A Linguo-Cultural Approach to Apologies: The Cases of English and Spanish

Apologies are both speech acts and face-threatening acts. While apologies have received scholarly attention, they have rarely been examined through a linguo-cultural lens, i.e., studying culture through language. This paper explores apologies in English and Spanish, focusing on how cultural and contextual variables shape politeness strategies. Data was collected using Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), in which participants responded to scenarios involving varying social factors. Blum-Kulka and Olshtain’s (1984) taxonomy was used to analyse the responses. The findings revealed significant differences in the frequency and types of strategies employed, particularly a shift in the use of negative politeness strategies among English participants. The results also suggest that language shapes apology strategies and that globalisation may contribute to linguistic homogenisation.