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Abstract: This study investigates the apology strategies used by the speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic. The various strategies used by the two groups, in addition to the causes of any potential differences, constitute the crux of the analysis. American and Jordanian respondents have been found to differ in their use of apology strategies. Differences involve using several manifestations of explicit apology among other less explicit apology strategies. The authors further examined the differences between male and female respondents in both groups and found that there were more differences between Jordanian male and female respondents than between American male and female respondents, which may be attributed to the fact that there is a greater similarity between how boys and girls are raised in the U.S. than between how they are raised in Jordan. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A mounting body of evidence suggests that despite the existence of shared underlying elements, politeness is realized differently across cultures. This study examines the politeness strategies used by 50 Jordanian native speakers of Arabic and 50 American native speakers of English. A 9-item Discourse-Completion Task was used to collect the data for the purpose of identifying potential similarities and differences in the use of (and response to) politeness strategies between Jordanian speakers of Arabic and American speakers of English. The two sample groups were found to employ similar politeness strategies with varying frequencies and realizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]