Gender and Communicative Styles in Apologising Among Students of the University of Bamenda

Abstract

Lack of understanding of some social indicators, cultural values (values of apology) and the importance of face may lead to communication breakdown, discrimination and conflict. In this regard, this paper set out to identify apology strategies of male and female students of The University of Bamenda, to determine the attitude of male and female users of English in The University of Bamenda towards the use of face in social interactions, and to verify the extent to which culture influences their apology strategies. To carry out this study, 50 participants (made up of 25 boys and 25 girls among level 400 geography students from the faculty of arts) between the ages 20 and 35 were purposefully selected as respondents to our questionnaire. The findings indicated that the two genders have different strategies in offering apology and that the female gender apologises more than the male, this is demonstrated in the use of the difference theory. Also, most of the respondents felt that people are polite in most conversations to pass across their ideas or make the conversation good, this shows that most of them do not give pride of place to the issue of face in social interactions. Also, the findings indicated that culture and cultural practices influence social interaction between both genders. This, ties with a study conducted by Bataineh and Bataineh (2005) which was aimed at investigating the potential gender effects in American students’ use of apologies within the framework of the two-culture theory. The researchers recommended that, the use of speech acts specifically in apology strategies in male and female communication styles should be given more attention by students, teachers, curriculum developers, policy makers and governments so as to enhance its teaching, knowledge and usage by young Cameroonian speakers of English.