APOLOGY STRATEGY IN ENGLISH 
BY NATIVE SPEAKER

Mezia Kemala Sari

Teacher Training and Education Faculty, 
Muhammadiyah University, Sumatera Barat

Jalan Dt. Sinaro Panjang No. 35 Padangpanjang, Sumatera Barat 27121
miss.mezia@gmail.com

Received: 16th November 2015/ Revised: 22nd February 2016/ Accepted: 1st April 2016 

How to Cite: Sari, M. K. (2016). Apology Strategy in English by Native Speaker. Lingua Cultura, 10(1), 13-17.
http://dx.doi.org/10.21512/lc.v10i1.815

ABSTRACT

This research discussed apology strategies in English by native speaker. This descriptive study was presented within the 
framework of Pragmatics based on the forms of strategies due to the coding manual as found in CCSARP (Cross-Cultural 
Speech Acts Realization Project).The goals of this study were to describe the apology strategies in English by native speaker 
and identify the influencing factors of it. Data were collected through the use of the questionnaire in the form of Discourse 
Completion Test, which was distributed to 30 native speakers. Data were classified based on the degree of familiarity and the 
social distance between speaker and hearer and then the data of native will be separated and classified by the type of strategies 
in coding manual. The results of this study are the pattern of apology strategies of native speaker brief with the pattern that 
potentially occurs IFID plus Offer of repair plus Taking on responsibility. While Alerters, Explanation and Downgrading 
appear with less number of percentage. Then, the factors that influence the apology utterance by native speakers are the social 
situation, the degree of familiarity and degree of the offence which more complicated the mistake tend to produce the most 
complex utterances by the speaker.

Keywords: apology strategies, English, native speakers

INTRODUCTION

Every day people talk or speak to variety of 
destinations. Speaking is the sharing of something and 
have the intent of the speaker. Ting-Toomey, et. Al. (2005) 
has stated that in every effective speech, there must be 
interrelatedness and mutual understanding between speaker 
and hearer. 

At first, the speech act is the center of the study of 
pragmatic pioneered by philosopher Austin (1962), then 
continued to grow, until the theories related to speech acts 
appear, as Grice (1957), Searle (1969; 1975; 1979), Leech 
(1983) and others.Broadly speaking, communication is not 
just a linguistic expression, but this is more on the use of 
expressions that accompanied the speech acts in it, such as: 
giving a statement, asking, ordering, thanking, apologizing 
and so on (Huang, 2007).

J.L. Austin (as cited in Nadar, 2009) said that 
basically speech act or acts in a pragmatic when someone 
says something, he does something, too. For example, the 
word of apologize in a speech, “I apologize for coming 
late”, is relevant to the action of the speaker when he does 
it. These speeches are the performative speech with the 
performative verb.

The most important act in the study and understanding 
of speech acts is illocutionary acts. Acts of illocutionary are 
speech acts that do not only inform everything, but it can 
also be used to do something (the act of doing something). 
While perlocutionacts are actions to affect hearers such as 
humiliating, intimidating, cajoling, and so on. The speech 
is performed by speakers, and it has a power of influence 
(perlocutionary force) that cause effects intentionally or 
unintentionally (the act of affecting someone). Locutions 
acts are a speech act that merely says something (the act of 
saying something). 

Nadar (2007) has said that a speech has a different 
function according to the situation. For example, an utterance 
can function as a regulator of the activities of others, such 
as: to govern, to express feelings, to reject, to approve, to 
ask for something and so on. Among the many examples 
of speech acts, there are one speech acts that have no less 
important role in communicating and certainly it is done by 
almost everyone, that is apology. Speech act of apology is 
important because it is needed to correct the mistakes that 
have been made, so as to improve the harmony between 
speaker and hearer.

An apology is an admission of responsibility by the 
speakers on the attitude, behavior, or failure to implement

Lingua Cultura, 10(1), May 2016, 13-17
DOI: 10.21512/lc.v10i1.815

13   Copyright©2016

P-ISSN: 1978-8118
E-ISSN: 2460-710X



14 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol.10 No.1, May 2016, 13-17     

something (Smith, 2008). This speech act is face-saving for 
the listener and is a face-threatening for speakers. Ogierman 
(2009) has said that Searle put the apology speech act in 
expressive illocutionary classification that serves to reveal 
and express the psychological attitude of the speaker to 
the circumstances implied in illocutionary. As well as 
commissive illocutionary that is more focused on the 
hearer interests, an apology is an expressive utterance that 
tends to be enjoyable and less competitive, and therefore, 
intrinsically this illocutionary is polite. More precisely, 
Searle put the expressive and commissive illocutionary as a 
positive politeness that is different from the directive, which 
is negative politeness.

According to Blum Kulka and Olshtain (as cited in 
Ogiermann, 2009), there are five verbs other than the word 
“apologize”. All five of these verbs are performative verbs 
that are included in apology strategy; the words are “regret”, 
“excuse”, “sorry”, “forgive” and “pardon’.  The expression 
of apology can be divided into an offer or apology as “I 
apologize”, expression of regret like “I’m sorry”, and 
request for forgiveness like “excuse me”. All forms of 
explicit apology utterance are merged into one category that 
is IFID (Illocutionary Force Indicating Device) in which 
every utterance have the same meaning.

Apology strategy is divided into more specific, 
two general strategies, such as IFID and the expression 
of speaker’s responsibility.Besides that, three specific 
strategies that could potentially appear according to the 
utterance situation, the explanation of the situation or 
account, offer of repair, and the promise of for bearance.All 
three of these strategies appear more often if the content or 
the circumstance trigger the emergence of this strategy or 
pattern.The emergence of intensification and also the efforts 
to diverse and downgrade situations or entertainment can 
serve to reinforce the narrative apology for the hearer.If 
intensification has a role in modifying IFID internally as the 
addition of adverbs like “really”, “very”, “so” and others as 
well as other expressions such as emotional expression like 
“oh”, “oh my God” and so on. Meanwhile, downgrading has 
a role in adding strategy that usually appears at the end of 
the speech which aims to neutralize or diverse the state as a 
result of face threateningto speakers such as “I am sorry, but 
............ “ or it could be an expression of humor, pretension, 
and so on.Another strategy that can occur is the concern to 
the hearer.  

In addition, the role of language as the means 
of social communication would require the role of the 
principles of cooperation and courtesy to achieve successful 
communication. Basically, people communication will be 
subject to normative aspects in speaking.There are many 
examples of apology utterance in English that we often 
encounter with different social situations and hearers, such 
as: 

“I am terribly sorry. It was an accident. I promise it 
won’t happen again”
“I ‘ m so sorry. I forgot to buy it. Let me buy it now 
for you. Don’t worry”
“Excuse me Sir, this is my stop”

These pattern of speech acts commonly occurs and 
in general. The use of IFID words, like “sorry”, “excuse 
me”, “apologize” and so on is expressive speech markers 
that indicate someone is apologizing. 

Basically, language is a reflection of culture through 
the speech of native speakers. Alfattah (2010) conducted a 

study on the strategy of the speech act of apology in EFL 
students at the University of Yemen. He found that IFID 
followed by responsibility was dominant. While Nuryanto 
(2010) stated that there is a tendency of respondents to use 
more than one strategy in apology, he found that the speech 
of apology was not always in the form of declarative but 
also interrogative. No rule requires a person to choose a 
particular strategy to speak. However, Blum Kulka et al. (as 
cited in Ogierman, 2009) in their project, CCSARP (Cross-
Cultural Speech Acts Realization Project), concluded that 
there is universality in disclosing the speech of apology with 
the emergence of two the most potential strategies namely 
IFID followed by expression of responsibility. While the 
emergence of other strategies is due to the demands of the 
situation or based on the need.

Bataineh (2005), which conducts research on 
American students who also use manual coding in CCSARP 
found that the potential strategy that emerges is an expression 
of regret, clarification, and refinement. And it found that 
many similarities between male and female respondents. 
While Nureddeen (2008) in her research on the strategy of 
apology in Arab Sudan, found that IFID expression followed 
by an expression of responsibility and explanations is more 
frequently occurred in apology utterance. 

Native speakers, like Americans, tend to speak 
briefly and to the point. This is evident from observations of 
the researchers in communicating with native speakers and 
in the literature or display about the life of native speakers. 
The possibility of a tendency to speak briefly and to the point 
has the potential to appear in the expression of apology by 
native speakers.

Based on the background of these problems, 
theoretically, this research is expected to provide a general 
description of the apology strategy by native English 
speakers. In addition, practical research is expected to add 
to the understanding of non-native English speakers to 
understand and learn the English language directly from 
native speakers, especially in expressing apology. The 
questions about how the pattern of apology strategies and 
affecting factors, can be the basis of this research and then 
analyzed by a pragmatic approach. In this case, a strategy 
that will be examined is the apology often used by native 
English speakers in a variety of situations and forms of the 
specific pattern.

METHODS

This study is conducted to acquire or obtain the 
desired results by using objective, not subjective, and  
scientific methods. Sudaryanto (as cited in Nadar, 2009) 
has stated that scientific research is a series of activities 
that aim to solve problems using the scientific method. 
Besides that,Mastoyo (2007) has explained that in the study 
of linguistics, data collection can be done by collaboration 
with researchers in the form of a conversation (face to face 
or not). 

Research will be conducted descriptively with 
the pragmatic approach. At this stage of the provision 
of data, Discourse Completion Test (DCT) will be used 
by the questionnaire technique. The questionnaire has 
been designed by the social variables such as the level of 
familiarity and social status that contain descriptions of 
the daily situation. The questionnaire is prevalent, so it can 
be adjusted to live in America by involving participants 
from native speakers, as many as 30 people of Kentucky 



15Apology Strategy in English .... (Mezia Kemala Sari)      

native, USA, at the age of 20-40 years old. Meanwhile, 
the discourse used in this study consisted of 12 different 
situations yet representing familiar and unfamiliar status, 
which are further subdivided based on their social distance, 
but the DCT is displayed at random.

According to Sudargo (as cited in Nadar, 2009), 
data is a special lingual phenomenon directly related to 
the problem in question. Thus, the data obtained in the 
questionnaire will be instantly analyzed.The analysis is 
based on the formulation of the problem, the objectives, 
and the basic theory.The data obtained will be analyzed and 
classified based on the division between native speakers and 
are not based on the strategy pattern that emerged from the 
calculation of the percentage of each strategy refers to the 
Manual Code. 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Not everyone has the same style in expressing 
apologies.The style is an utterance selection strategy that 
will be used to convey the idea to apologize. The style is 
a speech election strategy that will be used to convey the 
idea to apologize. Almost anyone who has ever made a 
mistake in everyday life, whether intentional or not, such as 
interfering with other people to ask or express something, 
forget something important for others, causing damage to 
an object for others, etc. 

To be able to find the peculiarities of the apology 
selectionstrategy, then the role of the questionnaire that 
has been designed in such a way becomes very important.
With the starting point to the sociolinguistic variables, 
then the classification of the data can be seen more clearly. 
The variables that are important in this case is the level of 
familiarity, which is familiar and not familiar and then it 
is divided by social status between the speaker (S) and the 
hearer (H), from a lower, equal and higher status.

There are several classification of apology  strategies, 
such as IFIDs (Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices), 
Utterance of Responsibility, Explanation or Account to 
Situation, Offer of Repair, Promise of Forebearance, 
Alerters, Downgrading, and Concern for the Hearer.

 IFIDs is a marker of an explicit apology in the form 
of a performative verb to express an apology like “Sorry”, 
“Excuse me”, “I apologize for”, “Forgive me”, “I regret 
that”, “Pardon me” and so on. In addition, IFIDs tend to 
be accompanied by several markers of apology intensifier 
that modify IFID internally. The next strategy is Utterance 
of Responsibility explicitly states that Speaker had made 
mistakes to Hearer. This utterance in more detail consists 
of several types, namely: explicit self-blame, example “My 
mistake”; the utterance that do not mean to hurt Hearer 
or lack of intent, example “I did not mean to upset you”; 
Recognition of mistakes or admission of facts but not 
a responsibility, example “I forgot”, “I have not read it”; 
justify hearer,  example “You are right to be angry’; An 
expression of embarrassment, example “I feel awful about 
it”; and refuse to acknowledge guilt. While the strategy of 
Explanation or Account to Situation aims to elucidate further 
the causes or other factors associated with the occurrence of 
mistakes and is closely related to responsibility, for example: 
“the traffic was terrible”, “my tutor kept me late” and so on.

If the mistakes of speaker could have the worse 
impact, then the other strategy, Offer of Repair, often 
appears to improve things such as “I’ll pay it for you”, “I’ll 
fix it”, and so on. Then, if the above strategies are not yet 
strong enough, then the strategy of Promise of Forbearance 

is also frequently used when it is required, like, “This will 
not happen again” to convince Hearer that this mistake will 
not happen again. This strategy, along with two previous 
strategies, Explanation or Account and Offer of Repair, is 
the strategies that appear on the more specific demands of 
the situation, and it requires the presence of two previous 
strategies.

The other strategy is Alerters. Alerters are elements 
that serve to inform or attract the attention of Hearer as part 
of a speech act, for example the nicknames such as “Adam” 
and others; title such as “Professor”; endearment term as 
“honey”, “sweety”, “baby”, “sweetheart”, and others; 
the use of “Sir”, “Mom”, “Bro”, “Girl”, “Miss”; and also 
attention getter like “Hey”, “Halo” and others.  

Downgrading or Attempts to shift consists of several 
types, including Act innocently or pretend not to notice the 
offense, for example ‘am I late?’; Humor, for example ‘You 
ought to see our fried chicken’ that used by speakers as an 
appeaser or opposed offer repair. This strategy is completely 
unrelated to the mistake of Speaker, for example ‘Let’s have 
a drink’ which is spoken by Speaker after making a long 
wait to Hearer. The next strategy is Concern for the Hearer. 
This strategy is used as a form of higher concern. Speaker 
guilty feeling to Hearer makes the Speaker necessary to 
ensure the feeling of Hearer. This expression like “I hope 
you did not ......”, “Do not worry ...”, “Are you okay?”.

The forms of the emerging strategy would allow the 
emergence of a single strategy and any other form that is 
a combination of up to complex ones. This is a reflection 
of the situation and also the culture of the speakers. 
For convenience, the following are examples of data 
classification:

“When you wake up in the morning, you’ll have a 
present waiting for you” (Refinement)
“I’m sorry (IFID), Man(Alerters)
Though you were my friend. (Explanation)
Wanna have some coffees?” (Downgrading)

The Apology strategy realization of the native 
speaker will be different based on the situation, familiar and 
non-familiar situation. In familiar situation case, the status 
of the speaker gives impact to how the apology strategy. 
This status of the speakers is higher than the hearers, equal 
to hearers, and lower than hearers.

The example of a situation that represents the state 
of the speaker is higher than hearer in familiar situation is 
when parents have promised to her son to buy a laptop, but 
the parents are not able to fulfill their promise due to the 
prompt meeting in the office. Another example of this status 
is when a teacher who asks his student to bring a book for 
him, but the teacher forgets about his student and let the 
student wait outside his room for 15 minutes.

Based on the data, it is shown that native speakers 
do not commonly use alerters. In the data, there are also 
internal modifications, namely intensification as “so sorry”. 
It is to be contrasted with the situation that has many IFID 
on data. However, it remains the intensification slightly 
only on one data. This suggests that native speakers are less 
inclined to use IFID explicitly in apology. They choose to 
go directly to a specific strategy for the purpose of inserting 
implicit apology.

What is interesting about the data is the emergence of 
a single strategy expressed explicitly and directly, which is a 
strategy of repairs on the first situation. There are some data 
that represent their single strategy that speakers do not want 



16 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol.10 No.1, May 2016, 13-17     

to argue with mistakes that are not made deliberately, until 
speakers immediately offered a repair over this incident 
through such utterances, such as “I will have it when I get 
home,” “I will call my friend now. It is also triggered by the 
awareness of speaker that the mistakes can be fixed directly 
and quickly so that this strategy becomes very important to 
use. In addition, repairs strategies appear on each data. 

The sentence stating concern to hearer also appear 
special in the first situation, with utterances like ‘I love 
you’ and affirmation to convince hearer with a statement 
of a promise is a promise, so the effect received by hearer 
be slightly reduced because of their concern on hearer of 
the speaker. The concern to hearer also appears specifically 
in the first situation, with utterances like “I love you” and 
attempts affirmation to convince hearer with the statement 
“a promise is a promise”, so the effect that is received by 
hearer is slightly reduced by the concern on hearer from 
the speaker. Furthermore, the data also expose the attempts 
to distract or downgrading to neutralize the atmosphere 
at that time promised to invite meal. This form, belong to 
the “appeaser” because there is no real connection with the 
mistakes that have been made. 

Then, in the circumstances of the speaker is 
equivalent to the hearer, the simplicity strategy appears. 
The first situation when someone asks for help to restore 
the compact video disc rented to his friend, but it turns out 
one’s friend forget and it results in an additional cost. The 
second situation when someone asks one’s friend to nurture 
and care for one’s fish. However, he is too busy to do it, 
some of the fish die. Both situations illustrate the difference 
in the situation, but still demonstrate their familiar context 
and social status between S and H. 

The first strategy is IFID that does not much appear 
and its intensification is little. This suggests that the native 
speakers do not particularly want always to use IFID in 
every context mistakes made, and it includes the use of 
the emotions expression strategies. Although the situation 
is fatal, such as making hearer suffered a loss to the lease 
payments, and the fish that died due to negligence, it is not 
enough to make the native speakers have to reveal his guilt 
by using IFID and other excessive strategies. 

The strategy also often appears is the strategy of 
responsibility. This is consistent with the factors of the 
situation, which requires the presence of expression of 
responsibility for mistakes made.Next is the offer repair 
strategy, as a manifestation of good faith to correct errors 
that have occurred. Furthermore, native speakers feel no 
need for expressions of distractions, entertaining or paying 
attention to hearer for the mistakes that have been made.

The next example is the situation that represents the 
status of the speaker is lower than the hearer in the familiar 
situation. A person forgets his promise to buy fruit to his/
her neighbors and the second situation is where someone 
forgot his promise to the professor. This is a picture of two 
situations which represent a form familiar situation, but the 
status of the speaker is lower than the hearer. IFID appears 
more often and in almost all of the data. Greetings appear 
only slightly despite the status where the speaker is lower 
than the hearer, and this situation does not make native 
speakers use the greeting on his apology speech. 

Responsibility speech strategy that often appears 
indicating that the situation demands the presence of 
responsibility speech although not always followed by an 
explanation expression while offer repairs strategy appears 
quite often. This shows that this strategy is important to 
appear to remember the mistakes made, like the neighbor and 

also Professor needs to be corrected immediately to mitigate 
the effects of hearer due to a mistake made by the speaker. 
The emergence of the promise of forbearance strategy was 
necessary to strengthen the narrative purposes. In the data, 
there are no attempts to shift or concern on hearer.

Similar to familiar situation case, the non-familiar 
situation, the status of the speaker also gives impact to how 
the apology strategy. If the status of the speaker is higher 
than the hearer, this example can represent the situation 
of the speaker and the hearer. A person who accidentally 
injures a girl aged about ten years while closing the shop 
door. Meanwhile, the second situation is an owner of the 
boutique delivered the wrong color to a costumer the day 
before. 

Based on the analysis, it can be seen that IFID often 
arises, and it is accompanied by an internal modification of 
the adverbs like “so sorry” or ‘’really sorry” which indicates 
that the speaker unintentionally makes the mistakes. Then, 
the dominant strategy that appears is offer repairs. This 
is because as a boutique owner who has hurt a buyer, he 
felt compelled to promptly correct any errors in order to 
maintain the reputation and also firmness in the boutique. 
Offer repair strategy is also a result of the factors of the 
situation, which requires the presence of this strategy. The 
emergence of responsibility strategy is to state explicitly 
that he was guilty. However, the explanation strategy does 
not appear in two situations. This suggests that the native 
speaker feels no need to provide more arguments for the 
mistakes he had done.

The next situation when the speaker is equivalent 
to the hearer. It is represented by the first situation, when 
someone sees his friend, and he patted on the back, but 
it turns out that guy is not his friend, jus someone who is 
similar to his friend. The second situation is the one who sits 
near a bus window, which was about to get off at the next 
stop, but a person of the same age sitting beside him thus 
requiring it to ask permission. Both of these situations show 
the different circumstances but equally indicate situations 
that are not familiar and equal social status.

The analysis shows that IFID still appears dominant 
in a high percentage.This shows that the speaker does not 
accidentally make the mistake of patting the shoulders of 
someone who is mistaken for his friend. So this situation 
in which he is about to ask permission to get off the bus, 
then the emergence of “excuse me” is important to use. 
Intensification only rarely emerges in the first situation and 
not at all on the second situation.

The use of strategies of responsibility, repairs, and 
the promise of forbearance are not found at all in the data. 
This is because the situation does not demand the presence 
of such a strategy. What is interesting here is the attempt 
to divert concern by conveying a “greeting” on the hearer 
with speech “Have a great day” as an effort to downgrade 
of the situation in the second situation. However, in the 
first situation, there is an attempt to divert concern to the 
expression of humor or engage in something completely 
unrelated to the error. The utterances like “Wanna have some 
coffees?” And “Would you like a beer?” As a manifestation 
of their efforts to reduce the impact of the mistakes made in 
the hearer.

The next situation is when a person who boarded 
the train and realized he had forgotten to bring his wallet 
and also a ticket. He then tries to answer when the ticket 
inspector came. While the second situation is a situation 
where someone is running to catch the bus accidentally 
bumping into an old woman so that her groceries scattered. 



17Apology Strategy in English .... (Mezia Kemala Sari)      

Both of these situations describe the circumstances in which 
the speaker and the hearer are not familiar, and status S is 
lower than H.

Based on the data, it can be seen the simplicity of 
the strategies used by native English speakers can be seen. 
IFID still often appears with very little intensification. 
An emotional expression used because the situation is so 
fast and unpleasant to the hearer. The use of emotional 
expression indicates an element of chance conducted by the 
speaker on the hearer.

The greetings are used only slightly, namely 
“Ma’am”. It is proved that the native speakers do not 
frequently use greeting, although the status of the speaker 
is lower than the hearer. Statement of responsibility appears 
more frequently though without any further explanation 
about the mistakes that have been made. However, there 
are many offer repair strategies, which is used by native 
speakers to correct the mistakes. There is not any attemptis 
made to distract the hearer at all.

There is the description of an emerging strategy in 
a speech situation. If it is concluded, then the following is 
the average potential emergence of a strategy on the whole 
situation by native speakers in the speech act of apology, as 
seen in the following table.

Table 1 The Speech Act of Apology

No Strategy Potency (%)

1 Alerters 25,7

2 IFID 76,9
Intensification 29,8
ExpressionEmotion 21,0

3 Taking on Responsibility 46,6

4 Explanation 23,3

5 Offer Repairs 48,8
6 Promise of Forbearance 3,8

7 Concern to the Hearer 12,4

8 Downgrading 6,1

CONCLUSIONS

The pattern formed on native English speakers has 
its own peculiarities.In general, based on the potential 
occurrences for all situations, the strategy chosen by native 
speakers tend to be simple. It is based on the potential 
emergence of IFID followed by repair and responsible 
in the number of smaller percentage. However, IFID and 
greetings are not always present in each strategy. It shows 
the tendency of native speakers to direct on target to 
achieve communication objectives. Native speakers tend to 
use the strategy of reduction or diversion efforts, especially 
in unfamiliar situations.So, for all situations and social 
levels, native speakers tend to use patterns that are short 
and direct. Factors that influence the formation or selection 
of the strategy conducted by native speakers in general are 
the situation of speech, social status, and themistake rate 
wherein the greater the impact of the errors that occurred, 
then the more complex strategyselection that will be taken.

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