Abstract The present study investigates the understanding, identification, and classification of apology speech act across Iranian and American series as reflected in two popular film series. A total of 347 apologetic utterances drawn from the film series were collected in a corpus. The data were analyzed to examine the frequency of apology strategies and the influence of social status on their use. To this aim, descriptive statistics, a binomial test, and a chi-square test were run. The obtained results revealed both similarities and discrepancies as regards the frequencies of apology strategies. Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs) were the most frequent apology strategies used in the two languages, followed by the ‘acceptance of responsibility’. Concerning the relative social status, significant differences were manifested among the three levels of social status (high, equal, and low) in both cultures. The findings of this study are expected to enhance intercultural awareness, serve learners and teachers’ pedagogical needs, develop pragmatic competence in general, and enhance apology communicative act understanding, in particular.
Nourashrafi et al. (2026) studied this question.