BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 The development of apologies in the Japanese L2 of adult English native speakers Seonaid Beckwith* and Jean-Marc Dewaele** *RCEAL, University of Cambridge ** Centre for Multilingual & Multicultural Research, Birkbeck, University of London _______________________________________________________________________ Abstract The present paper focuses on the use of seven apologies strategies in the Japanese of 20 adult, high-intermediate English learners/users of Japanese. Nine of these learners had spent a minimum of two years in Japan. The proportions of apology strategies produced by the two groups of learners in response to 8 situations presented to them in a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) were compared with data obtained from a control group of 14 Japanese L1 participants and a control group of 12 British English L1 participants. In total, 1999 tokens of apology strategies were collected. Statistical analyses and an analysis of lexical items allowed us to describe the learners‟ development and the effect of the stay in Japan. _______________________________________________________________________ Introduction Research on cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics has witnessed explosive growth in recent years (e.g. Barron 2003, Barron and Warga 2007, Kinginger, 2008, Kraft and Geluykens 2007). This longitudinal and cross-sectional research has been carried out into various language combinations, such as Irish English NSs learning German (Barron 2003), and Austrian German NSs learning French (Warga and Schölmberger 2007). There have also been several studies into Japanese NSs learning English (e.g. Kondo 1997, Matsumura 2007, Park and Nakano 1999), and English L1 learning Japanese (Marriott 1995) and on various speech acts; for example, requests (e.g. Barron 2003, Félix-Brasdefer 2004) and apologies (Warga and Schölmberger 2007, Kondo 1997). One general finding of these studies is the non-linear nature of pragmatic development, which has been explained in terms of pragmatic transfer from the L1, typical learner behaviour such as over-generalisation, the influence of the „complexification hypothesis‟ and the presence or absence of noticing opportunities and negative feedback. _________________________ E-mail address for correspondence: [email protected] and [email protected] 2 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 Relatively little work has been done on the development of apologies of English L1 learners of Japanese (see however Tamanaha 2003). This is a particularly interesting area of research as Japanese politeness strategies are regulated by complex culture-specific norms (Pizziconi 2003, 2007a, b). Okumura and Li Wei (2000) have argued that differences in the cultural concept of self explain different communicative behaviour of British and Japanese participants. The British self is “more independent and public” while the Japanese self is “group-oriented and private” (p. 7). The authors link this cultural distinction to their finding that Japanese participants apologised not only for themselves but also on behalf of family members. Japanese participants also used elaborate combinations of strategies when apologising to close friends. In contrast, British participants used simple strategies and apologised only for what they had done themselves (p. 20). The originality of the present study also lies in the selection of the second experimental group. While most studies focus on the effect of a single academic year abroad, the present study looks at a number of participants who have spent at least two years in the target language community. The analysis focuses on the use of illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs), explanations, verbal redress, intensifiers, offers of repair, and acceptance of responsibility by L2 learners/users who lived in Japan and compares this with strategy choices of learners who have not lived in Japan and with baseline data from English and Japanese NSs. First, we will provide a brief review of several studies in this area, before moving on to describe the method used, participants and results, finally linking the findings with results from other researchers, and discussing possible explanations for the findings. Background There have been several studies which focus on the effect of proficiency on pragmatic competence (cf. Rose 2000, Sabaté i Dalmau and Curell i Gotor 2007, Trosborg 1995). These researchers report that in many cases grammatical and pragmatic competence seem to develop together but relatively independently. Individual differences have been linked to learning context and time spent in the target language community. Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnyei (1998) looked at the pragmatic awareness of advanced Hungarian EFL learners of English and compared it with that of advanced ESL learners living in the USA. They found that the EFL students rated grammatical errors as worse than pragmatic ones, whereas the ESL students did the opposite, acting in the same way as the control group of English NSs, leading to the idea that studying in the target language community gives rise to increased pragmatic awareness, and possibly improved pragmatic competence. Other studies have followed students who studied abroad. Warga and Schölmberger (2007) investigate the effect of study abroad on the 3 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 pragmatic development of the apologies of seven Austrian L1 learners of French, who spent 10 months in Quebec. Data was also taken from native speakers of Quebecois French and Austrian German. The results were mixed: some aspects moved towards the L2 norm (for example, the number of justifications used decreased), some did not change (for example overuse of IFID), and some moved away from the L2 norm (for example, use of upgraders). Interestingly, the excuse rather than the IFID was the most common strategy used by the learners, which is different both from the usual findings and from the NS norm in both languages. Félix-Brasdefer (2004) studied the refusals of English L1 learners of Spanish from the USA who had spent various amounts of time, ranging from 1 to 30 months, in Latin America and compared the results with baseline data from English and Spanish NSs. He found pragmatic development occurred over the 30 months, with participants who had spent at least nine months in the target language community demonstrating more native-like refusals, using more lexical and syntactic mitigation and more negotiation, than those who had spent less than five months abroad. Barron (2003) investigated a group of Irish (English L1) learners of German who spent an academic year in Germany as part of their degree program. She also found some aspects of the learners‟ language became more native-like but other aspects moved away form the L2 norm (e.g. use of „kein problem‟ - a direct translation of „no problem‟ a minimizer in English but not German). Evidence of negative transfer was also apparent even after time abroad. Learners‟ pragmalinguistic competence appeared to increase as they were able to make more complex requests and use a wider range of strategies, including internal modification, than before their time abroad. However, their sociopragmatic competence seemed to develop more slowly, as, although the students achieved some situational variation, it did not always correspond to the L2 norm. Kondo (1997) studied Japanese learners of English who spent a year in the USA. She found that many of their apology strategies, such as the use of explanation, or the percentage of utterances containing an IFID, moved closer to the L2 norm and that the amount of negative transfer decreased during the learners‟ time abroad. However, the tendency to use repeated IFIDs, characteristic of Japanese rather than American apologies did not change during the time. On the other hand, there were also a few moves away from the L2 norm, for example, the learners overused the „concern for hearer‟ strategy. While Marriott (1995) did not look at a particular speech act, she studied Australian high school students of Japanese who spent one year in Japan, and found that while most of them at the beginning of their stay used the neutrally polite form of the verb (e.g. 飲みます nomimasu „(I) drink‟), during their time abroad they began to use the plain or familiar form (飲む nomu „(I) drink‟). However, they over-generalised this form, which Japanese NSs use with friends and family, using it in formal situations, for example with the interviewer during data collection, and 4 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 switching apparently randomly between the two forms. They also did not develop their use of address forms, continuing to refer to out-group third parties without the use of the polite さん „san‟ with the name, something which is very negatively evaluated by native speakers. There were, however, some moves towards the L2 norm; for example, the students increased their use of politeness routines, and opening and closing formulae towards native-like competence. In summary, these studies point out some important effects towards and away from the L2 norm that can be triggered by time abroad, but also stress the non-linear nature of this kind of pragmatic development. Method Participants Data were collected from a total of 46 participants: two control groups of monolinguals (English and Japanese NSs), and two groups of high- intermediate English NS learners/users of Japanese. The first experimental group of English NS students (which will be referred to as NNS1) consists of eleven participants (5 women, 6 men, age 20–55, mean age 34) who had studied Japanese only in the UK and had spent no more time in Japan than a two-week holiday. The second experimental group (NNS2) consists of nine participants (6 women, 3 men, age 28–43, mean age 32) who had spent at least eight months studying or working in Japan. In this group, four learners had spent more than two years living in Japan. The learners were drawn from several different intermediate level classes (Japanese classes at Birkbeck, SOAS, and Alpha Japanese Language School, all in London). The groups are fairly small, but they are comparable with several other studies in the area, such as Félix-Brasdefer (2004), who had six participants in each group. The first control group consisted of 14 British English NSs (hence NSE) (7 women, 7 men, age 25–55, mean age 34). The second control group consisted of 12 Japanese NSs (hence NSJ) (8 women, 4 men, age 25–56, mean age 37). The research instrument All the participants were asked to complete a discourse completion task (DTC), which was written in both English and Japanese, to avoid any problem of comprehension for the learners. The eight apology situations used have already been validated by several studies e.g. Sabaté i Dalmau and Curell i Gotor (2007), Trosborg (1995). The situations included various social settings and different levels of social distance and social dominance. See appendix A for the full questionnaire. DCTs have been shown to have both strengths and weaknesses. Geluykens (2007: 35) points out that „they cannot provide authentic speech but only written approximations‟. The data elicited through DCTs 5 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 is therefore not comparable to natural spoken language. The fact that there is no turn-taking and that the emotional investment is quite different when facing a sheet of paper compared to facing an actual person is undeniable. One more potential problem with DCTs is that they may elicit descriptions of facts, and are subject to being misunderstood by participants. In the present study, this was minimised by having instructions in both Japanese and English; however one participant‟s DCT had to be disregarded as he had misunderstood the instructions. The redeeming feature of DCTs is that they „can provide insights into what subjects think they would do in a certain situation, in the process revealing tendencies or penchants for certain formulations and routine behaviours‟ (2007: 36). Also, data can be quickly collected, and the context can be easily controlled and varied. For these reasons, they are much used in acquisitional pragmatics (see e.g. Sabaté i Dalmau and Curell i Gotor, 2007). The situations used in the present study were as follows: 1. A university lecturer has not finished marking a student‟s essay (unfinished marking). 2. A student has forgotten to bring a lecturer‟s book that he/she borrowed (forgotten book). 3. The manager of a café is late to begin an interview with a candidate (late manager). 4. A waiter brings the wrong dish to a customer (wrong dish). 5. A student is late to meet a friend (late student). 6. A person bumps his/her car into another car in a car park (bumped car). 7. An office worker offends a colleague during a meeting (offended colleague). 8. A person‟s bag falls onto another person on a bus (fallen bag). Coding The coding categories used were based on the CCSARP coding manual, Blum-Kulka et al (1989), and Kondo (1997). Seven categories of apology strategies were created: 1) IFID; 2) Repeated IFIDs; 3) Explanation; 4) Acceptance of responsibility; 5) Offer of repair; 6) Verbal Redress; 7) Intensifier1. An IFID is a typical expression used to apologise. In English, an example of an IFID would be „I‟m sorry‟ or „I apologise‟, whereas in Japanese the most common IFIDs are ごめなさい(gomenasai) „I‟m sorry‟ and すみません (sumimasen) „I‟m sorry‟, „excuse me‟. Other IFIDs are ごめん (gomen) „sorry‟, ごめんね (gomenne) „sorry‟. The three following IFIDs mean „I‟m sorry‟, literally: „it‟s inexcusable‟), with increasingly polite verbs: もうしわけない (moushiwakenai), もうしわ けありません (moushiwake arimasen), もうしわけございません (moushiwake gozaimansen). The next two IFIDs mean „I‟m sorry‟, 6 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 literally: „I‟m being rude‟, with the second verb being more polite: しつ れいします (shitsurei shimasu),しつれいいたしました (shitsurei itashimashita). The final two IFIDs are ゆるしてください (yurushite kudasai) „Please forgive me‟ and おま た せしました (omatase shimashita) „I‟m sorry for being late‟. A repetition of IFIDs was coded separately. The next category was the use of an explanation to apologize, such as e.g. バスが遅れました (basu ga okuremashita) „The bus was late‟. Acceptance of responsibility could be a statement of the thing that the speaker has done wrong: e.g. 本を忘れました (hon wo wasuremashita) „I have forgotten the book‟; the same as previously with verb-te shimaimashita: e.g. 本 を 忘 れ て し ま い ま し た (hon wo wasureteshimaimashita) „I have unfortunately forgotten the book‟ (discussed below); explicit self-blame: e.g. 悪かった (warukatta) „That was bad (of me)‟; lack of intent: e.g. 違いました (chigaimashita) „I made a mistake‟. Offers of repair could either be straight: e.g. 明日持ってきます „ashitamottekimasu’ („I‟ll bring it tomorrow‟) or could be accompanied by a request: e.g. 明日はだいじょうぶですか (ashita wa daijoubu desu ka) „Is it okay if I bring it tomorrow?‟ Verbal redress could either be an expression of concern for the hearer: e.g. だいじょうぶですか (daijoubu desu ka) „Are you okay?‟ or a promise of forbearance: e.g.それは再び起こりません (sore wa futatabi okorimasen) „It won‟t happen again‟. Intensification with an adverb inside the IFID constitutes the last category: ほんとうに (hontou ni) „really‟ and たいへん (taihen) „terribly‟. There was, however, one strategy for which the coding category was unclear, as mentioned earlier. In Japanese it is possible to convey a sense of regret about an action by using the expression verb-te shimaimashita. Compare the first utterance, which is simply a statement of fact: 私はコーヒー を 落としました watashi ha kohi wo otoshimashita (I topic marker coffee direct object marker drop past) („I dropped the coffee‟) and the second utterance which includes the speaker‟s regret: 私はコーヒーを落としてしまいました watashi ha kohi wo otoshite shimaimashita I regrettably dropped the coffee / I unfortunately dropped the coffee and I‟m embarrassed about it. Meier (1997) has a category for „negative feelings‟ in which he includes the speaker‟s being embarrassed, and in Warga and Schölmberger (2007), excuses are divided into those that include the word malheureusement („unfortunately‟), which could be a good translation of verb-te shimaimashita, and those which do not. However, in Blum-Kulka 7 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 et al.‟s CCSARP coding manual (1989), an expression of embarrassment is coded under „taking on responsibility‟ and, as this expression can only occur with a statement of responsibility, we have decided to code it as a subset of that category. The same coding scheme was used for the English apology strategies. The most frequent IFIDs for the NSE were: I’m sorry, I apologise and Excuse me. Intensification included the following words: really, very, so, terribly, extremely. Research questions 1) Is the distribution of apology strategies comparable among our NSE and NSJ? 2) If not, is the distribution of apology strategies different in the two NNS groups (NNS1 and NNS2)? 3) Does the distribution of the NNS groups approximate the Japanese or the British English NS distribution patterns more closely? 4) Which lexical items are used by the groups of learners and the NSJ? Results Table 1 shows how the 1999 tokens of apology strategies are distributed per group and type of apology strategy. Table 1: Total number of apology strategies produced by Native speakers of English (NSE), Non Native speakers of Japanese who had not been in Japan (NNS1), Non Native speakers of Japanese who had been in Japan (NNS2), and Native speakers of Japanese (NSJ) Accept Re- -ance peated Explana respon- Offer Verbal Intensi- Group IFID IFID -tion sibility repair Redress fier Total 101 3 28 97 19 56 97 NSE 401 321 24 9 64 19 7 12 NNS1 456 276 74 5 49 22 4 14 NNS2 444 375 82 28 83 71 16 43 NSJ 698 We calculated the proportion of apology strategies for every participant as this permitted a statistical analysis of the data. Independent samples t-tests were used to determine the differences in the proportion of a particular apology strategy between NSE and NSJ, NS1 and NNS2, NNS1/2 and NSJ, NNS1/2 and NSE. Figure 1 shows the distribution of apology strategies across the four groups of speakers. What strikes immediately is the difference between 8 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 the NSE and the NSJ, with the learners approximating the target language distribution. In the following sections we will look at the differences between the four groups for each apology strategy. Figure 1: Distribution of the 7 apology strategies produced by the NSE, the NNS1 and NNS2 and the NSJ 100% 90% Intensifier 80% Verbal redress 70% Offer of repair 60% Acceptance of 50% responsability Explanation 40% 30% Repeated IFID 20% IFID 10% 0% NSE NNS1 NNS2 NSJ IFIDs The proportion of IFIDs used by NSJ (Mean = 54.6%, SD = 9.0) is significantly higher (t = -7.0, p < .0001) than the proportion of IFIDs in the apology strategies of the NSE (27.6%, SD = 10.4). The difference between both groups of learners is not statistically significant (Mean NNS1 = 70.8%, SD = 9.5 compared to Mean NNS2 = 63.6%, SD = 14.1 respectively; t = 1.3, p = ns). A comparison between NNS1 and NSJ shows a significant difference (t = 4.2, p < .0001). The difference between NNS2 and NSJ is not significant anymore (t = 1.8, p = .09). The proportions of this strategy are significantly different between NNS1 and NSE (t = -10.7, p < .0001) and so is the difference between NNS2 and NSE (t = -7.0, p < .0001). A closer analysis of data on specific situations showed that the „unfinished marking‟ situation invited the fewest IFIDs in general, while the „bumped car‟ situation elicited the fewest from the NSE. The NNS1 are closer to the NSE in this latter situation, using an IFID in 91% of 9 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 utterances, while the NNS2 use an IFID in 100% of utterances like the NSJ. This could be seen as a move towards the L2 norm. The „late student‟ situation also elicited significantly fewer IFIDs from the NSE than from any of the NSJ; both groups of learners and the NSJ used an in IFID in 100% of utterances in this situation. On the other hand, all the groups including the NSE used an IFID 100% of the time in the „wrong dish‟ situation. Repetition of IFIDs NSJ used a repeated IFID (i.e. used a word meaning „sorry‟ more than once), significantly more (t = -4.7, p < .0001) than NSE (Mean NSJ = 11.2%, SD = 7.9 compared to Mean NSE = 0.8%, SD = 2.2). The difference between both groups of learners is also significant (t = -2.5, p < .022) with NNS1 using fewer repeated IFIDs (Mean = 4.9%, SD = 9.5) compared to NNS2 (Mean = 15.7%, SD = 9.4) A comparison between NNS1 and NSJ shows a non-significant difference (t = -1.7, p = .10). The difference between NNS2 and NSJ is not significant either (t = 1.2, p = ns). The proportions of the repeated IFID strategy are not significantly different between NNS1 and NSE is (t = -1.6, p = ns) but the difference between NNS2 and NSE is highly significant (t = -5.7, p < .0001). Choice of IFIDs As Sabaté i Dalmau and Curell i Gotor (2007) suggest, English has a very small number of lexical items to draw from in apologies. They compared English to Catalan; however the same is true of Japanese, which uses a much wider range of lexical items to apologise than English, making the choice of an IFID a problem for English NS learners. The data show that in fact the choice of IFID by both groups of learners differed significantly from that of the NSJ. The most frequently used IFIDs were すみません (sumimasen, meaning „I‟m sorry‟ or „excuse me‟), ごめなさい / ごめん / ごめんね (gomenasai / gomen / gomenne), also translated as „I‟m sorry‟ or „sorry‟) and 申し訳ありません / 申し訳ございません (moushiwake arimasen / moushiwake gozaimasen, literally „it‟s inexcusable‟ but generally translated as „I‟m sorry‟). This latter is more formal than the previous two. (see figure 2). 10 Apologies in Japanese L2, BISAL 3, 2008, 1-26 Figure 2: Proportion of types of IFIDS used by the NNS1, NNS2 and NSJ. Types of IFID used in total 70 60 50 NNS1 40 % NNS2 30 NSJ 20 10 0 gomen etc sumimasen moushiwake other no IFID Figure 3 also shows that NNS1 overuse sumimasen compared to the NSJ using it 61% (n = 52) compared to the NSJ‟s 30% (n = 28). NNS2 seem closer to the L2 norm in their use of sumimasen; however their use of gomenasai etcetera (49%, n = 34) also differs from the Japanese (32%, n = 30). Neither NNS1 nor NNS2 use moushiwake arimasen etcetera in a way that approximates the L2 norm. In the „wrong dish‟ situation, every utterance from both the NSJ and both groups of learners contained an IFID. However the kind of IFID used differed considerably, as shown in Figure 3. Figure 3: Proportion of types of IFIDS used by the NNS1, NNS2 and NSJ in response to the „wrong dish‟ situation. 'Wrong Dish' Situation IFIDs 80 70 60 NNS1 50 % 40 NNS2 30 NSJ 20 10 go0menasaisumimasmeonushiwakehinawiakearimawsaeknegozaimashietnsureishimassurueiitashimasu us hi s hit mo ous s m In this situation, NNS2 used sumimasen, which is a polite neutral form, less than the NNS1 group, who rely very heavily on it and so are closer to