Abstract

This study investigated the use of apology and non-apology strategies by Iranian Azerbaijani ESL students at Maz International School in Malaysia. The data gathered from Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and role-play were triangulated and analyzed based on Cohen and Olshtain's (1981) framework. The results of the study indicate that female respondents opted for explicit expressions of apology while males offered apologies instead of asking for forgiveness. As for the non-apology strategies, it appears that male students preferred the use of avoidance, but female students frequently used denial of responsibility and blame the victim.