Realization of the apology speech act by Egyptian HSL learners

Abstract This study investigated the apology speech act performed by Egyptian Hebrew learners as a second language and native Israeli Hebrew speakers. Two groups of participants were formed: 30 Egyptian participants (16 males and 14 females) and 30 Israeli participants (16 males and 14 females). The discourse completion test was chosen as an instrument for data collection. The data was analyzed based on the taxonomy of Olshtain and Cohen (1983) and Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) (CCSARP). The results of this study showed that the use of apology strategies by Egyptians was pragmatically appropriate for the responses of native Hebrew speakers in all situations. Furthermore, this study found significant similarities between Egyptians and Israelis in terms of their realization of apology strategies by demonstrating a wider use of all six apology strategies in most situations, although the percentages of apology strategies performed were slightly different between the two groups in some situations.