the present study was carried on to investigate the use of face-keeping strategies in reaction to complaints by male and female in two different cultures, persian and american english. to see if apology strategies are affected by cultural, contextual preferences and gender of interlocutors in two distinct languages of persian and american english. the hypotheses to be tested were 1) ifids, acceptance of responsibility, offer of repair and explanation are the four most frequently used strategies by both groups. 2) apology speech act realization patterns and other verbal behavior are heavily affected by cultural values (individualism vs. collectivism) as well as contextual factors (.....