Annotated Bibliography: Journal of Intercultural Relations

Annotated Bibliography
Student’s name
Institutional affiliation
Part 1
Annotated Bibliography
BarnLund, D. C. & Yoshioka, M. (1990). Apologies: Japanese and American Styles; International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 14, 193-206.
This journal seeks to investigate the styles of interactions from Americans and Japanese. Barnlund and Yoshioka used a number of ways to achieve their goal of learning the interaction styles especially apologies of this two countries. According to the two authors, human behavior is governed by meaning assigned to an event rather than by objective of the event. The article begins with two aircraft crash scenarios which leads to 77 people (US crash) and 24 people (Tokyo Bay crash) killed. Despite the misfortune, no apology is given by the crew, airline officials or even government from America. The Tokyo Bay airline president on the other hand, together with his crew apologized to the families affected by the Tokyo Bay Crush and even resigned their jobs.
According to this Journal, apologies constitute a wide behavior spectrum that is essential in satisfying varying communicative purposes. Barnuld and Yoshioka describe an apology to be a simple conversation, an awareness term, an empathy/ sympathy message, or a means to making a transition. The two further conducted semi- structured interviews on Japanese and American students. The interviews were to help them understand the major cultural variables that affect types of apologies in American and Japan. Through apology questionnaires, the authors were able to clearly examine behaviors in the two countries when it comes to dealing with social problems and situations that require an apology. According to this journal, Japanese have no problem of directly apologizing without trying to justify their actions. The Americans also have no problem in giving a direct apology; however, they try to explain reason behind their action as a way of justifying themselves. Results from this journal’s research also show that Japanese have wider range of apologies compared to Americans.
Naomi, S. (1997). A Japan – U.S. Comparison of Apology Styles; SAGE social science collections
In this article, Naomi compares apology styles of Americans and Japanese people. According to the article, Apology is a topic that is often overlooked and it is less applied in the US compared to other cultures. Naomi argues that when an apology is well given, the offended person changes the negative appraisal on the offender. The author further indicates that apology is more popular in Japan compared to the United States. A study is conducted on this journal to examine the Japanese and American’s behavior; find out if the offender will be willing to respond through apology to situations that deserve an apology. In the research two hundred students from the US and 181 others from Japanese are requested to create messages that would show what an offender would say as a response to situations that are potentially offending. The questionnaires involved real life interpersonal situation.
After the study was completed, Naomi reports that both Americans and Japanese responded to the situations through the strategy of “stating the damage”. Nevertheless, there were differences on how Americans and Japanese responded to different scenarios that required apologies. Both groups applied different strategies of apologies. Majority of the United States participants included accounts in their apologies while the Japanese added statements of remorse to their apologies. The journal further states that the Japanese showed intention to compensate for their mistakes gave promises of not repeating the same mistake and even begged for forgiveness. Naomi states that Japanese are more willing to repair and give compensation for damage that the Americans. The Americans are on the other hand quick to offer remedy for the damage caused compared to the Japanese. Nevertheless, the Americans will give the victim an option to accept the remedy or not. For instance they will add…if you want statement to the remedy, States the author.
Part 2
Critical Review of the two journals
Introduction
An apology is an expression of sympathy, regret or fault. Normally in some extent, the reason to apologize is very small, other time’s it can be quite huge amounts of guilt, sorrow or shame (Kevin, 2007). "Extent” is crucial since it considerably affects how the apology is given. Apologizing is a vital language function. Appropriate use of apology can fix broken relationships, avoid conflicts, put persistent conflicts to rest and level the life road and love significantly. A capability to know how and what time to apologize is essential in bringing peace to the world, decrease culture shock and assist people to be happier hence more productive (Kevin, 2007)
BarnLund, & Yoshioka’s (1990) article conducted an interview with an aim of identifying variables that are culturally relevant and that could influence the apologies of Amer...