures (continued)

Stance Markers coding Modals (&Semi-modals) and conditionals were

identified through automatic word search followed by hand-check

I read through each email and identified words and phrases that function to tone down the message (hedges) and to lend emphasis to the message (amplifiers).

I then compiled a comprehensive list (very inclusive) of hedges and amplifiers, divided by scenarios and groups.

An applied linguistic professor helped me to scrutinize the list and made changes.

The revised list was used for word count of the hedges and amplifiers in the emails.

Results on the use of politeness

markers


Figure 4. A comparison of politeness markers across the three scenarios and two groups

Results and discussion RQ3.1. results from Mann-Whitney test

The ESL group used apology-related politeness markers significantly more often than the American group

There was not a significant difference in the use of other politeness markers between the two groups

The most frequently used politeness markers by both speaker groups was sorry, which had a normed frequency of 23.5 for the ESL group and 12.06 for the American group.


RQ3.2. results from Friedman test a significant difference in the use of

apology-related politeness markers by the Americans across the three scenarios.

both groups did not show a significant difference in the use of other politeness markers across the three scenarios


RQ.3.2. Post-hoc results from Wilcoxon test

Apology-related politeness markers used by Americans:

Missed Appt>Class Absence Missed Appt>Late Paper

Apology-related politeness markers used by ESLs:

Class Absence>Late Paper

Documents

Email Apologies by Native and Nonnative English Speakers: What Do They Do? Why do They Do It? Dongmei Cheng Nothern Arizona University