Abstract: This study explores the strategies used by Iranian and American participants when reprimanding and identifies their preferred politeness strategies. As an initial step, open role-play situations were performed by 25 Americans and 35 Iranians in order to elicit reprimands and responses to reprimands in 4 different situations. Second, interviews were carried out to find out the participants perceptions regarding reprimanding strategies. The study suggests that there are indeed some differences between the 2 cultures regarding this speech act, since the participants from these two backgrounds tend to use distinctive strategies. Data elicited in post-performance interviews revealed that in some situations (e.g., in the situations when the target of reprimand has a higher status than the reprimander), the Iranians tended to be more reluctant to make a reprimand whereas the Americans avoid reprimanding less frequently. This study further supports the idea that speech acts are culturally laden and their understanding can hinder or encourage communication across cultures.