This study examined differences in how native English speakers and English language learners perceive politeness in apologies. Both groups identified similar criteria for judging politeness, but emphasized criteria differently. While learners' criteria were similar to native speakers', the degree of emphasis differed. The study implies language instruction should increase learners' awareness of how politeness is perceived across cultures to help learners understand native speaker social norms.

1. Cross-cultural Perceptions of Impoliteness
by Native English Speakers and EFL
Learners : The Case of Apology Speech Act
Dr. Tajeddin
By: Sh. Tamizrad
Fall 2014

2. Content
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Purpose of the Study
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion

3. Introduction
• Two important linguistic phenomena: politeness and impoliteness.
• linguistic appropriateness is related to the proper use of
vocabulary, syntax, and idioms.
• Pragmatic appropriateness is a matter of being aware of the social
and cultural norms of the L2 community, including the observation of
politeness principles to avoid impoliteness and face-threatening act.
• L2 learners cannot master any second language without learning its
cultural norms and social conventions of politeness.

4. Introduction
• Culpeper,2005: Impoliteness is a phenomenon that deals with how
offence takes place and is communicated in the absence of
politeness. Impoliteness is an offence purposefully performed to
threaten the interlocutor’s face.
• The degree of face threat depends on the variables of social power,
social distance, and imposition.
• Interlocutors tend to seek harmonious interactions and to minimize
any conflict and confrontation in their conversational communication.

5. Introduction
• Focus of the study: Native speakers’ and English as a foreign language
(EFL) learners’ perception of (im)politeness realized in apology production
and on variation in the perceptions of (im)politeness across the two groups.
• Apology is used as the target speech act because:
1. Apology is among the speech acts which are most likely to be considered as
impolite when the speaker does not use sufficient apology strategies to produce it.
2. Due to its face-threatening nature and its roots in sociocultural norms, the study
of apology from a cross-cultural perspective can show how different cultures and
native/non-native speakers differ in their perception of what constitutes an instance
of impolite apology performance.

6. Literature Review
1. The Concepts of Politeness and Impoliteness
• Lakoff (1989): “A means of minimizing the risk of confrontation in discourse—both
the possibility of confrontation occurring at all, and the possibility that a
confrontation will be perceived as threatening.”
• Lakoff’s three politeness maxims: a) do not impose, b) give opinion, and c) make
the listener feel good.
• Lakoff’s politeness principle later developed by Leech (1983) and Brown and
Levinson (1987)
• Leech (1983): Politeness is a principle “to maintain the social equilibrium and the
friendly relations which enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being
cooperative in the first place”.

7. Literature Review
• While politeness focuses on the way intractants use linguistic strategies to
conduct a harmonious social contact, impoliteness concentrates on how
interactants use linguistic strategies to cause offence and face attack.
• According to Eelen (1999, 2001), most approaches to politeness are biased. They
do not consider impoliteness as prominent as politeness.
• Regarding the inadequacies of the current politeness theories, Bousfield (2008)
calls for a comprehensive framework of impoliteness and states that
impoliteness should be concentrated systematically.
• To Bousfield, a true impoliteness behavior occurs when the speaker has the
intention of offending the hearer and the hearer recognizes the offence which is
committed by the speaker.

8. Literature Review
1. Research on Politeness and Impoliteness
• Watts’ (2010): Explored whether there exists any relationship between politeness
and such variables as power, gender, culture, and face.
• Alemi and Tajeddin (2013): Investigated native English-speaking teachers’ and
non-native EFL teachers’ perceptions of politeness when rating refusal
performance in L2 English.
• Jalilifar (2009): explored cross-cultural variation in the use of request strategies by
EFL learners and Australian native speakers.
• Fernandez-Garcia (2000) focused on Spanish political campaign debates in order
to analyze the (im)politeness phenomenon.
• Culpeper (2005) conducted a study on how impoliteness can be entertaining.

9. Purpose of the Study
• The objective of this study: To examine variations in native English speakers’
and EFL learners’ perceptions of (im)politeness embedded in apology
production and to measure the differences and similarities in the two groups’
ratings of degree of impoliteness in apology production.
• Research Questions:
1. What criteria do native speakers of English and EFL learners apply in their
perception of (im)politeness in apology production?
2. Do native speakers of English and EFL learners differ in their rating of the
degree of (im)politeness in apology production?

10. Methodology
1. Participants:
• Two groups:
a) 177 participants for EFL learners, ages ranged from 19 to 30.
b) 75 participants for native English-speaking group, less homogeneous in terms
of age and education.
• Convenience sampling for the participants because both native and non-
native participants were selected on the basis of their availability

11. Methodology
2. Instrumentation:
• A discourse completion task (DCT) in English: consisted of eight scenarios,
each of which specified a situation for the production of apology.
• The researchers selected responses from the sample in a way that (1) the eight
responses would vary in their degrees of impoliteness for a wider range of ratings
by native speakers and EFL learners, and (2) the raters would be provided with
ample opportunity to be exposed to various realizations of impoliteness for
variation in both their ratings and their rating comments.
• A comment section in which the participant raters were asked to write down what
variables or criteria they took into account while rating a response as being polite
or impolite.

12. Methodology
3. Data Collection Procedure:
• Sample DCT responses were collected from elementary and intermediate learners.
• Sample DCT responses was given to native speakers and EFL learners.
• Both groups were asked to rate each of the DCT responses on a five-point rating
scale and to write down their rating comments to provide reasons for the selection
of a particular point on the scale.
• Native speakers’ rating data were collected electronically.
• EFL learners’ data were collected from the language center.

13. Methodology
4. Data Analysis:

14. Results
Native Speakers’ and EFL Learners’ (Im)politeness Criteria:

15. Results
Differences in Rating (Im)politeness:

16. Conclusion
• The study investigated native English speakers’ and EFL learners’ criteria
and perceptions of (im)politeness of the speech act of apology.
• The findings revealed that both native speakers and EFL learners specified almost
identical criteria for judging the (im)politeness of apology.
• The findings provide us with insights into the criteria which underlie the perceptions
of native and non-native speakers in rating the degree of the (im)politeness of a
speech act.
• Although EFL learners draw on (im)politeness criteria similar to native speakers’,
the amount of emphasis they put on each criterion differs from that of native
speakers.
•

17. Conclusion
• This study implies that EFL instruction should raise learners’ awareness of
impoliteness criteria as perceived by native speakers and of variation in the
perception of impoliteness across languages.
• EFL textbooks should provide enough exposure to the realization of politeness and
impoliteness so that learners can get familiar with native speaker norms.
• Teachers should be aware of the culture-specific nature of the speech acts and
emphasize it in the EFL classroom.
• Further research needs to be conducted to clarify the cross-cultural contrasts in the
perception of face and FTAs and, in turn, the perception of (im)politeness related to
other speech acts.