Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the act of apologizing with subjects from two different levels of English proficiency to find out whether there are similarities and differences between these groups and whether they approach native speaker apology norms. 20 subjects in intermediate level, 20 subjects in advanced level and 10 native speakers of English participate in the study. The data are gathered by a Discourse Completion Test that had 8 apology situations. In the analysis of the data, all responses are categorized according to Cohen and Olshtain’s (1981) apology speech act set. The results of the study reveal some similarities and differences between the two groups. Their L1 can be said to have an influence on their use of apologies, especially intermediate level subjects transfer native Turkish speaker norms into English.

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