Remedial Action in Emails from Australian Learners of Italian to Academic Staff

Abstract

This chapter investigates the apology strategy of Remedial Action, as performed in emails by learners of Italian from Australian universities. Remedial Action refers to attempts to remedy a situation or relationship. It is an important strategy which aids in achieving the apology’s key function of maintaining and repairing relationships and, therefore, can have implications beyond the apology itself. The focus on email communication is timely given the shift of many institutions to online education in the last few years, as well as the increasing presence of technology in education even prior to 2020. Email communication fails to convey cues embedded in face-to-face interaction, particularly non-verbal cues, which often carry key pragmatic information. Without these cues, successful communication can be more difficult, and miscommunications may occur. Hence, this chapter considers student and academic staffs’ perspectives of student apologies, to understand their impact. Here, Remedial Action is explored through an analysis of elicited emails collected through a written discourse completion task (DCT), completed by both learners of Italian and native speakers of Italian and of Australian English. Authentic emails addressed by the learners to academic staff are also referenced. The perspectives of the learners are considered through excerpts from post-DCT interviews. Academic staff perspectives are considered through an appropriateness evaluation used to investigate the point of view of those receiving student apology emails. These analyses demonstrate the prevalence of Remedial Action within student-to-teacher email communication and that students and academic staff in the Australian university context may disagree in their understandings of what constitutes appropriate Remedial Action.