Strategies of Apology Speech Act in Kurdish Language; A Sociolinguistic Study

Apology is an important social-pragmatic phenomenon in politeness field of study. This paper explores the apology strategies in Kurdish language by qualitative and quantitative methods. It sheds light on analyzing the data collected with the discourse completion task from 120 Kurdish subjects, supported by 24 interviews during 2016. The participants are divided by gender into 60 males and 60 females in the DCT data; 12 males vs 12 females. The results show use of similar apology strategies by both gender groups over situations, but with proportionally different frequencies, except in certain situations due to gender differences. In addition to gender as a striking social variable in Kurdish culture, the study also explores the significance of age and social status of subjects in conceptualizing apology acts. The study also displays the effect of the apology recipient’s social features on the subjects’ conceptualization and their obligation to apology. The clear significance of the apology supporting sub-strategies is also revealed in the study. The findings of the study are not consistent in many cases to those of other researchers, mainly western ones, with regard to the effect of gender and the use of responsibility strategy as an essential strategy other cultures. the study shows the collective features of the Kurdish culture which make them apologize differently, in certain situations, from other cultures. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the diversity of the apology strategies is based on the nature and severity of offence that can vary according to social norms prevailing in Kurdish culture.