Apology speech act realization in Sarawani Balochi: a case study of male university students

Adapting Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) taxonomy proposed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989), this study examines the effect of power and gender of the addressees on the type and number of apology strategies used by (50) Sarawani Baloch male university students (SBMUS). The results, supporting the universality of employing apology strategies, indicate the chosen strategies employed by SBMUS were mostly the same as those used by the participants in other languages mentioned in CCSARP. Nevertheless, SBMUS also employed some different strategies not predicted in that project, reflecting the influence of religious and cultural factors governing Baloch society of Sarawan. Furthermore, power and gender of the addressees mostly does not affect the type and number of apology strategies employed by SBMUS. As to the type and number of strategies, the most frequent strategies were ‘illocutionary force indicating devices’ and the combination of 3 strategies, respectively. It seems that culture, religion, context and the situations in which an apology occurs, have significant effect on the type and number of apology strategies employed by these participants.


Introduction
"A speech act […]", as Fahmi Bataineh and Fahmi Bataineh (2008, p. 793) assert, "[…] is an utterance that serves a function in communication (e.g., apology, request or greeting)".How this 'function' is perceived in different societies, has been an important concern for many researchers.Blum-Kulka et al. (1989, p. 5, emphasis added) believe that: Speech communities share detectable patterns of speech, and that such 'cultural ways of speaking' (cf.KATRIEL, 1985) provide an important domain for the exploration of speech as a cultural phenomenon.Specific studies of speech acts from this perspective show how clashes between different interactional styles can lead to intercultural miscommunication.
It was due to the examination of 'speech as a cultural phenomenon' that they (BLUM-KULKA et al., 1989) launched CCSARP to investigate the speech acts of requests and apologies in 7 different languages and cultures.As Blum-Kulka et al. (1989, p. 12) affirm, […] the general goal of the CCSARP investigation is to establish patterns of request and apology realizations under different social constraints across a number of languages and cultures, including both native and nonnative varieties.
Their main belief is that besides underlying universal principles in applying different speech acts, there are some cultural variations.They (BLUM-KULKA et al., 1989), further, state that social distance and power (social dominance) between participants may interact with other situational factors and lead to cultural variations.Gender is another factor which its possible effect on employing different speech acts has been ideally examined by some researchers (FAHMI BATAINEH; FAHMI BATAINEH, 2006, 2008;WOUK, 2006).
Following the goals of CCSARP such as determining the fundamental universalities in addition to the culture-specificity of applying speech act sets, the authors of this study attempt to extract and categorize apology strategies in Sarawani Balochi, a dialect of Balochi which has not been studied yet in the case of its speech acts.Furthermore, the effects of power and gender of the addressees on the type and number of apology strategies used by these participants are also tested.
Balochi is a language mostly spoken in southwestern Pakistan (the province of Baluchestan), Karachi and Punjab and Sind.In Iran, it is used in the province of Sistan and Balochestan, and also by Baloch who live in the north-eastern province of Khorasan and Golestan.Balochi is also spoken by small groups in Afghanistan, the Gulf state, the Marw/ Marie (in Turkmenistan), India, East Africa and today by a significant number of Baloch in North America, Europe and Australia (JAHANI; KORN, 2009).Barjasteh Delforooz (2010, p. 22) maintains that " […] in each of the above mentioned countries, Balochi is under the influence of local languages and the national language of that country".Jahani and Korn (2009) attribute this to the fact that Balochi lacks a standard written system.
The present research investigates apology speech act in Sarawani Balochi dialect spoken in Sarawan city located in the province of Sistan and Balochestan in Iran.The standard and official language of Iran is Persian which dominates other languages used in this country, including Balochi.
As to the assessment of the meaningful relationship between type and number of the apology strategies employed and power and gender of the addressees, the research null hypotheses are given as: 1.There is not a meaningful relationship between power of the addressees and the type of the apology strategies employed by SBMUS.
2. There is not a meaningful relationship between gender of the addressees and the type of the apology strategies employed by SBMUS.
3. There is not a meaningful relationship between power of the addressees and the number of the apology strategies employed by SBMUS.
4. There is not a meaningful relationship between gender of the addressees and the number of the apology strategies employed by SBMUS.

Review of literature
Many studies in the area of speech acts follow the principle that besides a number of universalities in applying speech acts, there exist some cross-cultural variations.
Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, (1984) find a number of similarities and differences between realization patterns of native and nonnative speakers of the investigated languages within their project, that is, Australian English, American English, British English, Canadian French, Danish, German, Hebrew and Russian.Soon after, Wierzbicka (1985) discusses some of the differences between English and Polish in the area of their speech acts, and links these differences with various cultural norms and assumptions.Later, Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) carry out a project on two speech acts of request and apology which becomes one of the fundamental theories in the field of speech acts.Their study comes across with the fact that each of the languages studied follows a number of universalities in applying speech acts whereas there are some culture-specificities, as well.Wouk (2006) looks at the type of apology expression and upgrading applied by Indonesians in Lombok.Comparing the results of his study " […] with results of choice of apology expressions and upgrading in other cultures […]", he (WOUK, 2006(WOUK, , p. 1457) ) concludes that […] patterns in the use of upgrading sometimes paralleled those found in other studies: deference [different] strategies were used with higher status addressees, while solidarity strategies were used with social intimates.
His findings also reveal there is little difference between males and females, regarding applying apology strategies.
Fahmi Bataineh and Fahmi Bataineh (2006) find that gender is an important factor in applying primary apology strategies by Jordanian Arabic speakers.However, two years later, they (FAHMI BATAINEH, FAHMI BATAINEH, 2008) come to the result that male and female American English speakers employ apology strategies with a few differences.Afghari (2007) investigates the influence of social distance and social dominance (power) on the frequency of the apology intensifiers in Persian.
He states that the given values to the two contextexternal factors are found to have considerable effect on the frequency of the intensifiers in various situations.Nureddeen (2008) also attempts to outline the type and extent of apology strategies used in Sudanese Arabic considering factors such as strength of social relationship and power between hypothetical speakers and hearers.Furthermore, her results confirm earlier findings proposing the universality of apology strategies as well as the culture-specificity aspect of language use.Afterwards, Ogiermann (2009) performs a crosscultural investigation of the speech act of apology in British English, Polish and Russian with regard to social distance and power of participants.Apart from revealing the effect of these factors on employing apology speech act in the languages studied, her comparison allows for the examination of Brown and Levinson's (1978) claims to universality and contributes to the debate on universality vs. culturespecificity.She (OGIERMANN, 2009) believes that detailed reinterpretation of some of their ideas show that "[…] their framework can be applied to the analysis of an inherently polite speech act […]", besides "[…] analyzing culture-specific features of politeness […]" (OGIERMANN, 2009, p. 21).Shariati and Chamani's (2010) study into the frequency, combination, and order of apology strategies in Persian shows some underlying universalities besides culture-specificity aspect of using the speech act of apology in Persian.In the same year, Alfattah (2010) performs an investigation on apology strategies of Yemeni EFL university students regarding Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness (1978).His primary findings show that the participants tend to use IFIDs as the most employed strategy in the data.
Al-Zumor (2011) compares apology strategies employed by Arab learners of English studying in India with the strategies used by Indian English, American English, and British English speakers.Al-Zumor's study findings (2011, p. 19) show that "[…] religious beliefs, concepts and values cause many deviations in the Arab learners' language from that of the native speakers".In addition, he finds considerable similarities in the selection of arrangement patterns of the main apology strategies by Arab learners and Indian English speakers which he interprets "[…] as a result of some aspects of cultural similarities" (Al-Zumor, 2011, p. 19).Jebahi (2011) investigates the use of apology speech act by Tunisian university students whose mother tongue is Tunisian Arabic, as far as the social distance and power of the interlocutors are concerned.Most of the participants of his research use 'statement of remorse' in almost all the situations provided by him.Moreover, a significant percentage of the participants deny 'blame for the offence', and using 'explanations', shift the responsibility to other sources.
Hatfield and Hahn (2011) study a corpus of Korean apologies regarding Brown and Levinson's (1978) model.They claim their theory accurately predicts the effect of power, social distance, and the severity of the offense in the selection of form in Korean. But Hatfield andHahn (2011, p. 1303) believes "[…] the model itself is not an appropriate model for Korean even in high abstraction".

Methodology Participants
The participants of this study were 50 male university students educating in the first to the fourth semester of different academic fields at Azad University of Sarawan.They were chosen randomly by the researchers.The participants were native speakers of Sarawani Balochi dialect from Sarawan city and its suburb.Their ages ranged from 20 to 30 years and their mean age was 26 years.They mostly spoke two languages in their daily lives: one, Sarawani Balochi which is their native language, and the other, Persian, as their second language.The participants typically lived in families with their parents having low and/or no education.Most of their fathers were farmers, drivers, and workers.Mothers were almost all housekeepers.

Instrument and procedure
The data for the present research was collected through applying a modified version of Discourse Completion Test/Task (DCT).DCTs, some kind of open-ended questionnaires, were firstly innovated and used by Blum-Kulka in 1982.This questionnaire consisted of the description of some speech acts situations, indicating the setting, the social distance between the interlocutors, and their social status related to each other, followed by an incomplete dialogue as well.The respondents then were asked to fill the dialogue with their normal reactions in the situations provided.One of the most noteworthy advantages of DCTs is that they well fit the studies in which gathering a large number of data in a short period of time is required (WOLFSON et al., 1989).On the other hand, some critics have questioned the unnatural basis of collecting data in such a way.In spite of their limitations, DCTs can be a practical means of presenting a preliminary examination at cultural variations in the performance of different speech acts (PHUONG, 2006).
In this study, DCT was prepared with some adjustments.The main body of the original DCT offered by Blum-Kulka (1982) tried to be kept intact, i.e., the description of the situations.Given that the addressees were supposed to be distinguished in 6 cases of higher (a male and a female professor), equal (a male and a female classmate) and lower (a male and a female library servant) social status, some modifications have been done by the researchers.As a result, after describing apology situations, the participants were asked a question concerning the way they would apologize to the 6 hypothetical addressees.The questionnaire consisted of 5 situations.It was written in Sarawani Balochi using Persian script (as Balochi does not have a standard orthography).The participants were also asked to write down their normal language reactions in each situation in Sarawani Balochi using Persian script.
Nevertheless, in this research, apologies are categorized applying the classification system suggested by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989).Results of this categorization will be given in the results section.This signifies the type of apology strategies found in the data based on the power and gender of the addressees.The data also revealed that the participants' answers, in each situation, mostly consisted of more than one strategy.Consequently, the authors decided to examine the possible effect of power and gender of the addressees on the number of apology strategies used by the participants, as well (i.e., they considered the question that how many apology strategies each of the participants uses dealing with each of the addresses in each situation, e.g., 1 strategy or a combination of 2, 3 or more strategies).More analysis of the data was done by applying the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS), version 16.For all analyses the alpha level was set at 0.05.Pearson's Chi Square test (χ 2 ) was used to evaluate whether there was a meaningful relationship between power and gender of the addressees and the type and number of apology strategies employed by SBMUS.Furthermore, Spearman's Correlation test was employed to indicate whether the existing relationship was reverse.In the χ 2 test, when the Asymptotic Significance (P) displays a numeral less than 0.05 (p < 0.05), there is a meaningful relationship between the two variables of the study.Besides, when the results show a numeral less than 0.05 (p < 0.05), the reliability level of the test would be 95%, and even if it is less than 0.01 (p < 0.01), the reliability level of the test would be 99%.If χ 2 test indicates that there is a meaningful relationship between the two variables of the study, we can apply correlation test for the two last hypotheses of our research.This test will show a numeral named 'value': if 'value' is negative, the relationship between these two variables will be a reverse one.For example, when there is a meaningful relationship between power of the addressees and the number of apology strategies in situation 1, and correlation test results show a negative 'value', it can be concluded that the relationship between power of the addressees and number of apology strategies in situation 1 is reverse.Hence, as the power of the addressees increases, the addressors tend to employ more complex strategies rather than simple ones, and vice versa.

Results
As Blum-Kulka et al. (1989, p. 289) claim: […] apologies can be performed by any one of the following strategies, or combination or sequence thereof: -Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFID) -Taking on responsibility -Explanation or account -Offer of repair -Promise of forbearance They (BLUM-KULKA et al., 1989, p. 290) assert that "[…] the import of these five major strategies is fairly transparent; when we remark that IFIDs explicitly clarify that an apology is being carried out".After classifying the apology strategies found in this study following Blum-Kulka et al.'s (1989) coding scheme, the researchers observed some new strategies which have not been found in that scheme.Below, is a list of apology strategies found in Sarawani Balochi.The above-mentioned examples were some instances representing the type of apology strategies used.Below, some instances related to the number of such strategies are illustrated.These instances comprise 1 (simple) and combinations of 2, 3, 4, and 5 strategies (where each strategy has been given an identification letter): 1.An example for 1 (simple) strategy is 'I' which shows the strategy 'offer of repair':

Analysis of data
This section includes two further parts: one is related to the analysis of type and the other one concerns the analysis of number of apology strategies.In this regard, Tables 1, 2, 3 and 5 and 6 represent frequency and total percentage of apology strategies employed by SBMUS regarding power and gender of the addresses (illustrating type of apology strategies).Moreover, Tables 8 and 10 show frequency and total percentage of simple and complex apology strategies used by participants, due to power and gender of the addresses (exemplifying number of apology strategies).Besides, Tables 4, 7, 9 and 11 indicate Chi Square test results for type and number of apology strategies pertaining to power and gender of the addressees in 5 situations under research.

Type of apology strategies
As Tables 1, 2 and 3 indicates, and it is also exemplified through the instances in the results section, besides employing a good number of apology strategies in Blum-Kulka et al.'s (1989) coding scheme, SBMUS used some new strategies not predicted in that categorization.These new strategies are 'swearing', 'evoking the name of God (God willing)', and using special 'alerters' like gohɑr 'sister' and brɑs 'brother' (regarding the effect of their religion).In some cases, however, SBMUS preferred not to offer apologies to the addressees and used other terms which could not be grouped within apology categorizations.
Tables 1, 2 and 3 display frequency and total percentage of apology strategies used by the participants, with regard to power of the addressees in 5 situations under research.In these tables, the strategies are arranged, from the one with highest frequency and total percentage to the one with lowest frequency and total percentage of use in all data.As to the data presented in these tables, the students employed more strategies dealing with the addressees with higher social power.This number sums up to make us of (1479) strategies dealing with the addressees with higher power (professors), (1288) strategies dealing with the addressees with equal power (classmates), and (1259) strategies dealing with the addressees with lower power (library servants).
Moreover, based on these tables, the most frequent strategy used by SBMUS dealing with the addressees with higher, equal and lower power is the strategy 'illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDS)' with (527), ( 414) and (447) times of occurrence in all data, respectively.Furthermore, the next three ranks of the strategies dealing with the aforementioned addressees belong to the strategy 'alerters' with (322), ( 287) and ( 229); 'lack of intent' with ( 218), (188), and (193); and 'explicit self blame' with (92), ( 99) and ( 92) frequency of use in all data collected.Other similarities and differences pertaining to the use of apology strategies by SBMUS dealing with professors, classmates and library servants, can also be observed in Tables 1, 2 and 3. Table 1 shows apology strategies used by the participants, their frequencies and percentage in all the data in response to professors.As this table shows the participants' responses here, include 36.78%0f total apology strategies.Table 2 signifies apology strategies used by the participants, their frequencies and percentage in all the data in response to classmates.As this table shows, the participants' responses here include 31.96% of total refusal strategies.
Table 3 illustrates apology strategies used by the participants, their frequencies and percentage in all the data in response to library servants.As this table shows the participants' responses here, include 31.24% of total refusal strategies.
As Table 4 displays, Chi-Square test results show that in situation 1 (p = 0.117 > 0.05), in situation 2 (p = 0.450 > 0.05), in situation 4 (p = 251 > 0.05) and in situation 5 (p = 0.501 > 0.05); so, since p is more than 0.05, there is not a meaningful relationship between addressees' power and the type of apology strategies employed by SBMUS in these situations.Therefore, the first null hypothesis: "the relationship between power of the addressees and type of apology strategies employed by SBMUS is not meaningful" is confirmed.However, since p for situation 3 is less than 0.05 (p = 0.005 < 0.05), Chi-Square test results indicate that there is a meaningful relationship between power of the addressees and the type of apology strategies employed by SBMUS.Hence, the first null hypothesis is rejected.The most frequent apology strategy employed by SBMUS in reply to both male and female addressees, according to Table 5, is 'illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDS)' with ( 708) and ( 680) times of occurrence in all data, correspondingly.This table shows that differences in the number and frequency of the employment of other apology strategies, dealing with male and female addressees appear to be too trifling to be considered.However, there are minor differences regarding employing the strategy 'please' and 'appeaser' in reply to females which are not applied dealing with males.
Table 5 represents refusal strategies used by the participants, their frequencies and percentage in all the data in response to male addresses.As this table shows the participants' responses here, include 51.74% 0f total refusal strategies.Table 6 shows apology strategies used by the participants, their frequencies and percentage in all the data in response to female addresses.According to this table, the participants' responses here, include 48.29% 0f total refusal strategies.
Moreover, Chi Square test results represented in Table 7 indicate that: in situation 1 (p = 0.866 > 0.05), in situation 2 (p = 0.679 > 0.05), in situation 3 (p = 719 > 0.05), in situation 4 (p = 710 > 0.05) and in situation 5 (p = 0.385 > 0.05); thus, as p is more than 0.05, there is not a meaningful relationship between addressees' gender and type of apology strategies employed by SBMUS.As a result, the second null hypothesis: 'the relationship between gender of the addressees and the type of

Number of apology strategies
According to Table 8, the most complex apology strategy combination used by SBMUS dealing with the addressees with higher and equal power is combination of 3 strategies with (194) and ( 179) frequency of use in all data.However, for library servants, the first rank of complex strategies belongs to the combination of 2 strategies with (185) frequency of use.Although the next rank of complex strategies for professors and classmates is dedicated to combination of 2 strategies with ( 152) and ( 168), for those of lower social power, the second rank belongs to combination of 3 strategies with (152) times of occurrence.Besides, even though for professors, the third rank belongs to the combination of 4 strategies with (109) times of occurrence, for classmates and library servants this rank belongs to the simple strategy with ( 51) and (77) frequency of use, respectively.Simple strategy with (15) times of occurrence for professors is located in the fourth rank; and combination of 4 strategies fills this rank for classmates and library servants with ( 79) and ( 68) frequency of use.The participants employed combination of 5 and 6 strategies dealing with all the addressees in a similar order.Besides, they used combination of 8 and 9 strategies just in reply to those with higher power.The exact frequency and total percentage of applying these strategy combinations are illustrated in Table 8.Concerning Table 9, Chi-Square test results indicate that: in situation 2 (p = 0.191 > 0.05), in situation 4 (p = 283 > 0.05) and in situation 5 (p = 085 > 0.05); therefore, for p is more than 0.05, there is not a meaningful relationship between addressees' power and type of apology strategies employed by SBMUS.Thus, the first null hypothesis: 'the relationship between power of the addressees and type of apology strategies employed by SBMUS is not meaningful', for these situations, is confirmed.However, Chi-Square test results for situation 1 (p = 0 < 0.05) and situation 3 (p = 0.007 < 0.05) suggest that there is a meaningful relationship between power of the addressees and type of apology strategies employed by SBMUS, because p in these situations is less than 0.05.So, the first null hypothesis for these situations is rejected.As the data in table 10 illustrates, the most complex strategy combination dealing with male addressees is combination of 3 strategies with (270) frequency of use in all data.However, for females, combination of 2 strategies is the most frequent complex strategy with (270) times of occurrence.Although the second rank of applying complex strategies dealing with male addressees belongs to combination of 2 strategies (235), for females, this rank is dedicated to combination of 3 strategies (255).The next ranks of complex strategies for male and female addressees, as specified in the table 10, are arranged in a similar order.Furthermore, regarding Table 11, Chi Square and correlation test results specify that in situation 1 (p = 0218 > 0.05), in situation 2 (p = 0.601 > 0.05), in situation 3 (p = 0.170 > 0.05), in situation 4 (p = 0.992 > 0.05) and in situation 5 (p = 0.579 > 0.05); therefore, since p is more than 0.05, there is not a meaningful relationship between addressees' gender and number of apology strategies employed by SBMUS.Accordingly, the fourth null hypothesis: 'the relationship between gender of the addressees and number of apology strategies employed by SBMUS is not meaningful', is confirmed.

Discussion
As the examples in the results section highlight, findings disclose the fact that, in addition to most of the apology strategies referred to in Blum-Kulka et al.'s (1989) classification, SBMUS employed some new strategies not predicted in this taxonomy.These are 'evoking the name of God (God willing)', 'swearing', and applying special terms of address like 'gohɑr ' and 'brɑs' which mean 'sister' and 'brother', correspondingly.However, in some cases, SBMUS preferred not to apologize to the addressees and employ other terms which could not be set within apology classifications (the example is given in the results section).
In view of the fact that in Islam, God is the One who governs the universe, reliance on His ruling power in managing everything has a central role in Muslims' lives.Therefore, it can be alleged that employing the strategies like 'evoking the name of God (God willing)' by SBMUS is a manifestation of this belief.Using 'alerters' like 'gohɑr' and 'brɑs' can also represent the fact that Islam considers all Muslims religious brethren and sisters.Moreover, as it was shown in the results section, the speakers employed special expression 'paehel kaen' as an IFID strategy.'paehel' equals 'Halal' which "[…] is an Arabic term meaning 'permissible' ... In the Arabic language, it refers to anything that is permissible under Islam" (REFERENCE, 2008).However, in this context, Halal is used as an explicit expression of apology meaning forgiveness.These results corresponds to Al-Zumor's study findings (2011) which demonstrate the effect of religious beliefs and values on the choice of apology strategies by Arab learners of English studying in India.
Using strategies like 'swearing', additionally, might also be another way of strengthening of apologies which can be tied to the cultural factors dominating Baloch society of Sarawan.
The participants of this study, employed more apology strategies dealing with addressees with higher social power than those with equal or lower power.In Persian, Afghari's study (2007) on apology strategies confirms this result.
'Illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDS)' with (1388) times of occurrence in all data was the most frequent apology strategy employed by SBMUS, as indicated in the previous section (see analysis of the data: type of apology strategies).This result corresponds to other apology studies like those carried out by Shariati and Chamani (2010) in Persian, Alfattah (2010) on Yemeni EFL university students, and Jebahi (2011) on Tunisian university students.Nevertheless, this result is not in line with the findings of the research done by Nureddeen (2008) in Sudanese Arabic, in the respect that the most frequent apology strategy used by the participants in this linguistic corpus was the strategy 'explanation/ account'; and 'illocutionary force indicating devices' is arranged at the second rank of apology strategies.Besides, the result is not similar to findings of Afghari (2007) on Persian students.Afghari (2007) concluded that the most frequent apology strategy used by Persian students was the strategy 'an acknowledgement of responsibility'.
Furthermore, as the examples given in the previous section (see analysis of the data: type of apology strategies) and the data illustrated in the Tables 1, 2 and 3 indicate that the effect of social power on employing apology strategies used by SBMUS is not significant.The effect is limited to situation 3, as Chi square test results in Table 4 show.In fact, the differences are too trifling to cause major effects on the results of the study.
Employing apology strategies by in response to male and female addressees, as can be seen in Tables 5 and 6, is mostly similar and the differences in the frequency of applying these strategies are not significant to be considered.Besides, this finding also corresponds to Chi Square test results which indicate that gender of the addressees doesn't affect the type of apology strategies used by SBMUS.
In addition, as it was previously said, the most frequent complex strategy dealing with professors and classmates was combination of 3 strategies; however, combination of 2 strategies in reply to library servants was the most frequent complex strategy employed by SBMUS.Other differences and similarities in applying complex strategies dealing with addresses with higher, equal and lower power were described in previous section (see analysis of the data: number of apology strategies).These findings can justify Chi Square test results in Table 9 which designate that power of the addressees affects number of apology strategies employed by SBMUS just in two situations (situations 1 and 3).It seems that the situations and the context in which an apology happens play an important role in the choice of apology strategies.
According to Table 10, SBMUS applied combination of 3 strategies as the most frequent complex strategy dealing with male addressees, and combination of 2 strategies is the most frequent complex strategy in reply to females.Other differences in the number of apology strategies in reply to male and female addressees were not significant.This is also validated by Chi Square test results in Table 11.Therefore, it can be concluded that gender of the addressees does not affect the number of apology strategies used by SBMUS.
According to what have been said, power of the addresses mostly does not have an effect on the type and number of apology strategies employed by SBMUS.This result does not correspond the findings of some other apology studies carried out in other cultures like Lombok by Wouk (2006), Persian by Afghari (2007), Sudanese Arabic by Nureddeen (2008), British English, Polish and Russian by Ogiermann (2009), Tunis by Jebahi (2011), and Korea by Hatfield and Hahn (2011) in the respect that social power was an effective factor in using apology strategies by the participants of their studies.
It was observed that gender doesn't have any effect on the type and number of apology strategies employed by the participants.This result is similar to the findings of Wouk (2006) in Lombok of Indonesia.In addition, this finding corresponds to results of the research performed by Fahmi Bataineh and Fahmi Bataineh (2008) in the case of American male and female respondents.Nevertheless, in the case of Jordanian male and female respondents, in their research, Fahmi Bataineh and Fahmi Bataineh (2008) state that there were more differences between Jordanian male and female respondents in the applying apology strategies than American ones.
As it seems, the results of the present study highlight the idea represented by Olshtain (1989) that maintains the recognition of universal manifestations of strategy selection at a worldwide level of analysis.The fact that there are more similarities than differences in apology strategies found in this study with those found in Blum-Kulka et al.'s (1989) study and other apology studies (Lombok by WOUK, 2006;Persian by AFGHARI, 2007;Jordan by FAHMI BATAINEH;FAHMI BATAINEH, 2008;SHARIATI;CHAMANI, 2010 etc.) also support this idea.Moreover, this result may also manifest Ochs' (1996) Universal Culture Principle which, as Hassani, Mardani and Dastjerdi (2011) emphasize, specifies that there are certain commonalities in the linguistic means applied to come across certain situation meanings, across world's languages and communities of practice.Hassani et al. (2011: 43) also believe that this principle suggests that people employ "[…] certain similar linguistic means to achieve certain similar social ends".However, in this study, a number of different apology strategies in Sarawani Balochi were found which were not predicted in Blum-Kulka et al.'s (1989) taxonomy. As Wierzbicka (1985) claims the differences in applying the speech acts in different societies may be linked with various cultural norms and assumptions.

Conclusion
The present study examined the effect of power and gender of the addressees on type and number of apology strategies employed by SBMUS.The similarity between most of the strategies applied by SBMUS and those employed by the participants in Blum-Kulka's (1989) project signifies universality of apology strategies.However, this study came across applying some new strategies in the expression of apology formulas not predicted in the given scheme.Some of these new strategies and expressions like 'swearing' and 'evoking the name of God (God willing)' might reflect the influence of cultural and religious factors governing Baloch society of Sarawan.As it seems, culture, religion, context and the situations in which an apology occurs, have significant effect on type and number of apology strategies employed by these participants.Power and gender of the addressees mostly does not have any effect on the type and number of apology strategies employed by SBMUS.The strategy 'illocutionary force indicating devices' was the most frequent strategy regarding the type of apology strategies.Concerning the number of apology strategies, the first rank belongs to combination of 3 strategies.

Table 1 .
Frequency and total percentage of the apology strategies employed by SBMUS dealing with professors in 5 situations under study.

Table 2 .
Frequency and total percentage of the apology strategies employed by SBMUS dealing with classmates in 5 situations under study.

Table 3 .
Frequency and total percentage of the apology strategies employed by SBMUS dealing with servants in 5 situations under study.

Table 5 .
Frequency and total percentage of apology strategies employed by SBMUS dealing with male addressees in 5 situations under study.

Table 6 .
Frequency and total percentage of apology strategies employed by SBMUS dealing with female addressees in 5 situations under study.

Table 7 .
Chi Square test results for apology strategies employed by SBMUS in 5 apology situations related to the second research hypothesis.

Table 8 .
Frequency and total percentage of the simple and complex apology strategies employed by SBMUS according to power of the addressees in 5 situations.

Table 9 .
Chi Square and correlation test results for apology strategies employed by SBMUS in 5 apology situations related to the third research hypothesis.

Table 10 .
Frequency and the total percentage of the simple and complex apology strategies employed by SBMUS according to the gender of the addressees in 5 situations.

Table 11 .
Chi Square and correlation test results for apology strategies employed by SBMUS in 5 apology situations related to the fourth research hypothesis.