I International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 6 No. 6; November 2017 Australian International Academic Centre, Australia Apology Strategies Used by EFL Undergraduate Students in Indonesia Payung Cedar (Corresponding author) Faculty of Humanities, Naresuan University, Phitsanulook 65000, Thailand E-mail: payungp@nu.ac.th Received: 12-04-2017 Accepted: 08-06-2017 Advance Access Published: September 2017 Published: 01-11-2017 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.6p.214 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.6p.214 The research is financed by Naresuan University No. *R2560C078* Abstract Interlanguage speakers, regardless of proficiency level, often experience problems in communication due to their limited knowledge of how speech acts are commonly performed in the target language. The current study attempted to investigate the effects of English proficiency level on the apology strategy use by Indonesian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners from two English proficiency levels. The study employed a DCT (Discourse Completion Task) questionnaire and involved 21 A2 students and 21 B1 students majoring in English in their first-year period from an Indonesian university. Utilizing the apology strategy framework from Olshtain & Cohen (1983) and Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper (1989), the findings demonstrated no significant difference between the two subject groups in the overall use of apology strategies, whereas differences were noted at an individual strategy level. Nonetheless, the B1 group made more frequent use and a wider range of apology strategies than the A2 group. In addition, the study found two forms of pragmatic transfer made by the subjects and a new apology strategy. Keywords: apology, speech acts, discourse completion task, EFL learners 1. Introduction The English language used by people from different first languages and cultures plausibly leads to communication breakdown, misunderstanding or even offense. This is made possible as people carry certain intentions in their communicative practices that are often intricately realized and interpreted in different ways across speech and cultural groups (Bowe & Martin, 2014). Meanwhile, interlanguage speakers have a tendency to utilize their first language (L1) pragmatic conventions in their second language (L2) production due to their limited knowledge on how to carry out particular acts in the target language properly. Interestingly, such a phenomenon is not confined to low proficiency speakers as even EFL learners who gain the advanced level of grammar and vocabulary are frequently confronted with trouble in creating benevolent and proper apololgies, as well as other speech acts (Tamimi, Sa’ad & Mohammadi, 2014), owing to their limited pragmatic knowledge (Bardovi-Harlig, Hartford, Mahan-Taylor, Morgan, & Reynolds, 1991). A Korean driver, for example, apologized to an American driver by saying “I’m sorry. I’ll tell police officer and I’ll give money for you” (Turgut, 2010, p. 13). In fact, it is not the American cultural norm to offer money in a situation like this (idem). Accordingly, learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) need to possess not only linguistic knowledge, but also pragmatic knowledge of the language (Hymes, 1964) to be able to efficiently use the language in both production and comprehension in a specific socio-cultural context (Fraser, 2010). In other words, it is of great importance for EFL learners to have the ability to perform speech acts in the target language according to its working pragmatic conventions. Speech act has seemingly become the most intriguing area of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP). It can be seen from the fact that speech act is often the major focus of ILP studies, leaving other areas such as conversational structure and conversational implicature barely touched (Stalnaker, 1972 as cited in Bardovi-Harlig, 2010, p.21). It has been extensively investigated by researchers around the globe attempting to reveal values and norms of learners’ first language (L1) culture in their second language (L2) production and aimed ultimately to enhance learners’ pragmatic competence of the target language. Among the speech acts of primary use by language speakers is apology. Apology is a speech act which varies cross-linguistically and cross-culturally (Kalisz, 1993; Kachru, 1998; Chakrani, 2007; Meier, 2010) and is used frequently in human life (Salehi, 2014). Different speech and cultural communities can have different sets of available apology strategies or use particular strategies unique to certain languages depending on the norms and values they maintain. Members of particular cultures may have different judgments on what events necessitate apologies and what kinds of apology strategies should be imbued in particular situations. A number of studies have been conducted to find the realizations of apology involving participants of various cultural backgrounds. In Indonesian context, Wouk (2006), while conducting a study in Lombok, found that Indonesians used multiple strategies, primarily overt apology, and that there were no significant gender effects in strategy choice. In Flourishing Creativity & Literacy