Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379

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Discourse, Context & Media

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/dcm

Online apologies to hotel guests in English and Japanese

Phillip R. Morrow ⇑, Kenta Yamanouchi 1
Nagoya Gakuin University, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Although the speech act of apology has been extensively investigated, there has been relatively little
Received 21 December 2018 research on apologies in Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). The present study presents a com-
Received in revised form 21 January 2020 parative analysis of hotels’ apologies to customers in English and Japanese CMC, drawing upon Spencer-
Accepted 29 January 2020
Oatey’s (2008) framework of rapport management. Data consisted of 200 responses by hotels to negative
Available online 9 March 2020
reviews on TripAdvisor. Rhetorical Move Analysis was used to identify Apologies and accompanying
moves. Contrary to the perception that Japanese apologize more, results showed considerable similarity
Keywords:
in the frequency of apologies and in the tendency to be unclear about accepting responsibility for service
Apology
Cross-cultural pragmatics
failure in English and Japanese. There was also similarity in the use of a corporate voice, but differences in
Computer-mediated communication the frequency and use of Explanation, Repair, Opening and Closing moves to enhance rapport.
Rapport management Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
TripAdvisor

1. Introduction These observations reflect a common perception that Japanese

apologize more than English speakers. Cross-cultural studies have
Apologies occur across languages and cultures, but there can be not always supported this claim (e.g., Tanaka et al., 2008), but do
different expectations about when apologies are needed and what offer evidence that there are differences in apologizing behavior
form they should take. In a recent article in The Japan Times, that arise from differing values and beliefs (e.g., Barnlund and
Rochelle Kopp (2019), a management consultant, wrote that every Yoshioka, 1990; Okumura and Wei, 2000).
time she asked Japanese business people about what behaviors of In the present study we examine English and Japanese apolo-
foreign colleagues were hard for them to deal with, a common gies by hotels in replies to negative reviews on TripAdvisor.
theme came up consistently: The Japanese reported that foreign Although the speech act of apologizing has been researched exten-
workers did not take responsibility for their mistakes or apologize sively, the apologies in TripAdvisor response texts vary in some
when they had done something wrong. Instead, they tended to significant ways from the apologies that have been analyzed in
make excuses or blame others, which led the Japanese to have neg- comparative studies of apologies in English and Japanese, and in
ative perceptions of them. Kopp concluded that this situation arose most other studies of apologies. To begin with, the apologies in
because foreigners did not share the Japanese concept of hansē, these texts are naturally-occurring ones from actual interaction.
which she described as ‘‘reflecting on what one has done wrong In this, they differ from the apologies in many cross-cultural stud-
and thinking about how to improve.” Having been trained to do ies which rely on data elicited in Discourse Completion Tasks in
hansē from an early age, ‘‘. . .[a] typical Japanese employee will which a speaker writes what he or she would say in situations that
immediately acknowledge that the problem was their fault and normally call for apologies (e.g., Barnlund and Yoshioka, 1990;
take responsibility for it by verbally apologizing for it (in some Tanaka et al., 2008). There can be a question about the validity of
cases, apologizing even if the problem was not strictly their fault).” data obtained in this way, as it is not clear that what people report
In contrast, Kopp noted that in the United States, ‘‘. . .people tend to accurately reflects their actual speech behavior (Kaspar, 2008).
only apologize for things that were clearly their own responsibility, Also, the apologies on TripAdvisor are a type of corporate apology
with no other causes or extenuating factors involved.” from a business to an individual customer, specifically from a hotel
to a guest. Previous studies have dealt mostly with apologies by
one individual to another in private contexts, though there have
been studies of apologies by public figures such as celebrities
⇑ Corresponding author at: Faculty of Foreign Studies, Nagoya Gakuin University, (Kauffman, 2012) and politicians (e.g., Kampf, 2009; Kampf and
1-25 Atsuta-nishimachi, Atsuta, Nagoya, Aichi 456-8612, Japan.
Löwenheim, 2012). Moreover, whereas previous research has most
E-mail address: [email protected] (P.R. Morrow).
1
Address: Faculty of Intercultural Studies, Nagoya Gakuin University, 1-25
often dealt with face-to-face apologies in private contexts, apolo-
Atsuta-nishimachi, Atsuta, Nagoya, Aichi 456-8612, Japan. gies on TripAdvisor occur in Computer-Mediated Communication

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2020.100379
2211-6958/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379

(CMC) on a popular public website. The public nature of these forms of apology were used in 49.3% of the apology expressions
apologies can be expected to influence their form: In apologizing, in their data. This contrasted with findings from research on spo-
the hotel must be concerned not only about repairing the relation- ken interaction (Owen, 1983: 65; Holmes, 1995: 161) in which
ship with an individual guest, but, at the same time, maintaining sorry was found to be the most frequently used apology form. Har-
and protecting the hotel’s reputation with an overhearing audi- rison and Allton reported that many of the apologies in their data
ence. The importance of managing a hotel’s image is evident from were for ‘‘trivial offences”, especially for cross-posting. Although
many recent studies in the area of hospitality (e.g., O’Connor, apologies for these were often not ‘‘. . .genuine expressions of
2010), including some about responding effectively to negative regret for real offences, the apologies were not out of place. The
online reviews (e.g., Park and Allen, 2013; Sparks, So and writers clearly felt that they were necessary, or desirable, and no
Bradley, 2016). Even among forms of CMC, there are differences objections were made . . . to the apologies or to the way in which
in the form and framing of apologies between those found in the they were expressed. . .” (Harrison and Allton, 2013: 334) This
TripAdvisor texts and those in, for example, Twitter messages illustrates the remedial function of an apology in managing rapport
(Page, 2014) or e-mail discussions (Harrison and Allton, 2013), and restoring harmony to relationships after an offense—even a
and these differences can be related to the influence of factors such trivial one—has occurred.
as the constraints of the message form, the topics, and the relation- How hotels manage rapport with dissatisfied customers was the
ships and roles of the participants. focus of a study by Ho (2017). He examined how hotels attempted
The aim of this study is to describe, analyze and compare the to achieve service recovery while responding to negative com-
form and content of the English and Japanese apologies used in this ments on TripAdvisor using Spencer-Oatey’s (2008) framework of
form of CMC. While this is primarily a descriptive study, we draw rapport management. Ho observed that most responses expressed
upon the theory of rapport management (Spencer-Oatey, 2008) as disagreement with the reviewer’s evaluation, and that this dis-
a theoretical framework in our analysis. The rapport management agreement was potentially offensive or face-threatening to the
framework is well-suited to the analysis of these apologies as it reviewer. Ho analyzed the response texts in terms of rhetorical
takes account of not only face needs, but also participants’ sociality moves, and classified moves which included explicit or implicit
rights and interactional goals. Furthermore, it recognizes the disagreement as ‘‘Deny Problem” moves. These moves were always
potential effects of the discourse context, of the overhearing audi- accompanied by one or more ‘‘Manage Rapport” moves, which had
ence, and of cultural factors in the production and interpretation of the function of restoring rapport or harmony with the customer,
speech acts. thereby contributing to an overall goal of service recovery. Apolo-
As a background to our study, we present a selective review of gize was one type of Manage Rapport move. Others included:
previous research on apologies in CMC and cross-cultural studies Acknowledge Problem, Explain Cause of Problem, Rectify Problem,
of apologies in English and Japanese in the following sections. Express Feelings, Show Appreciation and Minimize Imposition. In
Ho’s (2017) data, Apologize was the second most frequent type
1.1. Apologies in CMC of Manage Rapport move, after Rectify Problem (p. 7), and was
therefore a main strategy used to manage rapport. Apologizing
There has been considerable research on the speech act of apol- was also the second most frequent move identified by Zhang and
ogizing (Oishi, 2013, provides a useful survey), but relatively few Vásquez (2014) in their study of the generic structure of hotels’
studies of apologies in CMC. One significant study of CMC apologies responses to negative TripAdvisor reviews.
is Page’s (2014) study of corporate apologies posted on Twitter. These findings highlight the role of apologies as a key compo-
Page analyzed 1,183 apologies in terms of their distinctive compo- nent of responses to negative reviews. They also indicate that there
nents (e.g., explanations, offers of repair) and their rapport building are differences in apologies that are related to the form of CMC in
potential (as shown through e.g., opening and closing moves, and which they occur. Differences are also related to cultural beliefs
the use of emoticons). She found that ‘‘[c]orporate apologies are and values, as has been shown by cross-cultural studies. In the fol-
distinctive for their relatively infrequent use of Explanations . . . lowing section we look at some comparative studies of apologies in
and their comparatively greater use of offers of Repair. . ., which English and Japanese.
are typically combined with follow up moves such as imperatives
and questions. They are also distinctive in their repeated, some- 1.2. Apologies in English and Japanese
what formulaic use of greetings and signatures which did not
appear in the apologies posted by ordinary Twitter members.” There have been several cross-cultural studies of spoken apolo-
(Page, 2014: 30) Page’s findings indicate that various moves are gies in English and Japanese, but not of apologies in CMC, nor of
used to support apologies, though she notes that moves can have corporate apologies. Results from the cross-cultural studies indi-
different interpretations on Twitter: ‘‘. . .the use of features such cate that there are differing beliefs and practices about apologizing,
as use of personal names or expressing thanks as a closing formu- especially in the use of explanations as a supporting strategy.
lae that might indicate rapport in spoken discourse, may instead Barnlund and Yoshioka (1990) found that Japanese preferred to
suggest social distance and formality within the context of Twit- apologize directly without explaining their actions, while Ameri-
ter.” (Page, 2014: 43) There are several other characteristics of cans tended to give more explanations. Similarly, Kotani (1997
Twitter discourse, including immediacy, directness, text brevity, reported in Tanaka, Spencer-Oatey and Cray, 2008) reported that
and its participatory nature which influence the content and form Japanese students did not believe that they should offer long expla-
of Twitter texts, and set them apart from other forms of CMC such nations when apologizing. Sugimoto (1997) also noted that Amer-
as the replies to TripAdvisor reviews under consideration here. Evi- ican students included more accounts in their apologies than
dence that apologies are adapted to different forms of CMC also Japanese, who were more likely to make offers of repair. As for
comes from Lutzky and Kehoe (2017) who described how oops the need to apologize, Okumura and Wei (2000) observed that
came to be used as an Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID) there were differences between Japanese and British female speak-
signaling apologies in blog posts. ers regarding how much they felt they had an obligation to apolo-
Harrison and Allton’s (2013) study of apologies in e-mail discus- gize and further differences in the type and number of strategies
sions on academic or professional themes found differences they used for apologies.
between apologies in CMC email discussions and those in spoken Etiquette books and conduct manuals offer insight into the
interaction (as decribed in previous research). Regarding IFIDs, ways of apologizing that are valued in a culture. Sugimoto (1998)
 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379 3

made an extensive comparative study of the norms of apology responses, and it was earlier adapted and used by many others
depicted in American and Japanese etiquette books and guides to for analyzing texts of various genres (e.g., Kanoksilapatham,
conduct. She found that while sincerity was highly valued in apolo- 2005; Samraj, 2002, for academic writing; Bhatia, 1983; Upton,
gies in both cultures, the concept of sincerity had different conno- 2002, for professional discourse; Biber and Conrad, 2007, for
tations in the two cultures. For Americans, sincerity was associated fundraising letters). Move analysis enabled us to identify the
with ‘‘wholeheartedness” and being genuine. Therefore, etiquette Apologies and accompanying moves in each text.
books advised Americans to be creative and original, avoid the Move analysis involves segmenting the text into functional
usage of formal apology expressions, and avoid elaborate apologies units or moves. We began by reading 20 of the English texts and
with explanations. On the other hand, for Japanese, sincerity was noting the communicative functions they contained. From this
related to submitting to order and restoring harmonious relation- we tentatively identified moves. Next, we attempted to analyze
ships. This led to an emphasis on choosing the most appropriate the 20 texts using those moves and, while doing so, refined our cri-
expression, taking into account the relationship between the teria for classifying moves. We then analyzed 20 of the Japanese
speakers. ‘‘The form in Japanese apology. . .is as important as, if texts, making further refinements to our criteria for moves.
not more than, the content” (Sugimoto, 1998: 262). Furthermore, To ensure consistency we each coded 20 English and 20 Japa-
one should avoid giving explanations, making excuses, blaming nese texts independently and compared our coding. The remaining
others or minimizing damage when apologizing as these detract English texts were coded by first author and the Japanese ones by
from the sincerity of an apology. (Sugimoto, 1998: 266-267) the second author, but we consulted each other when it was
According to Sugimoto (1998: 257) there is also a difference in unclear how a segment should be coded. The lengths of the coded
the concept of truthfulness that influences the content of apolo- segments varied: Some shorter segments consisted of phrases or
gies: While Americans emphasize being truthful to reality, Japa- clauses, while longer segments contained one or more sentences.
nese apologizers ‘‘need to be true to the recipient’s perception of (See the sample coded text below.) There were a few moves that
the situation, or at least present themselves as such. . .” (1998: 257) did not fit into any of our categories so we established a category,
From the findings of studies of apologies in CMC and cross- ‘‘Other” for them. Typical examples of moves are shown in Table 1.
cultural studies, it is apparent that the form and content of apolo- The Sample Text below illustrates how the texts were coded for
gies are influenced by language and culture, as well as by features moves. The moves are shown in brackets following each segment
of the discourse context. In the following section we describe the of coded text. All parts of the texts were coded, except for the wri-
data and methodology used in our analysis of English and Japanese ter’s name and title at the end. Some segments, such as the first
apologies in one particular form of CMC: hotels’ responses to neg- one in the Sample Text, consisted of more than a single sentence.
ative reviews on TripAdvisor. In this instance, the second sentence provides an expansion or
elaboration of information in the first sentence. We counted such
cases as a single move. If the same type of move occurred a second
2. Data and method time, separated from the first by another move, it was counted as a
second occurrence of the move (e.g., the two Thanks moves in the
Data for the present study consisted of 200 texts: 100 in English Sample Text).
from the TripAdvisor.com website and 100 in Japanese from the Thank you for your comments regarding your recent stay with
TripAdvisor.jp website. Each text was a response to a negative us at [hotel name]! We always appreciate feedback as it provides
hotel review. The reviews associated with the responses were also an opportunity to create a better experience for all of our guests.
collected. Writers of TripAdvisor reviews give hotels an overall rat- [Thanks] Please accept my apologies for any misunderstanding
ing of one to five, with one being terrible, and five, excellent. We regarding your animals. [Apology] We do not charge for ADA Ser-
used responses to reviews with ratings of one (terrible) or two vice Animals at [hotel name]. [Explanation] If your pets were ser-
(poor). To make our sample as broad as possible and to avoid using vice animals, please feel free to contact me at [telephone
texts that were written by the same respondent, we collected only number], and I will be happy to discuss further. [Further Contact]
one response from each hotel. Review responses were collected Thank you again for being our guest and providing us with valuable
from hotels in ten major cities in the United States and Japan (Seat- feedback from your visit. [Thanks]
tle, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas,
Memphis, Honolulu, and New York City in the U.S., and Tokyo, [Name]
Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, Kyoto, Hir- General Manager
oshima, and Sendai in Japan). For each city we used the first ten
hotels listed on the TripAdvisor website, and for each hotel we After coding the texts, we were able to compare the two sets of
used the first review that had a rating of one or two and had an texts in terms of the frequency of the moves that they contained.
attached response. Ho (2017) used 5-star hotels, but we did not The identification of rhetorical moves and their frequency was
limit our sample to higher-end hotels as we felt lower-end hotels the basis for our analysis of the form and content of apologies in
might use different discourse strategies in their responses to neg- Section 3.
ative reviews. However, we did not attempt to balance the num-
bers of review responses from higher-end and lower-end hotels,
3. Results and discussion
or compare them. The 100 English texts contained 10,321 words,
with an average length of 103 words. The shortest one was 24
In this section, we will present findings from the move analysis,
words, and the longest 329 words in length. The 100 Japanese texts
and then describe and compare the form and content of Apologies
included 31,459 characters (moji) with an average length of 315
in English and Japanese.
characters. The shortest text was 56 characters in length, and the
longest, 806.
We analyzed each text in terms of the communicative moves 3.1. The frequency of apologies and other moves
that it contained using the rhetorical move approach originally
developed by Swales (1981) for his analysis of the generic struc- Move analysis showed not only the frequency of Apologies, but
ture of research articles. This approach was used by Zhang and also the frequency and sequencing of the moves which accompa-
Vásquez (2014), and Ho (2017) for analyzing TripAdvisor review nied them. We identified a total of 526 moves in the English texts
4 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379

Table 1
Moves.

Move English Example Japanese Example

Openings [Name], Dear [Name], Dear Sir, Dear Valued Guest, Hello [Name], Hi [Name] sama (Dear [Name]), Okyaku sama e (Dear Guest), Gotōkōsha sama
[Name], Aloha [Name], Aloha, Valued Guest (Dear Contributor), Kinkē (Dear Sir)
Thanks ‘‘Thank you for choosing to stay at the [hotel name] and providing your ‘‘Kono tabi wa [hotel name] ni gosyukuhaku itadaki, makoto ni arigatō
honest feedback on the Tripadvisor.” gozaimasu (Thank you very much for staying at [hotel name] this time).”
Apologies ‘‘Please allow us to apologize for the service delays you encountered ‘‘. . .ni kanshimashite, okyaku sama ni taihen fukai na omoi o okakeshite shimai
during your visit, as well as for the in-room plumbing and maintenance makoto ni mōshiwake gozaimasen (As for. . ., [We] sincerely apologize for
concerns you endured.” making you feel unpleasant).”
Explanations ‘‘As a small boutique hotel, we do not offer a lot of the same amenities ‘‘Enkai de no osyokuji wa gosyushi, naiyō, yosan ni ōjite, osyokuji hōhō ya
that you find at a larger, chain hotel.” onomimono no dashikata made syusai no kanji sama to jizen ni uchiawase no
ue jyunbi shite orimasu ([We] prepare meals for parties according to the
arrangements made with the host considering the purpose and the content
of the meal, the budget, the way to eat, and the way to serve drinks).”
Repairs ‘‘In regards to the front desk staff member I will address your concerns ‘‘Itaranu tokoro wa kaizen ni tsutomete mairimasu ([We] will strive to
and make sure this behavior doesn’t happen.” improve the problem areas).”
Further ‘‘. . .please feel free to divulge more information and details at [email ‘‘Moshi, okyaku sama ga saido [hotel name] o riyō saretai to omowareta sai
Contact address],” ‘‘Please do reach out [to] me directly so that we may properly niwa, goenryo naku watashi ni chokusetsu gorenraku kudasai (If you feel that
address your concerns.” you would like to use [hotel name] again, please feel free to contact me
directly).”
Invitations ‘‘We hope that you will consider staying with us in the future,” ‘‘Please let ‘‘[Name of the region] ni okoshi no sai niwa, mata goraikan itadakereba saiwai
me know when you will be returning as we would love to welcome you de gozaimasu. Okyaku sama no okoshi o sutaffu ichidō, kokoro yori omachi mō
back.” shiagete orimasu (When [you] visit [name of the region], [we] would be
happy if [you] stayed with us. All staff sincerely look forward to your stay).”
Closings ‘‘I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Hawaii and look forward to ‘‘Mappitsu nagara, [name of the reviewer] sama no gokenkō, gotakō o oinori
hearing from you,” ‘‘. . .we wish you the best,” ‘‘warmly,” ‘‘sincerely” mōshiagemasu ([I] wish [name of the reviewer] good health and every
happiness).”
Other ‘‘It’s difficult to address the issues you’ve presented in this forum.” ‘‘Sono go, hiza no guai wa ikaga de gozaimasho ka?” (Since then, how have
[your] knees been?)

and 535 in the Japanese texts. Thus, the two sets of texts were very following section, we discuss some notable characteristics of the
similar in terms of number of moves: in each there was an average forms of apologies in the two languages.
of around 5.3 moves per text. Table 2 shows the frequency of
moves and the number of texts in which each move occurred. 3.2. The form of apologies
Apologies were the second most frequent move in the English
and third most frequent move in the Japanese texts. Most all of In describing the form of apologies we begin by identifying the
the response texts (84 English and 91 Japanese ones) contained expressions that are used to apologize. We then describe the use of
one or more Apologies. In the rapport management framework, intensifiers with apology expressions in the two languages, and the
apologies are described as ‘‘post-event speech acts in the sense that use of causative expressions and repetition in Japanese. The use of
some kind of offence or violation of social norms has taken place. In honorific language is a prominent characteristic of Japanese apolo-
other words, people’s sociality rights have been infringed in some gies. We describe how honorifics are used to encode role relation-
way” (Spencer-Oatey, 2008: 19). Sociality rights and obligations ships and observe how this contributes to the apologies’ overall
are associated, usually implicitly, with certain roles (Spencer- function of maintaining rapport. We also examine how response
Oatey, 2008: 15-16), in this case, those of customer and service writers indicate their role as hotel representatives through the
provider. When a customer purchases a service, s/he acquires a use of pronouns in English and through self-referring expressions
right to receive service and there is an obligation on the part of in Japanese.
the service provider to provide it. Failure to provide satisfactory
service amounts to obligation-omission behavior on the part of 3.2.1. Apology expressions
the service provider and constitutes an infringement of the cus- In early Speech Act Theory, Austin identified the use of apologize
tomer’s rights and a threat to rapport. Apologies, along with other in its present indicative active form with a first person subject as
moves, function as remedial responses to restore rapport or the explicit way of expressing an apology in English (Austin,
harmony. 1976: 66). However, he also recognized I am sorry as an indirect
Though nearly all of the response texts contained Apologies, form of apology. Researchers in the area of pragmatics have gener-
there was considerable variation in their form and content. In the ally accepted that various expressions can be used to apologize.
Many cross-cultural studies of apologies have relied on the classi-
Table 2
fication system developed in the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Real-
Frequency of Moves.
ization Project (CCSARP), which is based on Olshtain and Cohen
English Texts Japanese Texts (1983). The CCSARP Coding Manual (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) lists
Move Frequency (%) Texts Frequency (%) Texts seven Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs) that make an
Openings 63 (12.0) 63 16 (3.0) 16 apology explicit in English: Sorry, Excuse me, I apologize for. . ., For-
Thanks 111 (21.1) 77 149 (27.9) 98 give me, Pardon me for . . ., I regret that. . ., and I’m afraid. On the
Apologies 105 (20.0) 84 114 (21.3) 91 basis of this list, we searched for tokens of the lexemes sorry,
Explanations 39 (7.4) 34 25 (4.7) 21 excuse, apologize, forgive, pardon, regret and afraid in our data, and
Repairs 49 (9.3) 47 120 (22.4) 94
Further Contact 39 (7.4) 39 7 (1.3) 6
classified moves containing them as Apologies. As Table 3 shows,
Invitations 48 (9.1) 45 56 (10.5) 56 only three of these IFIDs occurred in the English data.
Closings 58 (11.0) 58 29 (5.4) 27 There are numerous words that are used for apologizing in spo-
Other 14 (2.7) 14 19 (3.6) 17 ken and written Japanese. Owabi suru ([I/we] apologize) is the most
Total 526 (100.0) 535 (100.0)
direct translation of apologize, but mōshiwake nai (lit. there is no
 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379 5

Table 3
IFIDS. (1) Kono tabi wa go fukai na omoi o okake shi, makoto ni mō
English Texts Japanese Texts
shiwake gozaimasen deshita (On this occasion, [we] made
[you] feel uncomfortable; [we] sincerely apologize.)
IFID Frequency IFID Frequency
apologize 61 owabi suru 68
mōshiwake nai 75
sorry 51 shitsurē suru 2
77 of the Japanese texts included Apologies for unpleasantness and
regret 11 kuyamu 1 62 (80%) of them included a causative expression, in most cases a
hansē suru 7 form of kakeru (cause) or saseru (make). The use of causative
mōsē suru 3 expressions is discussed in connection to the issue of accepting
gomen nasai 0
responsibility in Section 3.3.1.
sumimasen 0
excuse 0 ıwake suru 1 Japanese response writers also used repetition to add force to
forgive 0 yurusu 1 their apologies. In the Japanese data there were 160 IFIDs in 114
pardon 0 kaiyō suru 1 Apologies. Thus, some responses contained multiple Apologies,
kanyō suru 1 and some Apology moves included multiple IFIDs, as in (2):
afraid 0 0
Total 123 160
(2) Hajimete no Kansai ryokō nimo kakawarazu okyaku sama
ni gofukai no nen o idakasete shimatta koto o kokoro yori
excuse) is frequently glossed as ([I/we] apologize). In addition, owabi mōshiagemasu. Makoto ni mōshiwake gozaimasen
there are several expressions with varying meanings that are con- deshita. (Although it was [your] first trip to Kansai Area,
ventionally used to apologize and are often translated as, ‘‘[I’m/w [we] made you feel unpleasant; [we] apologize from
e’re] sorry,” or ‘‘[I/we] regret”. These include: gomen nasai (sorry), [our] hearts. [We] sincerely apologize.)
sumimasen ([I’m/we’re] sorry, Excuse [me/us]), hansē suru ([I/we]
will reflect on [it]), shitsurē suru ([I/we] have been rude), mōsē suru
([I/we] will seriously reflect on [it]), kuyamu ([I/we] regret), and While this could sound repetitious and excessive in English, such
ıwake suru (excuse [me/us]). There are also a few other less com- repetition is quite acceptable in Japanese, according to Sugimoto
mon expressions that can be translated as ‘‘excuse me,” ‘‘forgive (1998). She observes that, ‘‘Unlike U.S. Americans, Japanese can . . .
me,” or ‘‘pardon me”: oyurushi itadaku, kaiyō suru, and kanyō suru. repeat the same statement within the message. . . . In general, Japa-
As Table 3 shows, some expressions that commonly occur in spo- nese apologizers frequently take advantage of this repetition option
ken language (e.g., excuse, pardon in English, gomen nasai, sumi- because the repetition does not always make them sound insincere
masen in Japanese) did not occur in the data. in their culture.” (1998: 263)
The figures in Table 3 indicate that in each language there are Besides making the messages more apologetic, repetition also
two IFIDs that account for around 90% of the IFIDs used in the had the effect of making Japanese responses longer. Due to the dif-
response texts. Forms of apology, and sorry comprise 91% of the ference in orthographies it was not possible to compare the length
IFIDs in the English texts, and forms of owabi suru and moshiwake of English and Japanese texts in terms of number of words. How-
nai comprise 89% of those in the Japanese texts. In Japanese, only ever, the English and Japanese texts were similar in the number
the present tense form of owabi suru is used to apologize, while of moves they contained, both averaging around 5.3 moves per
both present and past tense forms of moshiwake nai can be used text. Yet when we compared the length of the responses to the
in most instances. However, the past tense form is considered length of the associated reviews, an interesting contrast emerged.
more polite (Sugimoto, 1998), and it was this form which was used More than half (59) of the Japanese response texts were longer
in most cases (49 out of 67) when moshiwake nai was marked for than the reviews to which they responded, and 21 of them were
tense. In each language, the two most-frequent IFIDs frequently more than twice as long. On the other hand, 63 of the English
occurred in phrases or in patterns that added to their apologetic responses were shorter than the related reviews, and 29 of them
force. In particular, they were often used with intensifying expres- were less than half as long. The use of repetition is one factor that
sions and, in Japanese, in phrases that were repeated within the contributes to the greater length of the Japanese responses;
response text and sometimes within the same move. another is the use of honorific language.

3.2.3. Honorifics, pronouns and self-referring expressions

3.2.2. Intensification and repetition Spencer-Oatey recognized honorifics as a linguistic option
Examination of the two common IFIDs in each language showed ‘‘. . .that can be used for managing face and sociality rights, and
a tendency for them to be used with adjectives, adverbs and adver- hence for managing rapport” (2008: 21). The use of honorific
bial phrases that had an intensifying effect (e.g., sincere, very in expressions was a very distinctive feature of the form of Apologies
English, taihen [very much], makoto ni [sincerely], in Japanese). in the Japanese responses. Honorific expressions were used in all of
The tendency to use intensifiers was much stronger in Japanese: the Japanese texts, and this contributed to responses becoming
Intensifiers were used 40% of the time with apologize and sorry, longer since using honorific language involves using not only dif-
but 68% of the time with owabi suru and moshiwake nai. With owabi ferent words, but more words.
suru, the tendency to use an intensifier was particularly strong: 56 Japanese has an intricate system of honorifics which, in general,
out of 68 instances (82%) of owabi suru were preceded by an inten- are used in formal situations and when addressing individuals of
sifier. In English the most frequently used intensifier was sincere in higher status. Review writers are accorded high status due to their
its adjective or adverb forms, while in Japanese makoto ni (sin- role as customer, and honorific expressions furnish a linguistic
cerely), kokoro yori (from my/our heart), and taihen (very much) means for acknowledging the customer’s elevated status and
were used with approximately equal frequency. encoding the relationship between the response writer and the
In the Japanese Apologies causative verb forms or expressions customer. Thus, in (3) the customer was referred to as okyaku sama
with a causative meaning were frequently used to express regret. (honorable customer), and honorific forms of some nouns and
They were most often used in Apologies for a guest’s discomfort verbs were used (underlined):
or unpleasantness, as in (1):
6 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379

(3) Tsune ni okyaku sama no mesen ni tachi kokoro no komotta omotenashi o

always customers eye line stand heartfelt hospitality
kokorogake taiō suru yō shidō itashite orimasu ga, sābisu no kihon ga
in mind respond train do but service basic
dekite orimasen deshita koto, shidō busoku o mōsē suru shidai de gozaimasu
could not do fact, instruction lack seriously reflect on
([We] always tell employees to keep in mind the honorable hospitality and see things from the customer’s point of view, but [we]
did not provide basic service, and [we] have been seriously reflecting on the lack of [our] instruction.)

By encoding their relationship with the reviewer with honorific and how, in Japanese, response writers’ use of honorific language
expressions, the response writers reaffirmed the relationship. In served to encode and reaffirm their relationship with customers,
this way the use of honorifics contributes to the overall goal of a thereby contributing to rapport management. These aspects of an
Japanese apology, which is not just to admit or redress a wrong, apology’s form contribute to its effectiveness in managing rapport,
but to manage rapport by restoring a relationship. but the content of the apology is likewise important.
In English there is no system of honorifics through which rela-
tionships are linguistically encoded, but writers do signal the roles 3.3. The content of apologies
they are assuming by their linguistic choices. The review responses
that contained Apologies were written by individuals, but there Apologizing is related to taking responsibility for having done
was a tendency for writers to adopt a corporate voice reflecting something wrong, but most of the response texts did not contain
their role as representatives of the hotel. The corporate voice was clear admissions of responsibility. In the following we describe
manifested in the frequent use of the plural forms of first person how the issue of responsibility was handled, and we discuss how
pronouns. In our English data there were 565 tokens of first person other moves such as Thanks, Explanations and Repairs were used
plural pronoun forms (we, our, us, ours), but only 168 tokens of first with Apologies to manage rapport.
person singular pronoun forms (I, my, me, mine). Zhang and
Vásquez (2014) noted the same tendency in their analysis of the 3.3.1. Accepting or not accepting responsibility
generic structure of replies to negative TripAdvisor reviews. While Accepting responsibility has been considered an essential com-
there was a general tendency for review response writers to use ponent of a corporate apology (Pace, Fediuk and Botero, 2010), but
plural first person forms, we found that some writers switched in more than half of the 84 English and 91 Japanese responses that
within the text from plural to singular ones, perhaps to sound more contained Apologies, it was unclear whether or not the writers
sincere by taking personal responsibility (e.g., ‘‘It looks like we did were actually taking responsibility for the issue that gave rise to
nothing right for your stay and I apologize for that.”) (See also Sec- the complaint. In 27 (32%) of the English responses and 31 (34%)
tion 3.3.2 regarding switching to an individual voice.) of the Japanese ones, the writer clearly accepted responsibility by
It is not possible to compare the frequency of pronoun forms acknowledging a service failure on the hotel’s part and apologizing
between English and Japanese because in Japanese kinship terms for a specific issue without citing mitigating factors or presenting
or other terms such as job titles are commonly used in place of per- the issue in a way that diminished the hotel’s responsibility.
sonal pronouns, and there is also frequent ellipsis of subjects and
objects. Therefore, personal pronouns are seldom used. In 96 of (4) We sincerely apologize for the cleanliness in your room.
the 100 review responses, Japanese writers used phrases with a (5)  syajō ya chōshoku ni tsukimashite mo, itaranu ten ga
Chu
collective meaning for self-reference, for example, sutaffu ichidō kazu ōku ari, makoto ni mōshiwake gozaimasen deshita
(all staff) or tō hoteru (this hotel). This gave their messages a corpo- (Also regarding the parking lot and the breakfast, there
rate, rather than an individual, voice. Thus, in both languages there were many careless mistakes, and [we] sincerely
was a tendency to adopt a corporate voice. apologize).
The corporate voice was also observable in signatures, although
on this point there was some variation between English and Japa-
nese responses. On the TripAdvisor website, the name and position In English, there was a notable tendency to use apologize or apology
of the hotel representative appear in a position preceding the rather than other IFIDs in responses that explicitly accepted respon-
hotel’s response to each review, but many response texts also sibility: There were 24 tokens of apologize or apology, 7 of sorry, and
included a signature at the end. 50 of the Japanese texts contained 2 of regret in these Apologies. (Some Apologies contained more than
signatures, which were almost invariably followed by an identifi- one IFID.) On the other hand, in Japanese, 143 out of a total of 160
cation of the writer’s department or position. In this way, the writ- IFIDs were forms of mōshiwake nai or owabi suru, but the two
ers presented themselves as representatives of the hotel. On the expressions were used with roughly equal frequency in Apologies
other hand, in about half (27 out of 55) of the English texts that that accepted responsibility for service failure.
contained a signature, only a first name was given, which lent In Japanese there were also instances in which a response wri-
the responses a more individual voice and casual tone. ter accepted responsibility for having caused the guest discomfort,
In this section we have described aspects of form: We identified unpleasantness or disappointment, but without acknowledging
the expressions used to apologize, described their use with inten- responsibility for a specific service failure. In these cases causative
sifiers, and noted how causative expressions and repetition were forms of verbs or expressions with a causative meaning (e.g., okake
used to reinforce Japanese apologies. In addition, we have shown shite shimaimashita ([we] caused [you]. . .), sasete shimaimashita
how response writers adopted a corporate voice through the use ([we] made [you]. . .) were frequently used, as in (6) below (or as
of pronouns in English and self-referring expressions in Japanese, in (1) cited earlier):
 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379 7

(6) Gokitai ni kotaeru koto ga dekizu, gofukai na omoi o okake which caused you to be displeased with your stay on
shimashita koto, fushite owabi mōshiagemasu ([We] this side of town.
couldn’t meet [your] expectations, and made [you] feel (10) Konkai [name] sama kara tasha no ryokō saito kēyu de
unpleasant; [We] apologize with [our] faces down). goyoyaku o itadakimashita ga, shisutemu jō, goyoyaku no
jōhō ga tō hoteru ni todoku made ni jakkan no jikan o yō
In English, too, response writers often apologized for a customer’s
shite shimaimasu (On this occasion [we] received your
frustration, unmet expectations, disappointment, dissatisfaction,
reservation from an outside travel site, but because of
unenjoyable experience, unrelaxing stay, negative impression or
[their] system, it takes some time for [your] reservation
inconvenience rather than apologizing for service failure. They were
information to reach us.
occasionally worded in a way that implied causality (e.g., ‘‘we did not
meet your expectations”), but were generally phrased in an imper-
sonal way (e.g., ‘‘. . .your stay with us was less than expected”), often
using the passive voice (e.g., ‘‘I apologize that the special occasion In other Explanations, the problem was depicted as an isolated
wasn’t recognized.”). When an apology is for the unpleasantness or incident:
disappointment that the guest experienced, it allows for the possibil-
ity that the hotel was not at fault: The guest may have had unrealistic (11) As you can see from all the great comments we get,
expectations or there may have been circumstances beyond the what you experienced is an unusual situation. . .
hotel’s control, and thus, the problem was not the hotel’s responsibil- (12) Tsujō oyu wa dete orimasu ga fuguai ni yori, kaiteki na go
ity or only partly. taizai o tēikyo dekizu, kokorogurushiku omoimasu
The strategy of apologizing for a guest’s feeling unpleasant or (Usually [we] have hot water, but because of a problem,
disappointed rather than for service failure on the part of the hotel [we] could not provide [you] with a comfortable stay; it
was used frequently: More than half of both the English and Japa- pains [our] heart.
nese texts with Apology moves contained apologies of this type.
The frequent use of this strategy can be related to the fact that it
provides a means of responding to the infringement of the cus- In English Explanations, writers sometimes denied an intent to
tomer’s sociality rights which is also face-saving for both sides. cause a problem:
Apologies for the guest’s discomfort or disappointment show
respect for the guest’s sociality rights, in particular, their equity (13) Yes, [hotel name] is going through a transition at this
right to be treated fairly as a customer. At the same time, shifting time, but not with the intent of driving our valued
the focus from the hotel’s service failure to the guest’s disappoint- guests away, quite the contrary.
ment is face-saving for the hotel: It enables the hotel to avoid
explicitly accepting responsibility for a service failure that could
be damaging to the hotel’s reputation. The hotel does not actually
deny responsibility, but sidesteps the matter by framing the issue While Explanations were a little more frequent in English, the dif-
as one of customer dissatisfaction rather than service failure. ference was not as great as might be expected based on the results
In a similar way, the use of conditional apologies had the effect of cross-cultural studies of Japanese and English spoken apologies
of obscuring the issue of responsibility. Among the English texts, (Barnlund and Yoshioka, 1990; Sugimoto, 1997), which reported
there were eight with conditional Apologies using if or any. The that English apologies tend to be accompanied by Explanations,
use of these forms allowed for the possibility that there wasn’t and Japanese ones by Repairs. However, it bears reiterating that
actually anything to apologize for, or that it was a trivial matter. those cross-cultural studies were about spoken apologies in private
contexts, and thus, quite different from corporate apologies on
TripAdvisor.
(7) We apologize for any issues you may have faced.
Repairs occurred in half (42 out of 84) of the English texts with
(8) We apologize if there was a noise disturbance coming
Apologies. A Repair could be seen as an implicit admission of ser-
from other rooms. . .
vice failure. However, among the 42 English texts that included
Repairs with Apologies, there were only seven that made reference
There were no instances of conditional apologies in Japanese.
to a specific service issue (e.g., fixing vending machines, repainting
Besides shifting the focus of apology and using conditional apolo-
guest rooms). Instead, most of the Repairs were phrased in a gen-
gies, response writers also used Explanations and Repairs in ways
eral way about either sharing the reviewer’s comments with the
that made it unclear whether or not they were accepting responsi-
management or relevant departments, or using the feedback to
bility for the issue that led to the reviewer’s complaint. The use of
improve service, as in (14):
these and other moves is described in the following section.

3.3.2. Accompanying moves (14) We will look into it and make sure to see areas where
There were no texts that consisted solely of Apologies; Apolo- we can improve.
gies were used in concert with other moves to manage rapport.
Generally, Explanations and Repairs were directly related to the
issue that gave rise to the complaint, while other moves were ori- A Repair can make an apology seem more sincere since it expresses
ented to customers’ face needs. a resolve to prevent a recurrence of the problem, though the routine
Explanations were used with 25% (21 out of 84) of the English and formulaic content of general Repairs could detract from their
responses and 20% (18 out of 91) of the Japanese responses that sincerity. In the Japanese texts there was a much higher frequency
contained Apologies. Some detailed extenuating circumstances: of Repairs (120 in Japanese, as compared to 49 in English), and a
stronger tendency to include specific information in Repairs: 47
(9) Unfortunately all of the hotels closer to the downtown out of 120 (39%) of Japanese Repairs did contain specific informa-
and airport area were sold out during your trip to [city] tion, as in (15):
8 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379

other person’s perspective can be seen as addressing customers’

(15) Kochira no ken ni tsukimashite wa, sēsō taisē o sokkyu  ni association rights: It offers the social involvement which a reviewer
minaoshi, sēsō sutaffu e no shidō o tettē shi, saihatsu bōshi feels entitled to receive as a customer (Spencer-Oatey, 2008: 15-
ni tsutome sasete itadakimasu (Regarding this matter, 16). In our data there were not many instances like (16) in which
[we] will review the system for cleaning as soon as response writers clearly signaled a switch in perspective, but the
possible, thoroughly train staff members, and try to use of sympathetic expressions did express an awareness of the
prevent a recurrence). customer’s perspective.
In adopting the customer’s perspective and in their use of
The frequency of Repairs in English is similar to that reported by Page accompanying moves, response writers in the two languages dis-
(2014: 38): 30% of the corporate apologies in her data from Twitter played some similarity in their ways of managing rapport. How-
included offers of repair, as compared to 26% of our TripAdvisor texts ever, as the move analysis showed, there were differences in the
with Apologies. On the other hand, Page reported that only 10% of the frequency of accompanying moves and in the manner in which
apologies by companies on Twitter were accompanied by explana- they were used. In the Conclusion we review those differences
tions, whereas 25% of those in our data were. The higher frequency and consider their implications.
of Explanations in the TripAdvisor texts may be related to the fact that
Twitter messages need to be brief, while responses on TripAdvisor 4. Conclusion
need not be. This makes it easier to include Explanations, which can
involve providing lengthy details. In the newspaper article cited in the Introduction, a management
Other moves—Thanks, Further Contact, Invitations, Openings and consultant referred to a perception on the part of Japanese that they
Closings—contributed in a general way to the overall goal of restor- apologize and accept responsibility more than Americans. As
ing rapport (harmony) by addressing customers’ face needs. In both responses to negative TripAdvisor reviews usually contain apolo-
English and Japanese, an Apology was usually preceded by Thanks; gies, response texts provide a rich source of naturally-occurring data
Thanks was the most frequent type of move in both sets of texts. for examining this claim in one form of CMC. Investigating the use of
By thanking reviewers for taking the time and trouble to write apologies and other speech acts on consumer websites is clearly of
reviews, and by framing them as valuable feedback, response writers import in this era of increasing use of digital communication for
expressed positive regard for the customers and their opinions. commercial purposes across languages and cultures.
Many responses included Openings and Closings. Openings Overall, we found considerable similarity between English and
expressed respect to the reviewer by addressing them personally, Japanese in the frequency of Apologies and in the tendency to
and Closings served to terminate the exchange on a friendly note. use a small number of IFIDs. Apologies occurred in 84 of the Eng-
These moves contributed to rapport management by attending to lish texts and 91 of the Japanese ones. They comprised 20.0% and
the association rights of the reviewers. The fact that these moves 21.3% of the total moves in the English texts and Japanese texts,
were much more frequent in English than in Japanese (63 Open- respectively. In each set of texts, there were two IFIDs that were
ings and 58 Closings in English, as compared to 16 and 29 in Japa- used frequently in Apologies: apologize and sorry in English, and
nese) may suggest a greater concern for customers’ association owabi suru and moshiwake nai in Japanese. These IFIDs accounted
rights in English. However, the rather frequent use of Openings for 91% and 89% of the total IFIDs used in the English and Japanese
and Closings in our English data contrasts with their use on Twitter texts respectively. In both languages, other IFIDs that are often
where greetings and closings with corporate apologies marked ‘‘so- used in spoken apologies rarely or never occurred in these texts.
cial distance rather than rapport” (Page, 2014: 41). There was also similarity in the response writers’ use of a corpo-
Sugimoto (1998) wrote that to make an apology sincere, an apol- rate voice. This could be seen in the use of plural forms of first per-
ogizer needed to take the other person’s perspective and show son pronouns in English and in the collective expressions used for
awareness of their feelings. This could account for the expressions self-reference in Japanese. However, in English there were also
of sympathy, disappointment or embarrassment which occurred texts in which the response writers shifted from a corporate voice
in both languages. There were numerous occurrences of expressions to an individual one by identifying themselves with reviewers or
such as kokorogurushı (it pains my heart), kokoro ga itamu ([my] by switching from we to I. This did not occur in the Japanese texts.
heart aches), and hazukashı ([I am] embarrassed) in Japanese, and The Japanese Apologies exhibited some distinctive features of
expressions such as ‘‘it is disappointing” or ‘‘it is disheartening” in form. These included the use of repetition, causative expressions
English. In Japanese, there were also polite inquiries that were not and honorific language. In particular, the use of honorific language
directly related to the customers’ complaints, but which attended was a prominent feature of the Japanese texts. Honorific expres-
to their face needs by expressing a concern for their well-being, as sions were used in all of the Japanese texts. They served to encode
in (16): and reaffirm the relationship between the hotel and the guest,
thereby contributing to managing rapport.
(16) Sono go, hiza no guai wa ikaga de gozaimashō ka? (Since Regarding the content of apologies, a distinction has often been
then, how have your knees been?). drawn between ‘‘genuine” or ‘‘heartfelt” apologies and ‘‘routine”
or ‘‘formulaic” ones (e.g., Owen, 1983; 119). Taking responsibility
In the English texts a shift to the customer’s perspective was some- for one’s wrong action is generally seen as contributing to a genuine
times marked by a switch from a corporate voice to an individual apology (Pace, Fediuk and Botero, 2010), but Page (2014: 37) found
voice, with response writers presenting themselves as fellow travel- that in corporate apologies on Twitter it was ‘‘extremely rare” to
ers, as in (17): explicitly accept responsibility for a problem. In our data, response
writers did clearly accept responsibility in about one-third of the
(17) When the hotel is full it can seem a bit noisy—being a responses that contained Apologies, both in English and Japanese.
fellow traveler I can understand where your [sic] In Japanese there were cases in which the hotel accepted responsi-
coming from. bility for causing unpleasantness or discomfort, though it did not
explicitly accept responsibility for the issue that occasioned the
This had the effect of making the responses seem less business-like complaint. In English too, there was a tendency to shift the focus
and more like exchanges between individuals with a shared of the apology from apologizing for a specific service failure on
interest. In the framework of rapport management, adopting the the part of the hotel to apologizing for disappointing the guests or
 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379 9

failing to meet their expectations. It is noteworthy that in these Declaration of Competing Interest
cases, the response writers did not explicitly deny responsibility
for the problem, but instead left the matter of responsibility unspec- The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
ified. This allowed them to avoid publicly taking responsibility for
service failure, which could be damaging to the hotel’s reputation. References
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agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. consumer dissatisfaction. Discour. Context Media 6, 54–64.
10 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379

Phillip R. Morrow is a Professor of English and Linguistics at Nagoya Gakuin Kenta Yamanouchi teaches English in the Faculty of Intercultural Studies of
University in Nagoya, Japan. His research interests include discourse analysis, cor- Nagoya Gakuin University. He recently completed a doctoral dissertation on
pus linguistics, and World Englishes. He is particularly interested in Computer- speaker models in English education in Japan. His main research interests are in the
Mediated Communication. areas of teaching English as an international language, speaker models, and non-
native English-speaking teachers.