Saying sorry in Chinese: a meta-analysis of apologies and its implications

Abstract This paper presents a meta-analysis of apology realisation in Chinese. Drawing on the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realisation Patterns (CCSARP) framework, we synthesise 38 quantitative studies published between 1990 and 2024 to examine how social distance, power relations, and offence severity influence apology strategy choice. We also assess the effects of study characteristics, such as participants’ age and gender and data collection methods, on apology performance. The findings reveal that the effects of these factors are complex and nuanced, highlighting how face work in Chinese is negotiated across different social contexts. The results further suggest that research design features may affect reported outcomes and thus underscores the need for more transparent and replicable reporting practices in empirical pragmatics. Moreover, this study further identified the limits of current apology frameworks and calls for a more integrated model capable of capturing the complexity of apologies in social interaction and enabling robust contrastive analyses across linguacultures. Grounded in pragmatics, this meta-analysis establishes an empirical baseline for apology realisation in Chinese and demonstrates its relevance for broader communication research as apology studies increasingly extend into the public sphere.