This study looks into the apology strategies used by adult speakers of Cameroon Pidgin English, an area which has received little attention. The data consisted of some 105 recalled conversations between an offender and an offendee and the analysis drew from the model developed by Bergman and Kasper [1]. The analysis revealed a number of facts. First the common contexts which require that someone should apologise to his/her mate include, amongst others, lies or gossiping, insulting or embarrassing one’s partner, cheating on or deceiving a partner, and stealing or taking away property without permission. Second, the most common strategies employed by these speakers were found to include: use of illocutionary force device (100% of 105 conversations), recall of the offence (86.67%), use of address terms (66.67%), and lastly, use of devices to reduce the severity of the offence (60%).
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Simo Bobda, A. and Wolf, H.G. (2003) Pidgin English in Cameroon in the New Millennium. In: Lucko, P., Peter, L. and Wolf, H.G., Eds., Studies in African Varieties of English, Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 101-117.
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Ozon, G., Ayafor, M., Green, M. and Fitzgerald, S. (2017) The Spoken Corpus of Cameroon Pidgin English. World Englishes, 36, 428-447. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12280
Kouega, J.P. (2009) Telephone Openings and Goodbyes in Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE). Annals of the Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences, 1, 45-60.
Abu-Humei, A.M.A. (2013) The Effect of Gender and Status on the Apology Strategy Used by American Native Speakers of English and Iraqi EFL University Students. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 3, 145-173.
Batanieh, R.F. and Bataineh, R.F. (2006) American University Students’ Apology Strategies: An Intercultural Analysis of the Effect of Gender, Yarmouk University. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 9, 1404-1634.
Cohen, A.D. and Olshtain, E. (1985) Comparing Apologies across Languages. In: Jankowsky, K.R., Ed., Scientific and Humanistic Dimensions of Language, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 175-183. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.22.28coh
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Alsulayyi, M.N. (2017) A Contrastive Study of the Use of Apology Strategies by Saudi EFL Teachers and British Native Speakers of English: A Pragmatic Approach. International Journal of English Linguistics, 7, 45-57.
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