How do Alexandrians and Najdis Apologize? A Variational Pragmatic Study of Arabic

There is a paucity of variational pragmatic research that compares the realization of the speech act of apology across dialects of one and the same language. The current study aimed at comparing the realization of the speech act of apology between two Arabic dialects, namely Alexandrian Arabic in Egypt and Najdi Arabic in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from 120 participants using role-play. The participants were undergraduate students, equally divided into males and females. Half the participants were Najdis, while the other half were Alexandrians. The apology strategies were coded using Olshtain and Cohen’s (1983) model. Additionally, initiators and internal/external modifications were analyzed. The results showed that the two groups of participants adopted a similar apology behavior, a finding which was explained in terms of the unifying influence of religion. The results also showed a strong influence for social dominance on the participants’ apology behavior. This influence was larger than the moderate influence for social distance and the limited influence for gender. Based on the findings, we recommend conducting further variational pragmatic research on the Arabic language.