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&rdqu...