Symposium article: Role-plays as a data collection method for research on apology speech acts

Abstract

The study of speech acts in different languages is a complex endeavor, with many factors that could influence the outcome of the research if not carefully attended to. One of these factors is the methodology and instrument used in collecting the data for the study. The instruments used in most of the studies on apologies are discourse completion tests, interviews, questionnaires, corpus linguistics, or natural interactions. Only few used role-plays. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the use of role-plays is a valid and effective method of collecting data for the analysis of apologies. To support this claim, data collected through the use of role-plays are compared to data collected with the help of a discourse completion test at a university in Romania.