A Comparative Study of Apologies between English and Limbu

Abstract

This thesis entitled “A Comparative Study of Apologies between English andLimbu” makes a comparison of the forms of apologies used in the English andLimbu languages. It enlists the different forms of apologies used in twolanguages and compares the terms of apologies used in friend-friend relations,strangers, student and teacher, relatives, customer and shopkeeper and others. The data were collected from thirty native speakers of the Limbu language inTaplejung district using stratified random sampling procedure. The sources ofdata for the terms of apologies in English were based on the previous researchcarried out in the Department of English Education, encyclopedias etc. The researcher found that the respondents were more apologetic but lessconcerned for the repairs of the situations both in English and Limbu. Nativeculture was obviously thedominating factor in the use of apologies. In case ofLimbu apologies they are split into two forms; real apologies and context-specific apologies. It has been found from the study that English people expressmore apologies than Limbu people. Besides, thegravity of apology seems todepend on the situations rather than the relationship between the interlocutors incase of English whereas it depends on the relationship between the interlocutorsin case of Limbu. Apart from these, this study also concludes that the Englishlanguage has more apologetic terms to express than the Limbu language has andwomen excel their male counterparts in the expression of apologies in bothlanguages. This thesis consists of four chapters: Introduction, Methodology, Analysis andInterpretation and Findings and Recommendations. The first chapter contains general background, review of related literature,objectives of the study, significance of the study and definition of specificterms. The second chapter includes sources of data, population of the study, samplepopulation, tools for data collection, process of data collection and limitation ofthe study. Similarly, the third chapter comprises analysis and interpretation of the dataobtained and fourth chapter contains the findings and pedagogical implicationsof the study. In the final section of the study the References and Appendixes areincluded.