Do Chinese students waffle in their apologies? An exploration into EFL learners’ emails

This study aims to investigate whether the “waffle” phenomenon is revealed in EFL learners’ apology emails in an academic context. A total of 60 students participated in this study. They comprised three groups of undergraduate students: 20 native proficient speakers of English (PSEs), 20 Chinese EFL learners (EFLCs), and 20 proficient speakers of Chinese (PSCs). The results demonstrate both generality and specificity in language users’ apology realizations. The generality is indicated by all the participants’ preference for “Direct Apology,” “Account,” “Taking on Responsibility,” and “Offers of Repair.” Specificity is noticeable in the waffling of the “Account” strategy by EFLCs. The findings shed light on the importance of explicit instruction of the pragmalinguistic features and the sociocultural values accepted in the target culture, and in the case of the current study, formality and conciseness of the language.