A sociolinguistic study of Turkish apology terms

Sociolinguistics is a field studying the relationship between language and society; and the language differences in a community within the context of such social parameters as gender, age, social class and network. It is also a field searching the language change and its frequency. Apologising is an act aiming the maintenance of the good relations among the participants and the act of apologising, using some politeness strategies as well, is realised in various ways according to the context and severity of the apology. This study aims at investigating the Turkish apology terms and finding the differences among these terms within the context of gender, age, social class and ethnic group. In order to find out the frequency of the use of the apology terms according to gender, age, social class and ethnic group, a survey was applied to 88 male (57%) and 66 female (42%) students from Dicle University. Through the use of SPSS 19 statistics programme, the data from the survey was analysed by detecting the frequency of the apology terms. As a result of this study, apology terms used by the students from Dicle University were identified within the context of gender, age, social class and ethnic group. Key words: Sociolinguistics, politeness, apology, age, gender, social class, ethnic group