Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699

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Journal of Pragmatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Apology strategies in Persian

Mohammad Shariati a, Fariba Chamani b,*
a
Azad University of Jiroft, Iran
b
Hormozgan University, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: The present study is a research into the frequency, combination, and sequential position of
Received 2 December 2007 apology strategies in Persian. The investigation is based on a corpus of 500 naturally-
Received in revised form 15 October 2009 occurring apology exchanges, collected through an ethnographic method of observation.
Accepted 16 October 2009
The results revealed that (1) explicit expression of apology with a request for forgiveness
(bebaxšid) was the most common apology strategy in Persian. (2) The aforementioned
Keywords:
strategy together with acknowledgement of responsibility formed the most frequent
Pragmatics
Speech acts combination of apology strategies in this language. (3) The same set of apology strategies
Apology speech act used in other investigated languages was common in Persian; however, preferences for
Apology strategies using these strategies appeared to be culture-specific.
Persian ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Different areas of use and interpretation of language, with regard to meaning and pragmatic functions, are studied under
the general headings of semantics and pragmatics. However despite many attempts to draw a distinction between semantics
and pragmatics, there seems to be no general agreement as to what the distinction really amounts to. While a sharp
distinction between these two areas seems very difficult to make, most of the topics investigated in these areas are
categorized under pragmatics.
Communicative acts or simply speech acts have proved to be one of the attractive areas in pragmatics and
sociolinguistics. With a more inclusive view of speech as a form of communication, one may start with the analysis of
speech act in terms of its components or the functions. This can, partially, make up for basic limitations of theoretical
linguists of the past who considered sentence as the largest unit of analysis, and referential meaning as the only relevant sort
of meaning.
However, while speech acts operate by universal pragmatic principles (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969, 1975; Leech, 1983),
they vary in conceptualization and verbalization across cultures and languages (Green, 1975; Wierzbicka, 1985). Thus, to
establish universal features of speech acts, it seems necessary to investigate their typical realization pattern within many
languages. The rationale is confirmed in the following quotation: ‘‘If claims for the pragmatic universality are to approximate
any type of validity, they should be based on the empirical investigation of many more and diverse languages’’ (Blum-Kulka
et al., 1989:8).
The present study is, hence, an attempt to explore the realization of apology speech act, which tends to be more situation-
dependent and less frequent than other speech acts (Overfield, 1995). It is also to examine the frequency, combination, and

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 761 6671404; fax: +98 761 6670711.
E-mail addresses: mohammad_shariati@hotmail.com (M. Shariati), faribachamani@yahoo.com (F. Chamani).

0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.10.007
1690 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699

sequential position of apology strategies in Persian to see how the universality of apologies should be treated in this
language.

2. Review of literature

One of the speech acts that has long attracted the attention of scholars dealing with social and cultural patterns in
language is apologizing. Speech act theory defines and classifies prototypical apology based on the felicity conditions for its
realization that includes an apologetic performative verb and an expression of regret (Suszczyńska, 1999). Apology is also
defined according to the functions it may serve. For instance, it is taken as a remedial work used to remedy a real or virtual
offense to maintain or restore social harmony (Goffman, 1971), or as a negative politeness strategy that indicates S
(speaker)’s ‘‘reluctance to impinge on H (hearer)’s negative face’’ to save the hearer’s face needs (Brown and Levinson,
1987:187). Furthermore, it is defined as a ‘‘speech act set of maximal potential semantic formulas, any one of which can act
as a minimal element to represent apology’’ (Olshtain and Cohen, 1983:20).
Apologies have been mostly investigated in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics (Deutschmann, 2003) to compare the
use of apology speech act between native English speakers and native speakers of other languages like Hebrew (Cohen and
Olshtain, 1981; Olshtain, 1989), Spanish (Garcia, 1989), Danish (Kasper, 1989; Trosborg, 1987, 1995), German (House, 1989),
Austrian (Meier, 1992, 1996), Egyptian (Soliman, 2003), and Persian (Eslami-Rasekh, 2004).
Most of these cross-cultural studies have been carried out within CCSARP (Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Pattern)
project ‘‘to compare across languages the realization patterns of two speech acts – requests and apologies – and to establish
the similarities and differences between native and non-native speakers’ realization patterns in these two acts’’ (Blum-Kulka
and Olshtain, 1984:196). The results were to be used in communicative language teaching.
Within CCSARP project American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian French, German, Hebrew, and
Russian were examined, based on the elicited data obtained through role-play, from four hundred university students for
each language, and coded according to CCSARP coding manual (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1984). The results of this project
demonstrated ‘‘surprising similarities in IFID [Illocutionary Force Indicating Device] and expression of responsibility
preferences’’ (Olshtain, 1989:171).
Inter-language apology studies, however, generally investigate the production and perception of apologies by non-native
language learners. They have so far compared the use of apologies in English with other languages including German (Meier,
1997; Vollmer and Olshtain, 1989), Polish and Hungarian (Suszczyńska, 1999), Spanish (Uruguay, Marquez Reiter, 2000),
Russian (Olshtain and Cohen, 1983), and Hebrew (Olshtain and Cohen, 1983; Olshtain, 1989).
In addition, several monocultural apology studies have been carried out that include American English (Edmondson,
1981; Fraser, 1981; Wolfson et al., 1989; Tannen, 1994; Mattson Bean and Johnstone, 1994), New Zealand English (Holmes,
1989, 1990), British English (Owen, 1983; Aijmer, 1995, 1996; Deutschmann, 2003), German (Vollmer and Olshtaion, 1989),
Japanese (Ide, 1998), Akan (O’beng, 1999), Lombok, Indonesia (Wouk, 2006), Jordanian (Fahmi Bataineh and Fahmi Bataineh,
2006), and Persian (Tajvidi, 2000; Pejman Fard, 2004; Afghari, 2007).
The studies mentioned above have mostly investigated western languages. They have defined apology against the
background of the western socio-cultural system, which may not be the same in other cultural contexts (Coulmas, 1981;
Liebersohn et al., 2004). Furthermore, ethnographic observation has been less applied for data collection while in a majority
of research, DCT or role-play has been used.
Therefore, this study intends to explore and categorize the range of strategies used to apologize in Persian (a non-western
language). It is also an attempt to see if Persian apologies are as formulaic as English apologies have shown to be (Holmes,
1990; Wolfson and Judd, 1983). To do so, it seeks to find answers to the following questions, based on a corpus of natural data
collected through an ethnographic method of observation.

1. What apology strategies do Persian speakers use more frequently to apologize?

2. What lexemes do Persian speakers use more frequently in explicit apologies?
3. In what combinations do Persian speakers use apology strategies?
4. In what positions do Persian speakers use apology strategies?

3. Methodology

Previous research into apologies is said to have been mostly based on the data elicited through role-play (Cohen
and Olshtain, 1981; Olshtain, 1989; Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1984; Trosborg, 1987). It has been argued that
elicited data are valuable because they reveal the forms that natives and non-natives know, and show the range
of strategies that the respondents think they would use in specific situations (Holmes, 1990). However, Bonikowska
(1988) claimed that the respondents may be forced to perform an apology in predetermined situations while in real
interaction they may decide to opt out. Moreover, as Cohen and Olshtain (1998:47) argued, ‘‘Role-play forces the
subjects to take on a role they would not assume in real life, or they may not be good actors, then it elicits an unnatural
behavior’’.
Hence, it has been suggested that the data obtained through ethnographic observation seem to be more representative of
the language used in natural settings, and although it is time-consuming and difficult, it may give insights on how people
 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699 1691

apologize in natural communication (Olshtain and Cohen, 1983; Trosborg, 1987; Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Holmes, 1990;
Rose, 1994).
However, as Wolfson et al. (1989:194) declared, ‘‘An ideal way for data collection for the study of speech acts is based on
both systematic observation and elicitation procedures and analysis’’. As a preliminary step, it seems sensible to observe as
wide a range of situations as possible to obtain some idea of the range of apology strategies that are used, their frequency,
combination and position, and the type of offenses that elicit them.

3.1. Data collection

This study is based on a corpus of 500 apology exchanges, in spoken standard Persian, collected through an ethnographic
approach to observation, with the data written down rather than recorded. This method was employed successfully by
Manes and Wolfson (1981), as well as Holmes (1990). The data were produced by 1250 interlocutors of different genders and
ages in 2006.
Since collecting apologies in natural settings is time-consuming and as there is a risk that enough samples may not be
collected during a specific period of time, the authors decided to use the help of some assistants in data collection. It was
made sure the assistants were familiar with, and interested enough in the subject to follow the data collection procedures
precisely.
Two volunteers, an MA in linguistics and an MA in literature, helped with data collection. They were briefed in
advance. The authors informed them that they were going to investigate how Persian speakers apologize in
everyday life situations and, more specifically, what words they use to make an apology. For example, what would they
say when they want to apologize for being late for a meeting, for forgetting to keep a promise, or for insulting a friend in
a party?
Then, they were asked to note down the dialogues containing common apology lexemes in Persian in some forms
prepared beforehand. These forms consisted of three parts including demographic information about interlocutors (gender,
age, education, and occupation), contextual details (where, when, who apologized to whom, and why), and the exact words
of the actual conversations (see Appendix A). The observers were advised to write down the exact words used in the apology
exchanges spontaneously, and avoid inducing apologies.
The researchers and their assistants were taking notes of apology exchanges in everyday life situations like
home, workplace, university, shop, street, outdoors, and even on the bus or taxi during a period of more than one year in
four different cities in Iran. They were acting as both observers (onlookers) and participant observers in apology
exchanges.
This study was intended to obtain an idea of the range of apology strategies in Persian, and since it was not predictable
how many apologies were made during a specific period of time, haphazard accidental sampling was used for data collection.
The observers had to wait until apologies were performed to write them down. This means that the study was longitudinal,
taking a period of over one year, and at the same time cross-sectional in that a team of observers did it simultaneously in
different cities of Iran, which again multiplies the time by the number of observers.
For the ethics of research, the friends and relatives of the observers were advised that their apologies would be noted
down as part of a research. However, the data were made anonymous both for those who were aware of our purpose and for
others as well.

3.2. Coding scheme and data analysis

Different classification systems have been devised for apology strategies (Fraser, 1981; Owen, 1983; Trosborg, 1987;
Meier, 1992; Sugimoto, 1997; Brown and Attrado, 2000). In this study, the data were analyzed according to the framework
provided by Olshtain and Cohen (1983). It is claimed that this model has been developed empirically and its universal
applicability has been successfully tested on various languages (Olshtain, 1989).
According to Olshtain and Cohen (1983) if the offender accepts the responsibility for the offense committed, s/he may
select five possible strategies to apologize, which are as follows:

1. An expression of apology
A. An expression of regret, e.g., I’m sorry (mote?asefam)
B. An offer of apology, e.g., I apologize (?ozr/ma?zerat mixâm)
C. A request for forgiveness, e.g., forgive me (bebaxšid)
2. An explanation or account of the situation, e.g., The bus was late (?otobus dir kard).
3. An acknowledgement of responsibility
A. Accepting the blame, e.g., It was my fault (taqsire man bud).
B. Expressing self-deficiency, e.g., I was confused (man gij budam).
C. Recognizing the other person as deserving apology, e.g., you are right (haq bâ šomâst).
D. Expressing lack of intent, e.g., I didn’t mean to (manzuri nadâštam).
4. An offer of repair, e.g., I’ll help you get up (komaket mikonam boland ši).
5. A promise of forbearance, e.g., It won’t happen again (dige tekrâr nemiše).
1692 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699

However, if the offender rejects the need to apologize, s/he may not react at all; yet where s/he has a verbal reaction, it
can be:

1. A denial of the need to apologize, e.g., There was no need for you to get insulted
2. A denial of responsibility
A. Not accepting the blame, e.g., it wasn’t my fault.
B. Blaming the other participant, e.g., it’s your own fault.

4. Results and discussion

Before considering distribution of apology strategies in Persian, as the main concern of this study, it seems necessary to
give a brief account of what people were apologizing for (offense types), and to whom these apologies were performed.
As Norrick (1978:281) pointed out, in addition to showing the speaker’s regret for an offense committed, apologies often
serve different social functions as ‘‘to evince good manners, to assuage the addressee’s wrath, or simply to get off the hook
and be on one’s way’’. Then, an apology utterance can serve different illocutionary forces in different situations.
Apology forms can express regret not only for an offense that has occurred but also for an offense that is about to occur as
‘disarming moves’ to cause the hearer to withdraw a proceeding complain (Edmondson, 1981). Moreover, apology
expressions may act as attention-getters, gratitude formulas, and leave taking devices (Coulmas, 1981). Apologies may also
be used as ‘facilitating moves’ in situations in which apologies are not really expected or required (Fraser, 1981). In Persian,
apologies are even used to show sympathy and condolence.
As Coulmas (1981:69) declared, ‘‘One of the central problems in contrastive analysis is the relation between form and
function in language’’. The existing overlaps between different speech acts are addressed as one of the central problems with
speech act theory, as well (Austin, 1962; Thomas, 1995). Therefore, it is not an easy task to distinguish fully between these
functions in diverse situations.
In addition, if we want to know how a communicative function is realized in a given community we need to know how the
function is defined in that community. Unfortunately, the previous apology studies in Persian have taken it for granted that
the definition of apology and the situations that obligate an apology in Persian are the same as in western languages. Thus,
this area needs to be examined thoroughly in the future studies.
Hence, because of the complications mentioned above, the present study focuses only on the form of apologies and their
function may be investigated in the future studies. It just provides a general view of what people were apologizing for in the
corpus according to Holmes’ (1990:177) categories. It should be noticed that this is not a vigorous classification of offense
types in Persian and what presented here is neither comprehensive nor conclusive. Nevertheless, our descriptive statistics
begin with Table 1 which shows the frequency of the offense types observed in the corpus.

Table 1
Offense types found in the corpus.

Offense types No. %

Inconvenience, e.g., inadequate service or action 182 37

Space, e.g., infringements on another’s personal space 117 23
Possessions, e.g., damage or loss of properties 96 19
Talk, e.g., impolite talk or intrusion on another’s talk 64 13
Time, e.g., wasting the time of a person 41 8

Total 500 100

As the table shows, more than half of the apologies (60%) in the corpus were performed because of committing offenses
related to inconvenience and space while the fewest apologies were obligated by time offenses. Moreover, a further analysis
of the corpus revealed that 80% of apologies were real apologies performed in relation to the concept of ‘prototypical’ apology
(i.e., an expression of real regret for a serious offense). The remaining apologies occurred for trivial offenses, with a few
apologies for showing gratitude or making a request.
In addition, it might be interesting to note that 43% of apologies were exchanged between strangers, 30% between
intimates, and 27% between friends. Besides, 50% of apologies were exchanged among equals, 33% were performed by
speakers of a higher status, and 17% by those with less power, and most of the apologies occurred between equal friends.

4.1. Apology strategies

Within the 500 apology exchanges analyzed in the present study, 1000 cases of strategy use were detected. Because in
some situations two or more different sub-strategies of explicit expression of apology and acknowledgement of
responsibility were used, each was considered as one occurrence. Besides, in many situations a combination of different
apology strategies was used. Table 2 illustrates the frequency of different apology strategies in the corpus.
 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699 1693

Table 2
Apology strategies used in the corpus.

Strategies No. %

IFIDs 632 63
Acknowledging responsibility 193 20
Explanation 79 8
Offer of repair 63 6
Promise of forbearance 33 3

Total 1000 100

As the table shows, IFID with 632 times of occurrences was the most common strategy in the corpus (63%). Since there
were some sub-formulas for this strategy, it will be discussed in detail in section 4.1.1. On the other hand, promise of
forbearance as the least frequent apology strategy was used 33 times (3%).
The results are in line with Tajvidi (2000), Eslami-Rasekh (2004), Pejman Fard (2004), and Afghari (2007), who also found
relatively the same hierarchy of apology strategies in Persian. In the same way, Holmes (1990) identified IFID and
explanation as the most frequent apology strategies in New Zealand English that accounted for 94% of the strategies in her
corpus.
However, Vollmer and Olshtain (1989) reported acknowledgement of responsibility as the most common strategy and
promise of forbearance as the least frequent one in German. Trosborg (1987) also found the same results in Danish, while in
her study explanation and offer of repair were the most common apology strategies in English. In another study, Olshtain
(1989) reported IFID and acknowledgement of responsibility as the most frequent strategies and explanation as the least
common one in Hebrew, Canadian French and Australian English. Therefore, it appears that preferences for the use of
apology strategies vary across languages perhaps because of the different socio-cultural values that govern language use in
these cultures. Here forth, the strategies are dealt with in detail, one by one.

4.1.1. IFIDs
In all the apology exchanges analyzed in the present study, there was at least one IFID per situation. In cases where there
were more different IFIDs within the same situation, they were counted individually, whereas repetition of the same strategy
was considered as its single occurrence. Table 3 lists the IFIDs and their frequency in the corpus.

Table 3
Distribution of the IFIDs in the corpus.

IFIDs No. %

Request for forgiveness: bebaxšid (forgive me) 368 58

Offer of apology:?ozr/ma?zerat mixâm (I apologize) 156 25
Expression of shame: šarmandam (I’m ashamed) 92 15
Expression of regret: mote?asefam (I’m sorry) 16 2

Total 632 100

As the table shows, four types of IFIDs were found in the corpus, three of which, i.e., request for forgiveness, offer of
apology, and expression of regret, fit into the sub-categories specified by Olshtain and Cohen (1983). Furthermore,
expression of shame, as a new and additional IFID not considered in Olshtain and Cohen’s (1983) model, was used routinely
for performing an apology in Persian.
Request for forgiveness (bebaxšid) was the most frequent IFID in the corpus. This confirms Afghari (2007), yet, not Eslami-
Rasekh (2004) and Pejman Fard (2004) who reported offer of apology (?ozr/ma?zerat mixâm) as the most common IFID in
Persian. Whereas, an expression of regret (mote?asefam) was used less than other IFIDS.
Therefore, it seems that in Persian like other investigated languages, some forms like bebaxšid, ?ozr/mazerat mixâm,
šarmandam, and mote?asefam are used in explicit expression of apology. This is a matter of pragmalinguistics that refers to
‘‘the particular resources that a given language provides for conveying particular illocution’’, and it may be distinguished
from sociopragmatics that ‘‘investigates the ways in which specific social conditions affect pragmatic performance’’ in Leech’s
(1983:11) terms.
It is claimed that the most frequent IFID in English is an expression of regret (sorry) (Owen, 1983; Blum-Kulka and
Olshtain, 1984; Holmes, 1990; Mattson Bean and Johnstone, 1994; Deutschmann, 2003). In Hungarian (Suszczyńska, 1999) it
is ne haragudjon (don’t be angry), in Polish it is an offer of apology (przepraszam), in Indonesian (Wouk, 2006) it is a request
for forgiveness (ma?âf).
As Wierzbicka (1985) claimed, different preferences in the use of apology forms seem to be rooted in different cultural
norms and assumptions. Therefore, in a religious country like Iran one possible reason for selecting bebaxšid (forgive me), as
the most frequent form of apology, may be the teachings of Islam, which emphasizes respecting the rights of others regarding
their body, feeling, face, and properties.
1694 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699

On the other hand, Iranian culture considers human beings as different parts of the same body, and encourages
establishing friendly relationships among people, while it disapproves keeping distance from others. Therefore, bebaxšid
(forgive me) is more common among Iranians probably because it builds the least distance between speaker and hearer.
Another possible explanation is that bebaxšid is pronounced much easier than other forms while it consists of more semantic
components. Iranian young children, thus, acquire and utter this form before other ones, and get used to it.
Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the expression of shame, i.e., šarmandam was not used as an apology form in the
languages investigated so far, and it is apparently specific to Persian language. Iranians are expected to feel and express
shame for doing something wrong to someone. This is well illustrated in the advice attributed to Zarathustra (Iranian
prophet in the 6th century BC): ‘‘good thought, good talk, and good deed’’. In the following example, the speaker apologizes
for bad talk about the hearer.

[Two friends, A apologizes B for backbiting her]

A. man bâyad ye čizi behet begam. . .?e. . .man fekr kardam to rafti be ostâd gofti?emtehân ro kansel
kone. . .?asabâni šodam va. . .qeybatet ro kardam. . . šarmandam . . . goftam to xeyli xodxâhi. . . man?azat
ma?zerat mixâm.
(I must tell you something. . .er. . .I thought you went to the instructor and asked him to cancel the exam, I
became angry and . . . I’m ashamed . . . I told you are very selfish. . .I apologize.
B. xâheš mikonam, mohem nist.
(Don’t mention it, I don’t mind)

It should be noted that context seems to play an important role in IFID selection in Persian; depending on the nature and
severity of offense, formality of situation, the relation between interlocutors (relative power and social distance), intensity of
regret, and the extent to which the speaker is responsible for the fault, Persian speakers may use different forms to apologize.
This area deserves to become an object of study in itself.

4.1.2. Responsibility
As stated before, acknowledgement of responsibility was realized in a number of sub-strategies, ranging from accepting
the blame to the complete denial of responsibility. Table 4 shows these sub-categories and the number of their occurrences
in the corpus.

Table 4
Distribution of sub-strategies of Responsibility.

Sub-strategies No. %

Accepting the blame 18 9

Expressing self-deficiency 142 74
Justifying the hearer 2 1
Expressing lack of intent 21 11
Denial of the need to apologize 2 1
Denial of responsibility 8 4

Total 193 100

As the table shows, in most cases the apologizers expressed self-deficiency in order to acknowledge responsibility for the
offenses committed, while denial of the need to apologize and justifying the hearer occurred a few times.

4.2. Strategy combinations

Within 500 apology exchanges analyzed in this study, only 132 cases (26%) included a single IFID, while, in 368 instances
(74%) a combination of strategies were used. Different combinations of apology strategies found in the corpus are presented
in Table 5.

Table 5
Strategy combinations.

Combinations No. %

Aa 126 25.2
AA 37 7.4
AAA 1 0.2
AAAC 1 0.2
AAACCA 1 0.2
AAB 5 1.0
 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699 1695

Table 5 (Continued )
Combinations No. %

AAC 18 3.6
AACB 2 0.4
AACC 3 0.6
AACE 1 0.2
AAD 4 0.8
AAE 2 0.4
AAEBC 1 0.2
AB 35 7.0
ABA 6 1.2
ABAA 1 0.2
ABAD 2 0.4
ABAE 1 0.2
ABB 1 0.2
ABBD 1 0.2
ABC 1 0.2
ABCA 2 0.4
ABD 6 1.2
ABE 2 0.4
AC 123 24.6
ACA 16 3.2
ACAC 2 0.4
ACACD 1 0.2
ACAD 2 0.4
ACAE 2 0.4
ACB 4 0.8
ACC 4 0.8
ACCAAD 1 0.2
ACCAC 1 0.2
ACCCE 1 0.2
ACCD 2 0.4
ACCEA 1 0.2
ACD 3 0.6
ACDA 1 0.2
ACDCD 1 0.2
ACE 2 0.4
AD 17 3.4
AE 13 2.6
AEAC 1 0.2
BA 7 1.4
BAA 2 0.4
BAEA 1 0.2
BCAA 1 0.2
BCAAAE 1 0.2
BCAAD 1 0.2
CA 11 2.2
CAA 3 0.6
CAAAD 1 0.2
CAAAE 1 0.2
CAAD 1 0.2
CACA 1 0.2
CACAD 1 0.2
CACD 1 0.2
CAD 1 0.2
CADA 1 0.2
CAE 1 0.2
CBAE 1 0.2
CCA 1 0.2
CCAA 2 0.4
CCACA 1 0.2
CCCAE 1 0.2

Total 500 100

a
A = explicit expression of apology; B = explanation or account; C = acknowl-
edgement of responsibility; D = offer of repair; E = promise of forbearance.

The instances in category A were explicit apologies that occurred alone, while, those in categories B, C, and D (Table 5)
were combined with explicit apologies. As Table 5 illustrates, 66 different combinations of apology strategies were
used in the corpus. This wide range of combinations has been summarized in Table 6, based on their number of
occurrences.
1696 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699

Table 6
Combination patterns.

Patterns No. %

Aa 126 25
AC 123 24
ACX 44 9
AAX 39 8
AA 37 7
AB 35 7
CX 29 6
ABX 23 5
AD 17 4
AE 14 3
BX 13 2

Total 500 100

a
A = an explicit expression of apology; B = an explanation or account;
C = an acknowledgement of responsibility; D = an offer of repair; E = a
promise of forbearance; X = any strategy or strategies.

As Table 6 shows, the most common combination pattern included an explicit expression of apology with an
acknowledgement of responsibility (A and C) that was used 123 times (24%). While, the least frequent one was a combination
of an explanation with another strategy or strategies (B and X) that occurred 13 times (2%).
The notion of directness and indirectness has been mostly discussed with directives. It is argued that politeness strategies
are arranged from the least to the most direct ones (Leech, 1983; Brown and Levinson, 1978). However, as Holmes
(1990:168) declared, ‘‘This generalization does not hold for speech acts like apologies that directly benefit rather than
impose on the addressee’’. According to this view, instances in category A are direct apologies, if used alone without an
explicit apology, while those in categories B, C, D, and E are indirect apologies because they appear to make an excuse or to
take responsibility for some undesirable action, or to make a promise. Holmes (1990:168) claimed, ‘‘Polite apologies
normally include an explicit apology combined with another strategy’’.
This does not mean that using a single IFID is impolite because in some situations an elaborate apology may make things
worse. For example, suppose that a child has committed a big fault for the third time, though it had promised not to do so. It
comes to the angry mother, pretending to be extremely sorry and ashamed, then staring on the floor, with an apologetic and
sad tone says:

‘‘Mommy, I wanted to. . .’’

Mother interrupts it saying: ‘‘I want to hear no more’’.
But the child insists: ‘‘forgive me, I . . .’’
Mother again interrupts it: ‘‘oh I said shut up!’’

Now, it is not difficult to imagine what will happen if the child continues to employ other apology strategies, the mother will
possibly get mad. Furthermore, in addition to the combination of apology strategies used, many other social and contextual
variables such as power and social distance between the interlocutors, nature and severity of offense, formality of situation, and
reactions of the addressee seem to interact with each other to determine the appropriateness of an apology in a specific situation.
Therefore, in this study the number of strategies used in apologies varied across different situations (see Table 5). In 25%
of cases, only one single strategy was used, while in 49% of combinations two strategies were employed. Furthermore, three
or more strategies were used jointly in 26% of apologies.
It is interesting to note that traditional Iranians consider apologizing as a sign of weakness and thus it is not an easy task
for them to admit their mistakes. A young peasant may be proud to declare or simply bluff that he has apologized to no one
throughout his life, while others regularly apologize to him. On the contrary, for modern educated Iranians apologizing is
indicative of politeness and of belonging to the highest social class. However, both groups usually reject the apologies or
accept them after receiving a long list of apology strategies. Therefore, in most situations a combination of apology strategies
is used to satisfy the addressee.

4.3. Sequential position of apology strategies

Another interesting point in the study of apologies is the position of apology strategies in different strategy combinations,
which is demonstrated in Table 7.
As the table shows, A (explicit expression of apology) may occur in all five positions, whereas B (explanation) does not occur
in places 4 and 5, and C (responsibility) does not occur in place 5. Furthermore, D (offer of repair) and E (promise of forbearance)
do not occur in places 1 and 5. Of course, these patterns should not be taken as absolute co-occurrence restrictions. They simply
describe the positions of apology strategies found in the corpus and can be compared with the patterns found in other corpora.
 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699 1697

Table 7
Position of each strategy in the strategy combinations.

Position 1 Position 2 Position 3 Position 4 Position 5

A A A A A
B B B – –
C C C C –
– D D D –
– E E E –

It is worth mentioning that as far as the researchers know, only Holmes (1990) has investigated the position of apology
strategies. Considering her report, in New Zealand English, apology strategies occur with relatively the same patterns as in
Persian.
To sum up, the results revealed that explicit expression of apology with a request for forgiveness (bebaxšid) was the most
common apology strategy in Persian. This strategy together with acknowledgement of responsibility formed the most frequent
combination of apology strategies in this language. Thus, it seems that the same set of apology strategies used in other
investigated languages was common in Persian; however, preferences for using these strategies appeared to be culture-
specific.

5. Limitations, suggestions for further research, and pedagogical implications

As mentioned earlier, the present study was based on a corpus of naturally-occurring apology exchanges collected
through written ethnographic observation. Certainly, it was more desirable if the data were tape-recorded because in this
way prosodic features of speech sounds, as an important aspect of apology exchange, were available. Nonetheless, the study
provides a useful source of information on the range of apologies and their semantic forms.
Moreover, it would have been more desirable if interlocutors had been interviewed about their apologies. However, it was
neither possible for the observers to arrange an interview in all situations, nor the interlocutors were ready to stop for an
interview. Nevertheless, the collected information could provide answer for the research questions of this study adequately.
Furthermore because this communicative act has not been defined in Persian, the present study explored it based on a
western view. The framework for the analysis of apology strategies also is devised based on a western understanding of
apologies. Thus, the results of the study may be affected by that problem. This seems to be a good topic for further research.
This study examines the form, frequency, combination, and sequence of apology strategies in Persian. To arrive at more
definite conclusions about apology realizations in Persian, the results of this research need to be supported by further
research. Moreover, as Meier (1998) has suggested, the pragmalinguistic knowledge provided by such studies remains at a
descriptive level, and more studies are needed to find in-depth explanations for the apology behavior of Persian speakers.
Therefore, some related issues that need further investigation are:

1. Investigating the pragmatics of apologies, e.g., who says what to whom when and why.
2. Finding the effect of social variables (age, gender, and social class of interlocutors), and contextual factors (the relation
between interlocutors, i.e., social distance and power, severity of offense, intensity of regret, sincerity of apology, and
formality of situation) on apologies.
3. Investigating the apology responses as one aspect of apologies.
4. Finding the effect of apologies on the offended party and apology responses.

Nevertheless, findings of the present study may be helpful to the learners of Persian who need to know the popular forms
of apology as well as the situations in which these forms may be used to communicate effectively and appropriately in
Persian. Moreover, the results of this study may be compared and contrasted with that of similar studies on other languages
with the aim of discovering similarities and differences in the realization of apologies across languages in order to promote
Persian learners to be cautious about inappropriate transferring of these norms to target language, which may lead to
misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication.

6. Conclusion

The present study was aimed at exploring and describing apology strategies in spoken Persian, based on a corpus of 500
apology exchanges. The results indicated that Persian speakers apologized through using the same strategies included in
speech act set, while they used IFID with a request for forgiveness (bebaxšid) more than other strategies. Therefore, it seems
that in Persian, apologies are as formulaic as in other investigated languages, yet preferences for using apology strategies
seem to be culture-specific.
In addition, it was found that 73.6% of apologies included more strategies than a single IFID, and a combination of IFID
with acknowledgement of responsibility, as the most frequent combination, occurred in all cases that a real offense was
committed. The results, on the one hand, confirm previous findings suggesting the universality of apology strategies and on
the other hand, it supports the scholars who emphasize the culture-specific aspect of language.
1698 M. Shariati, F. Chamani / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1689–1699

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Maryam Karami and Ali Sabeti for their great assistance in data collection. We are also indebted to
Mats Deutschmann from Umeå University for his valuable comments and advise. Special thanks go to Zohre Eslami-Rasekh
from Texas A&M University and Bilal Al-Adaileh from Leeds University for their kindly helps in providing some valuable
sources on apologies. Finally, so many thanks to the respectful reviewers for their kindly and helpful suggestions that
improved this article.

Appendix A

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