Performance and perception of emailed apologies by university students to academic staff: A comparison of Australian learners of Italian to native speakers of Italian and of Australian English

Abstract

This thesis falls within the field of intercultural pragmatics, exploring how Australian learners of Italian apologise to academic staff in a comparative perspective with native speakers of Italian and native speakers of Australian English. This study also investigates the perspectives of learners of Italian of their own apology performance, and the perspective of academic staff who would receive these students’ apology emails. To achieve this holistic investigation of apologies, this research adopts a mixed methodology. Firstly, a Discourse Completion Task was used to elicit emails from Australian learners of Italian, native speakers of Italian and native speakers of Australian English. Secondly, authentic emails written by Australian learners of Italian to academic staff were collected. The perspective of the learners of Italian is investigated through post-task interviews, and fieldnotes captured the opinions of native speakers of Italian. Finally, an online Appropriateness Evaluation of student emails was completed by academics of Italian Studies. Through these mixed methods, I consider the viewpoints of several participant groups to achieve a thorough exploration of apology performance, and the intent and impact of this performance. It emerges that Explicit Apologies are a frequent but unnecessary apology strategy; apologies can also be performed with Accounts or Remedial Action. The learners of Italian align with the native speakers of Australian English in their performance of Explicit Apologies and Accounts, indicating that these learners draw upon their pragmatic knowledge of English when apologising in Italian. It also arises that students’ choice of Remedial Action which implicates academic staff is not always well-received by these staff, and that Italian and Australian students hold different views of student–staff relationships and appropriate communication.