Abstract: This study takes the ethnography of communication as the point of departure, making use of the data-collection methods like participant observation,questionnaires, interviews and elicitation from literary sources.It aims to uncover the rules of speaking concerning the speech act of apologizing and further demonstrate the social variables which may have influenced it.The conclusion is that apologies used by Chinese are highly formulaic,and that such social variables as,social status,social distance affect the apologizing behavior to some extent.This may help to increase the knowledge of cross-cultural communication,thus minimize negative transfer.