The article reports on a contrastive study of apologies in native and "nativized" varieties of English and the South African variety of Setswana. Quantitative data were elicited by means of discourse completion tasks (DCT) along the lines of the Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP) project's framework. Qualitative data were elicited by means of video-taped role plays. A statistical analysis of the DCT supports the prediction of significant differences in the use of pragmalinguistic resources in apologizing between, on the one hand, Setswana and the nativized variety of English, and, on the other, the native variety of English. This is especially true of the use of the responsibility strategy. There, thus, seems to be a reasonable avenue for theorizing from the speakers' predominant politeness and apology realization on language-specific patterns. Apologizing is a prime case of face-work because it is a redressive speech act to repair an offensive or face-threatening act and, thus, restore harmonious, orderly, or friendly interaction. However, our findings call for an interpretation of group-or community-based face, not an individual one. For this purpose, we offer an ethnographic analysis inspired by the "cultural scripts" framework. Finally, these findings can be used to foster awareness about different sociopragmatic features and pragmalinguistic means and the potential for pragmatic failure in different-culture samelanguage interaction.