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An offer of repair. The apologizer makes a bid to carry out an action 
or provide payment for some kind of damage resulting from his/her
infraction.
If someone is late for an appointment with a friend s/he might say
something like:
How can I make it up to you? Can I buy you lunch on Friday?
Or someone who fails to make it to an appointment might say:
Would you be willing to reschedule the meeting?
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A promise of non-recurrence. The apologizer commits him/herself to
not having the offense happen again, which is situation-specific and
less frequent than the other strategies. For example, if you bump into a
stranger, you are not going to promise you will never do it again, but
you might if it is a co-worker who you don’t pick up on time.
The five major patterns or strategies that make up the apology speech 
act are almost universally available to speakers/writers, regardless of the 
language in which they are speaking or writing. Nonetheless, preference 
for any one of these strategies or for a combination of them will depend on
the specific situation a speaker/writer is in within the given language and
culture group.
Additional strategies for apologizing
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■
Expression of trait of self-deficiency, e.g.,
I’m so forgetful. You know me, I’m never on time.
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Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984).

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D E S C R I B I N G S P E E C H A C T S : L I N K I N G R E S E A R C H A N D P E D A G O G Y
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Explicit self-blame, e.g.,
What an idiot I am!
■
Denial of fault (rejecting the need for apologies), e.g.,
It’s not my fault that it fell down.
Interjections and intensifiers
Not only could an intensifier play an important role, but even an interjec-
tion like “Oh!” could have an important role. In fact, there could be times
when a well-placed “Oh!” and an offer of repair could take the place of an
expression of apology in American English: e.g., “Oh! Here, let me help get
something on that burn and clean up the mess,” as opposed to, “I’m very
sorry that I bumped into you.”
Other ways of intensifying apologies include expressing explicit concern
for the listener and using multiple intensifying strategies. So apologies can
be intensified in the following ways:
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1
Intensifying the apology expression:
(a) Use of adverbials, e.g.,
I’m really sorry.
(b) Use of repetition or multiple intensifiers, e.g.,
I’m really very sorry.
In American English, there is a difference between “very” and
“really,” with “really” implying more regret and “very” more
etiquette.
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