Apologising in Saudi Arabic: A sociopragmatic analysis

This study describes how Saudi Arabic speakers apologise across socially varied situations. A written discourse completion task was completed by 102 male Saudi undergraduates. It yielded 811 responses to eight scenarios differing in social distance, power relationship, and severity of offence. Responses were coded for the five apology strategies of the CCSARP tradition. Because the scenarios vary in several respects at once, the study compares apology behaviour across situation types rather than isolating single variables. Saudi apologies emerged as elaborate, multi-move acts anchored in the explicit apology formula. Most responses combined an apology expression with an explanation, and over half offered repair. Overt acknowledgement of responsibility appeared in under a quarter of responses, and promises of forbearance were rare. Two situational patterns stood out. Offers of repair clustered in the close-relationship scenarios. Overt responsibility acknowledgement was largely confined to the two scenarios in which the speaker apologises for prior rudeness towards a service worker. Explanations were most frequent in apologies to superiors, and no forbearance promises occurred for minor offences. The analysis is framed through rapport management, Culpeper's impoliteness work, and Saudi-grounded face research. It documents culture-specific formulae, including oath intensifiers and the relational formula ḥaqqak 'alayya, through which responsibility and reassurance are made culturally legible.