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

Apologies occur across languages and cultures, but there can be
different expectations about when apologies are needed and what
form they should take. In a recent article in The Japan Times,
Rochelle Kopp (2019), a management consultant, wrote that every
time she asked Japanese business people about what behaviors of
foreign colleagues were hard for them to deal with, a common
theme came up consistently: The Japanese reported that foreign
workers did not take responsibility for their mistakes or apologize
when they had done something wrong. Instead, they tended to
make excuses or blame others, which led the Japanese to have neg-
ative perceptions of them. Kopp concluded that this situation arose
because foreigners did not share the Japanese concept of hansē,
which she described as ‘‘reflecting on what one has done wrong
and thinking about how to improve.” Having been trained to do
hansē from an early age, ‘‘. . .[a] typical Japanese employee will
immediately acknowledge that the problem was their fault and
take responsibility for it by verbally apologizing for it (in some
cases, apologizing even if the problem was not strictly their fault).”
In contrast, Kopp noted that in the United States, ‘‘. . .people tend to
only apologize for things that were clearly their own responsibility,
with no other causes or extenuating factors involved.”
⇑ Corresponding author at: Faculty of Foreign Studies, Nagoya Gakuin University,
1-25 Atsuta-nishimachi, Atsuta, Nagoya, Aichi 456-8612, Japan.
E-mail address: phil@ngu.ac.jp (P.R. Morrow).
1
Address: Faculty of Intercultural Studies, Nagoya Gakuin University, 1-25
Atsuta-nishimachi, Atsuta, Nagoya, Aichi 456-8612, Japan.
apologize more than English speakers. Cross-cultural studies have
not always supported this claim (e.g., Tanaka et al., 2008), but do
offer evidence that there are differences in apologizing behavior
that arise from differing values and beliefs (e.g., Barnlund and
Yoshioka, 1990; Okumura and Wei, 2000).
In the present study we examine English and Japanese apolo-
gies by hotels in replies to negative reviews on TripAdvisor.
Although the speech act of apologizing has been researched exten-
sively, the apologies in TripAdvisor response texts vary in some
significant ways from the apologies that have been analyzed in
comparative studies of apologies in English and Japanese, and in
most other studies of apologies. To begin with, the apologies in
these texts are naturally-occurring ones from actual interaction.
In this, they differ from the apologies in many cross-cultural stud-
ies which rely on data elicited in Discourse Completion Tasks in
which a speaker writes what he or she would say in situations that
normally call for apologies (e.g., Barnlund and Yoshioka, 1990;
Tanaka et al., 2008). There can be a question about the validity of
data obtained in this way, as it is not clear that what people report
accurately reflects their actual speech behavior (Kaspar, 2008).
Also, the apologies on TripAdvisor are a type of corporate apology
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
(Kauffman, 2012) and politicians (e.g., Kampf, 2009; Kampf and
Löwenheim, 2012). Moreover, whereas previous research has most
often dealt with face-to-face apologies in private contexts, apolo-
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
apologies can be expected to influence their form: In apologizing,
the hotel must be concerned not only about repairing the relation-
ship with an individual guest, but, at the same time, maintaining
and protecting the hotel’s reputation with an overhearing audi-
ence. The importance of managing a hotel’s image is evident from
many recent studies in the area of hospitality (e.g., O’Connor,
2010), including some about responding effectively to negative
online reviews (e.g., Park and Allen, 2013; Sparks, So and
Bradley, 2016). Even among forms of CMC, there are differences
in the form and framing of apologies between those found in the
TripAdvisor texts and those in, for example, Twitter messages
(Page, 2014) or e-mail discussions (Harrison and Allton, 2013),
and these differences can be related to the influence of factors such
as the constraints of the message form, the topics, and the relation-
ships and roles of the participants.
The aim of this study is to describe, analyze and compare the
form and content of the English and Japanese apologies used in this
form of CMC. While this is primarily a descriptive study, we draw
upon the theory of rapport management (Spencer-Oatey, 2008) as
a theoretical framework in our analysis. The rapport management
framework is well-suited to the analysis of these apologies as it
takes account of not only face needs, but also participants’ sociality
rights and interactional goals. Furthermore, it recognizes the
potential effects of the discourse context, of the overhearing audi-
ence, and of cultural factors in the production and interpretation of
speech acts.
As a background to our study, we present a selective review of
previous research on apologies in CMC and cross-cultural studies
of apologies in English and Japanese in the following sections.
1.1. Apologies in CMC
There has been considerable research on the speech act of apol-
ogizing (Oishi, 2013, provides a useful survey), but relatively few
studies of apologies in CMC. One significant study of CMC apologies
is Page’s (2014) study of corporate apologies posted on Twitter.
Page analyzed 1,183 apologies in terms of their distinctive compo-
nents (e.g., explanations, offers of repair) and their rapport building
potential (as shown through e.g., opening and closing moves, and
the use of emoticons). She found that ‘‘[c]orporate apologies are
distinctive for their relatively infrequent use of Explanations . . .
and their comparatively greater use of offers of Repair. . ., which
are typically combined with follow up moves such as imperatives
and questions. They are also distinctive in their repeated, some-
what formulaic use of greetings and signatures which did not
appear in the apologies posted by ordinary Twitter members.”
(Page, 2014: 30) Page’s findings indicate that various moves are
used to support apologies, though she notes that moves can have
different interpretations on Twitter: ‘‘. . .the use of features such
as use of personal names or expressing thanks as a closing formu-
lae that might indicate rapport in spoken discourse, may instead
suggest social distance and formality within the context of Twit-
ter.” (Page, 2014: 43) There are several other characteristics of
Twitter discourse, including immediacy, directness, text brevity,
and its participatory nature which influence the content and form
of Twitter texts, and set them apart from other forms of CMC such
as the replies to TripAdvisor reviews under consideration here. Evi-
dence that apologies are adapted to different forms of CMC also
comes from Lutzky and Kehoe (2017) who described how oops
came to be used as an Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID)
signaling apologies in blog posts.
Harrison and Allton’s (2013) study of apologies in e-mail discus-
sions on academic or professional themes found differences
between apologies in CMC email discussions and those in spoken
interaction (as decribed in previous research). Regarding IFIDs,
forms of apology were used in 49.3% of the apology expressions
in their data. This contrasted with findings from research on spo-
ken interaction (Owen, 1983: 65; Holmes, 1995: 161) in which
sorry was found to be the most frequently used apology form. Har-
rison and Allton reported that many of the apologies in their data
were for ‘‘trivial offences”, especially for cross-posting. Although
apologies for these were often not ‘‘. . .genuine expressions of
regret for real offences, the apologies were not out of place. The
writers clearly felt that they were necessary, or desirable, and no
objections were made . . . to the apologies or to the way in which
they were expressed. . .” (Harrison and Allton, 2013: 334) This
illustrates the remedial function of an apology in managing rapport
and restoring harmony to relationships after an offense—even a
trivial one—has occurred.
How hotels manage rapport with dissatisfied customers was the
focus of a study by Ho (2017). He examined how hotels attempted
to achieve service recovery while responding to negative com-
ments on TripAdvisor using Spencer-Oatey’s (2008) framework of
rapport management. Ho observed that most responses expressed
disagreement with the reviewer’s evaluation, and that this dis-
agreement was potentially offensive or face-threatening to the
reviewer. Ho analyzed the response texts in terms of rhetorical
moves, and classified moves which included explicit or implicit
disagreement as ‘‘Deny Problem” moves. These moves were always
accompanied by one or more ‘‘Manage Rapport” moves, which had
the function of restoring rapport or harmony with the customer,
thereby contributing to an overall goal of service recovery. Apolo-
gize was one type of Manage Rapport move. Others included:
Acknowledge Problem, Explain Cause of Problem, Rectify Problem,
Express Feelings, Show Appreciation and Minimize Imposition. In
Ho’s (2017) data, Apologize was the second most frequent type
of Manage Rapport move, after Rectify Problem (p. 7), and was
therefore a main strategy used to manage rapport. Apologizing
was also the second most frequent move identified by Zhang and
Vásquez (2014) in their study of the generic structure of hotels’
responses to negative TripAdvisor reviews.
These findings highlight the role of apologies as a key compo-
nent of responses to negative reviews. They also indicate that there
are differences in apologies that are related to the form of CMC in
which they occur. Differences are also related to cultural beliefs
and values, as has been shown by cross-cultural studies. In the fol-
lowing section we look at some comparative studies of apologies in
English and Japanese.
1.2. Apologies in English and Japanese
There have been several cross-cultural studies of spoken apolo-
gies in English and Japanese, but not of apologies in CMC, nor of
corporate apologies. Results from the cross-cultural studies indi-
cate that there are differing beliefs and practices about apologizing,
especially in the use of explanations as a supporting strategy.
Barnlund and Yoshioka (1990) found that Japanese preferred to
apologize directly without explaining their actions, while Ameri-
cans tended to give more explanations. Similarly, Kotani (1997
reported in Tanaka, Spencer-Oatey and Cray, 2008) reported that
Japanese students did not believe that they should offer long expla-
nations when apologizing. Sugimoto (1997) also noted that Amer-
ican students included more accounts in their apologies than
Japanese, who were more likely to make offers of repair. As for
the need to apologize, Okumura and Wei (2000) observed that
there were differences between Japanese and British female speak-
ers regarding how much they felt they had an obligation to apolo-
gize and further differences in the type and number of strategies
they used for apologies.
Etiquette books and conduct manuals offer insight into the
ways of apologizing that are valued in a culture. Sugimoto (1998)
 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379
made an extensive comparative study of the norms of apology
depicted in American and Japanese etiquette books and guides to
conduct. She found that while sincerity was highly valued in apolo-
gies in both cultures, the concept of sincerity had different conno-
tations in the two cultures. For Americans, sincerity was associated
with ‘‘wholeheartedness” and being genuine. Therefore, etiquette
books advised Americans to be creative and original, avoid the
usage of formal apology expressions, and avoid elaborate apologies
with explanations. On the other hand, for Japanese, sincerity was
related to submitting to order and restoring harmonious relation-
ships. This led to an emphasis on choosing the most appropriate
expression, taking into account the relationship between the
speakers. ‘‘The form in Japanese apology. . .is as important as, if
not more than, the content” (Sugimoto, 1998: 262). Furthermore,
one should avoid giving explanations, making excuses, blaming
others or minimizing damage when apologizing as these detract
from the sincerity of an apology. (Sugimoto, 1998: 266-267)
According to Sugimoto (1998: 257) there is also a difference in
the concept of truthfulness that influences the content of apolo-
gies: While Americans emphasize being truthful to reality, Japa-
nese apologizers ‘‘need to be true to the recipient’s perception of
the situation, or at least present themselves as such. . .” (1998: 257)
From the findings of studies of apologies in CMC and cross-
cultural studies, it is apparent that the form and content of apolo-
gies are influenced by language and culture, as well as by features
of the discourse context. In the following section we describe the
data and methodology used in our analysis of English and Japanese
apologies in one particular form of CMC: hotels’ responses to neg-
ative reviews on TripAdvisor.
2. Data and method
Data for the present study consisted of 200 texts: 100 in English
from the TripAdvisor.com website and 100 in Japanese from the
TripAdvisor.jp website. Each text was a response to a negative
hotel review. The reviews associated with the responses were also
collected. Writers of TripAdvisor reviews give hotels an overall rat-
ing of one to five, with one being terrible, and five, excellent. We
used responses to reviews with ratings of one (terrible) or two
(poor). To make our sample as broad as possible and to avoid using
texts that were written by the same respondent, we collected only
one response from each hotel. Review responses were collected
from hotels in ten major cities in the United States and Japan (Seat-
tle, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas,
Memphis, Honolulu, and New York City in the U.S., and Tokyo,
Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, Kyoto, Hir-
oshima, and Sendai in Japan). For each city we used the first ten
hotels listed on the TripAdvisor website, and for each hotel we
used the first review that had a rating of one or two and had an
attached response. Ho (2017) used 5-star hotels, but we did not
limit our sample to higher-end hotels as we felt lower-end hotels
might use different discourse strategies in their responses to neg-
ative reviews. However, we did not attempt to balance the num-
bers of review responses from higher-end and lower-end hotels,
or compare them. The 100 English texts contained 10,321 words,
with an average length of 103 words. The shortest one was 24
words, and the longest 329 words in length. The 100 Japanese texts
included 31,459 characters (moji) with an average length of 315
characters. The shortest text was 56 characters in length, and the
longest, 806.
We analyzed each text in terms of the communicative moves
that it contained using the rhetorical move approach originally
developed by Swales (1981) for his analysis of the generic struc-
ture of research articles. This approach was used by Zhang and
Vásquez (2014), and Ho (2017) for analyzing TripAdvisor review
3
responses, and it was earlier adapted and used by many others
for analyzing texts of various genres (e.g., Kanoksilapatham,
2005; Samraj, 2002, for academic writing; Bhatia, 1983; Upton,
2002, for professional discourse; Biber and Conrad, 2007, for
fundraising letters). Move analysis enabled us to identify the
Apologies and accompanying moves in each text.
Move analysis involves segmenting the text into functional
units or moves. We began by reading 20 of the English texts and
noting the communicative functions they contained. From this
we tentatively identified moves. Next, we attempted to analyze
the 20 texts using those moves and, while doing so, refined our cri-
teria for classifying moves. We then analyzed 20 of the Japanese
texts, making further refinements to our criteria for moves.
To ensure consistency we each coded 20 English and 20 Japa-
nese texts independently and compared our coding. The remaining
English texts were coded by first author and the Japanese ones by
the second author, but we consulted each other when it was
unclear how a segment should be coded. The lengths of the coded
segments varied: Some shorter segments consisted of phrases or
clauses, while longer segments contained one or more sentences.
(See the sample coded text below.) There were a few moves that
did not fit into any of our categories so we established a category,
‘‘Other” for them. Typical examples of moves are shown in Table 1.
The Sample Text below illustrates how the texts were coded for
moves. The moves are shown in brackets following each segment
of coded text. All parts of the texts were coded, except for the wri-
ter’s name and title at the end. Some segments, such as the first
one in the Sample Text, consisted of more than a single sentence.
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
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
Sample Text).
Thank you for your comments regarding your recent stay with
us at [hotel name]! We always appreciate feedback as it provides
an opportunity to create a better experience for all of our guests.
[Thanks] Please accept my apologies for any misunderstanding
regarding your animals. [Apology] We do not charge for ADA Ser-
vice Animals at [hotel name]. [Explanation] If your pets were ser-
vice animals, please feel free to contact me at [telephone
number], and I will be happy to discuss further. [Further Contact]
Thank you again for being our guest and providing us with valuable
feedback from your visit. [Thanks]
[Name]
General Manager
After coding the texts, we were able to compare the two sets of
texts in terms of the frequency of the moves that they contained.
The identification of rhetorical moves and their frequency was
the basis for our analysis of the form and content of apologies in
Section 3.
3. Results and discussion
In this section, we will present findings from the move analysis,
and then describe and compare the form and content of Apologies
in English and Japanese.
3.1. The frequency of apologies and other moves
Move analysis showed not only the frequency of Apologies, but
also the frequency and sequencing of the moves which accompa-
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], Aloha [Name], Aloha, Valued Guest
Thanks ‘‘Thank you for choosing to stay at the [hotel name] and providing your
honest feedback on the Tripadvisor.”
Apologies ‘‘Please allow us to apologize for the service delays you encountered
during your visit, as well as for the in-room plumbing and maintenance
concerns you endured.”
Explanations ‘‘As a small boutique hotel, we do not offer a lot of the same amenities
that you find at a larger, chain hotel.”
Repairs ‘‘In regards to the front desk staff member I will address your concerns
and make sure this behavior doesn’t happen.”
Further ‘‘. . .please feel free to divulge more information and details at [email
Contact address],” ‘‘Please do reach out [to] me directly so that we may properly
address your concerns.”
Invitations ‘‘We hope that you will consider staying with us in the future,” ‘‘Please let
me know when you will be returning as we would love to welcome you
back.”
Closings ‘‘I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Hawaii and look forward to
hearing from you,” ‘‘. . .we wish you the best,” ‘‘warmly,” ‘‘sincerely”
Other ‘‘It’s difficult to address the issues you’ve presented in this forum.”
[Name] sama (Dear [Name]), Okyaku sama e (Dear Guest), Gotōkōsha sama
(Dear Contributor), Kinkē (Dear Sir)
‘‘Kono tabi wa [hotel name] ni gosyukuhaku itadaki, makoto ni arigatō
gozaimasu (Thank you very much for staying at [hotel name] this time).”
‘‘. . .ni kanshimashite, okyaku sama ni taihen fukai na omoi o okakeshite shimai
makoto ni mōshiwake gozaimasen (As for. . ., [We] sincerely apologize for
making you feel unpleasant).”
‘‘Enkai de no osyokuji wa gosyushi, naiyō, yosan ni ōjite, osyokuji hōhō ya
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).”
‘‘Itaranu tokoro wa kaizen ni tsutomete mairimasu ([We] will strive to
improve the problem areas).”
‘‘Moshi, okyaku sama ga saido [hotel name] o riyō saretai to omowareta sai
niwa, goenryo naku watashi ni chokusetsu gorenraku kudasai (If you feel that
you would like to use [hotel name] again, please feel free to contact me
directly).”
‘‘[Name of the region] ni okoshi no sai niwa, mata goraikan itadakereba saiwai
de gozaimasu. Okyaku sama no okoshi o sutaffu ichidō, kokoro yori omachi mō
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).”
‘‘Mappitsu nagara, [name of the reviewer] sama no gokenkō, gotakō o oinori
mōshiagemasu ([I] wish [name of the reviewer] good health and every
happiness).”
‘‘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
Table 3
IFIDS.
English Texts Japanese Texts
IFID Frequency IFID Frequency
apologize 61 owabi suru
mōshiwake nai
sorry 51 shitsurē suru
regret 11 kuyamu
hansē suru
mōsē suru
gomen nasai
sumimasen
excuse 0 ıwake suru
forgive 0 yurusu
pardon 0 kaiyō suru
kanyō suru
afraid 0 0
Total 123
excuse) is frequently glossed as ([I/we] apologize). In addition,
there are several expressions with varying meanings that are con-
ventionally used to apologize and are often translated as, ‘‘[I’m/w
e’re] sorry,” or ‘‘[I/we] regret”. These include: gomen nasai (sorry),
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
ıwake suru (excuse [me/us]). There are also a few other less com-
mon expressions that can be translated as ‘‘excuse me,” ‘‘forgive
me,” or ‘‘pardon me”: oyurushi itadaku, kaiyō suru, and kanyō suru.
As Table 3 shows, some expressions that commonly occur in spo-
ken language (e.g., excuse, pardon in English, gomen nasai, sumi-
masen in Japanese) did not occur in the data.
The figures in Table 3 indicate that in each language there are
two IFIDs that account for around 90% of the IFIDs used in the
response texts. Forms of apology, and sorry comprise 91% of the
IFIDs in the English texts, and forms of owabi suru and moshiwake
nai comprise 89% of those in the Japanese texts. In Japanese, only
the present tense form of owabi suru is used to apologize, while
both present and past tense forms of moshiwake nai can be used
in most instances. However, the past tense form is considered
more polite (Sugimoto, 1998), and it was this form which was used
in most cases (49 out of 67) when moshiwake nai was marked for
tense. In each language, the two most-frequent IFIDs frequently
occurred in phrases or in patterns that added to their apologetic
force. In particular, they were often used with intensifying expres-
sions and, in Japanese, in phrases that were repeated within the
response text and sometimes within the same move.
3.2.2. Intensification and repetition
Examination of the two common IFIDs in each language showed
a tendency for them to be used with adjectives, adverbs and adver-
bial phrases that had an intensifying effect (e.g., sincere, very in
English, taihen [very much], makoto ni [sincerely], in Japanese).
The tendency to use intensifiers was much stronger in Japanese:
Intensifiers were used 40% of the time with apologize and sorry,
but 68% of the time with owabi suru and moshiwake nai. With owabi
suru, the tendency to use an intensifier was particularly strong: 56
out of 68 instances (82%) of owabi suru were preceded by an inten-
sifier. In English the most frequently used intensifier was sincere in
its adjective or adverb forms, while in Japanese makoto ni (sin-
cerely), kokoro yori (from my/our heart), and taihen (very much)
were used with approximately equal frequency.
In the Japanese Apologies causative verb forms or expressions
with a causative meaning were frequently used to express regret.
They were most often used in Apologies for a guest’s discomfort
or unpleasantness, as in (1):
5
(1) Kono tabi wa go fukai na omoi o okake shi, makoto ni mō
shiwake gozaimasen deshita (On this occasion, [we] made
[you] feel uncomfortable; [we] sincerely apologize.)
68
75
2
77 of the Japanese texts included Apologies for unpleasantness and
1 62 (80%) of them included a causative expression, in most cases a
7 form of kakeru (cause) or saseru (make). The use of causative
3 expressions is discussed in connection to the issue of accepting
0
responsibility in Section 3.3.1.
0
1 Japanese response writers also used repetition to add force to
1 their apologies. In the Japanese data there were 160 IFIDs in 114
1 Apologies. Thus, some responses contained multiple Apologies,
1 and some Apology moves included multiple IFIDs, as in (2):
160
(2) Hajimete no Kansai ryokō nimo kakawarazu okyaku sama
ni gofukai no nen o idakasete shimatta koto o kokoro yori
owabi mōshiagemasu. Makoto ni mōshiwake gozaimasen
deshita. (Although it was [your] first trip to Kansai Area,
[we] made you feel unpleasant; [we] apologize from
[our] hearts. [We] sincerely apologize.)
While this could sound repetitious and excessive in English, such
repetition is quite acceptable in Japanese, according to Sugimoto
(1998). She observes that, ‘‘Unlike U.S. Americans, Japanese can . . .
repeat the same statement within the message. . . . In general, Japa-
nese apologizers frequently take advantage of this repetition option
because the repetition does not always make them sound insincere
in their culture.” (1998: 263)
Besides making the messages more apologetic, repetition also
had the effect of making Japanese responses longer. Due to the dif-
ference in orthographies it was not possible to compare the length
of English and Japanese texts in terms of number of words. How-
ever, the English and Japanese texts were similar in the number
of moves they contained, both averaging around 5.3 moves per
text. Yet when we compared the length of the responses to the
length of the associated reviews, an interesting contrast emerged.
More than half (59) of the Japanese response texts were longer
than the reviews to which they responded, and 21 of them were
more than twice as long. On the other hand, 63 of the English
responses were shorter than the related reviews, and 29 of them
were less than half as long. The use of repetition is one factor that
contributes to the greater length of the Japanese responses;
another is the use of honorific language.
3.2.3. Honorifics, pronouns and self-referring expressions
Spencer-Oatey recognized honorifics as a linguistic option
‘‘. . .that can be used for managing face and sociality rights, and
hence for managing rapport” (2008: 21). The use of honorific
expressions was a very distinctive feature of the form of Apologies
in the Japanese responses. Honorific expressions were used in all of
the Japanese texts, and this contributed to responses becoming
longer since using honorific language involves using not only dif-
ferent words, but more words.
Japanese has an intricate system of honorifics which, in general,
are used in formal situations and when addressing individuals of
higher status. Review writers are accorded high status due to their
role as customer, and honorific expressions furnish a linguistic
means for acknowledging the customer’s elevated status and
encoding the relationship between the response writer and the
customer. Thus, in (3) the customer was referred to as okyaku sama
(honorable customer), and honorific forms of some nouns and
verbs were used (underlined):
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
expressions, the response writers reaffirmed the relationship. In
this way the use of honorifics contributes to the overall goal of a
Japanese apology, which is not just to admit or redress a wrong,
but to manage rapport by restoring a relationship.
In English there is no system of honorifics through which rela-
tionships are linguistically encoded, but writers do signal the roles
they are assuming by their linguistic choices. The review responses
that contained Apologies were written by individuals, but there
was a tendency for writers to adopt a corporate voice reflecting
their role as representatives of the hotel. The corporate voice was
manifested in the frequent use of the plural forms of first person
pronouns. In our English data there were 565 tokens of first person
plural pronoun forms (we, our, us, ours), but only 168 tokens of first
person singular pronoun forms (I, my, me, mine). Zhang and
Vásquez (2014) noted the same tendency in their analysis of the
generic structure of replies to negative TripAdvisor reviews. While
there was a general tendency for review response writers to use
plural first person forms, we found that some writers switched
within the text from plural to singular ones, perhaps to sound more
sincere by taking personal responsibility (e.g., ‘‘It looks like we did
nothing right for your stay and I apologize for that.”) (See also Sec-
tion 3.3.2 regarding switching to an individual voice.)
It is not possible to compare the frequency of pronoun forms
between English and Japanese because in Japanese kinship terms
or other terms such as job titles are commonly used in place of per-
sonal pronouns, and there is also frequent ellipsis of subjects and
objects. Therefore, personal pronouns are seldom used. In 96 of
the 100 review responses, Japanese writers used phrases with a
collective meaning for self-reference, for example, sutaffu ichidō
(all staff) or tō hoteru (this hotel). This gave their messages a corpo-
rate, rather than an individual, voice. Thus, in both languages there
was a tendency to adopt a corporate voice.
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
of the hotel representative appear in a position preceding the
hotel’s response to each review, but many response texts also
included a signature at the end. 50 of the Japanese texts contained
signatures, which were almost invariably followed by an identifi-
cation of the writer’s department or position. In this way, the writ-
ers presented themselves as representatives of the hotel. On the
other hand, in about half (27 out of 55) of the English texts that
contained a signature, only a first name was given, which lent
the responses a more individual voice and casual tone.
In this section we have described aspects of form: We identified
the expressions used to apologize, described their use with inten-
sifiers, and noted how causative expressions and repetition were
used to reinforce Japanese apologies. In addition, we have shown
how response writers adopted a corporate voice through the use
of pronouns in English and self-referring expressions in Japanese,
and how, in Japanese, response writers’ use of honorific language
served to encode and reaffirm their relationship with customers,
thereby contributing to rapport management. These aspects of an
apology’s form contribute to its effectiveness in managing rapport,
but the content of the apology is likewise important.
3.3. The content of apologies
Apologizing is related to taking responsibility for having done
something wrong, but most of the response texts did not contain
clear admissions of responsibility. In the following we describe
how the issue of responsibility was handled, and we discuss how
other moves such as Thanks, Explanations and Repairs were used
with Apologies to manage rapport.
3.3.1. Accepting or not accepting responsibility
Accepting responsibility has been considered an essential com-
ponent of a corporate apology (Pace, Fediuk and Botero, 2010), but
in more than half of the 84 English and 91 Japanese responses that
contained Apologies, it was unclear whether or not the writers
were actually taking responsibility for the issue that gave rise to
the complaint. In 27 (32%) of the English responses and 31 (34%)
of the Japanese ones, the writer clearly accepted responsibility by
acknowledging a service failure on the hotel’s part and apologizing
for a specific issue without citing mitigating factors or presenting
the issue in a way that diminished the hotel’s responsibility.
(4) We sincerely apologize for the cleanliness in your room.
(5)  syajō ya chōshoku ni tsukimashite mo, itaranu ten ga
Chu
kazu ōku ari, makoto ni mōshiwake gozaimasen deshita
(Also regarding the parking lot and the breakfast, there
were many careless mistakes, and [we] sincerely
apologize).
In English, there was a notable tendency to use apologize or apology
rather than other IFIDs in responses that explicitly accepted respon-
sibility: There were 24 tokens of apologize or apology, 7 of sorry, and
2 of regret in these Apologies. (Some Apologies contained more than
one IFID.) On the other hand, in Japanese, 143 out of a total of 160
IFIDs were forms of mōshiwake nai or owabi suru, but the two
expressions were used with roughly equal frequency in Apologies
that accepted responsibility for service failure.
In Japanese there were also instances in which a response wri-
ter accepted responsibility for having caused the guest discomfort,
unpleasantness or disappointment, but without acknowledging
responsibility for a specific service failure. In these cases causative
forms of verbs or expressions with a causative meaning (e.g., okake
shite shimaimashita ([we] caused [you]. . .), sasete shimaimashita
([we] made [you]. . .) were frequently used, as in (6) below (or as
in (1) cited earlier):
 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379
(6) Gokitai ni kotaeru koto ga dekizu, gofukai na omoi o okake
shimashita koto, fushite owabi mōshiagemasu ([We]
couldn’t meet [your] expectations, and made [you] feel
unpleasant; [We] apologize with [our] faces down).
In English, too, response writers often apologized for a customer’s
frustration, unmet expectations, disappointment, dissatisfaction,
unenjoyable experience, unrelaxing stay, negative impression or
inconvenience rather than apologizing for service failure. They were
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
wasn’t recognized.”). When an apology is for the unpleasantness or
disappointment that the guest experienced, it allows for the possibil-
ity that the hotel was not at fault: The guest may have had unrealistic
expectations or there may have been circumstances beyond the
hotel’s control, and thus, the problem was not the hotel’s responsibil-
ity or only partly.
The strategy of apologizing for a guest’s feeling unpleasant or
disappointed rather than for service failure on the part of the hotel
was used frequently: More than half of both the English and Japa-
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-
tomer’s sociality rights which is also face-saving for both sides.
Apologies for the guest’s discomfort or disappointment show
respect for the guest’s sociality rights, in particular, their equity
right to be treated fairly as a customer. At the same time, shifting
the focus from the hotel’s service failure to the guest’s disappoint-
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
as one of customer dissatisfaction rather than service failure.
In a similar way, the use of conditional apologies had the effect
of obscuring the issue of responsibility. Among the English texts,
there were eight with conditional Apologies using if or any. The
use of these forms allowed for the possibility that there wasn’t
actually anything to apologize for, or that it was a trivial matter.
(7) We apologize for any issues you may have faced.
(8) We apologize if there was a noise disturbance coming
from other rooms. . .
There were no instances of conditional apologies in Japanese.
Besides shifting the focus of apology and using conditional apolo-
gies, response writers also used Explanations and Repairs in ways
that made it unclear whether or not they were accepting responsi-
bility for the issue that led to the reviewer’s complaint. The use of
these and other moves is described in the following section.
3.3.2. Accompanying moves
There were no texts that consisted solely of Apologies; Apolo-
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-
ented to customers’ face needs.
Explanations were used with 25% (21 out of 84) of the English
responses and 20% (18 out of 91) of the Japanese responses that
contained Apologies. Some detailed extenuating circumstances:
(9) Unfortunately all of the hotels closer to the downtown
and airport area were sold out during your trip to [city]
7
which caused you to be displeased with your stay on
this side of town.
(10) Konkai [name] sama kara tasha no ryokō saito kēyu de
goyoyaku o itadakimashita ga, shisutemu jō, goyoyaku no
jōhō ga tō hoteru ni todoku made ni jakkan no jikan o yō
shite shimaimasu (On this occasion [we] received your
reservation from an outside travel site, but because of
[their] system, it takes some time for [your] reservation
information to reach us.
In other Explanations, the problem was depicted as an isolated
incident:
(11) As you can see from all the great comments we get,
what you experienced is an unusual situation. . .
(12) Tsujō oyu wa dete orimasu ga fuguai ni yori, kaiteki na go
taizai o tēikyo dekizu, kokorogurushiku omoimasu
(Usually [we] have hot water, but because of a problem,
[we] could not provide [you] with a comfortable stay; it
pains [our] heart.
In English Explanations, writers sometimes denied an intent to
cause a problem:
(13) Yes, [hotel name] is going through a transition at this
time, but not with the intent of driving our valued
guests away, quite the contrary.
While Explanations were a little more frequent in English, the dif-
ference was not as great as might be expected based on the results
of cross-cultural studies of Japanese and English spoken apologies
(Barnlund and Yoshioka, 1990; Sugimoto, 1997), which reported
that English apologies tend to be accompanied by Explanations,
and Japanese ones by Repairs. However, it bears reiterating that
those cross-cultural studies were about spoken apologies in private
contexts, and thus, quite different from corporate apologies on
TripAdvisor.
Repairs occurred in half (42 out of 84) of the English texts with
Apologies. A Repair could be seen as an implicit admission of ser-
vice failure. However, among the 42 English texts that included
Repairs with Apologies, there were only seven that made reference
to a specific service issue (e.g., fixing vending machines, repainting
guest rooms). Instead, most of the Repairs were phrased in a gen-
eral way about either sharing the reviewer’s comments with the
management or relevant departments, or using the feedback to
improve service, as in (14):
(14) We will look into it and make sure to see areas where
we can improve.
A Repair can make an apology seem more sincere since it expresses
a resolve to prevent a recurrence of the problem, though the routine
and formulaic content of general Repairs could detract from their
sincerity. In the Japanese texts there was a much higher frequency
of Repairs (120 in Japanese, as compared to 49 in English), and a
stronger tendency to include specific information in Repairs: 47
out of 120 (39%) of Japanese Repairs did contain specific informa-
tion, as in (15):
8 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379
(15) Kochira no ken ni tsukimashite wa, sēsō taisē o sokkyu  ni
minaoshi, sēsō sutaffu e no shidō o tettē shi, saihatsu bōshi
ni tsutome sasete itadakimasu (Regarding this matter,
[we] will review the system for cleaning as soon as
possible, thoroughly train staff members, and try to
prevent a recurrence).
The frequency of Repairs in English is similar to that reported by Page
(2014: 38): 30% of the corporate apologies in her data from Twitter
included offers of repair, as compared to 26% of our TripAdvisor texts
with Apologies. On the other hand, Page reported that only 10% of the
apologies by companies on Twitter were accompanied by explana-
tions, whereas 25% of those in our data were. The higher frequency
of Explanations in the TripAdvisor texts may be related to the fact that
Twitter messages need to be brief, while responses on TripAdvisor
need not be. This makes it easier to include Explanations, which can
involve providing lengthy details.
Other moves—Thanks, Further Contact, Invitations, Openings and
Closings—contributed in a general way to the overall goal of restor-
ing rapport (harmony) by addressing customers’ face needs. In both
English and Japanese, an Apology was usually preceded by Thanks;
Thanks was the most frequent type of move in both sets of texts.
By thanking reviewers for taking the time and trouble to write
reviews, and by framing them as valuable feedback, response writers
expressed positive regard for the customers and their opinions.
Many responses included Openings and Closings. Openings
expressed respect to the reviewer by addressing them personally,
and Closings served to terminate the exchange on a friendly note.
These moves contributed to rapport management by attending to
the association rights of the reviewers. The fact that these moves
were much more frequent in English than in Japanese (63 Open-
ings and 58 Closings in English, as compared to 16 and 29 in Japa-
nese) may suggest a greater concern for customers’ association
rights in English. However, the rather frequent use of Openings
and Closings in our English data contrasts with their use on Twitter
where greetings and closings with corporate apologies marked ‘‘so-
cial distance rather than rapport” (Page, 2014: 41).
Sugimoto (1998) wrote that to make an apology sincere, an apol-
ogizer needed to take the other person’s perspective and show
awareness of their feelings. This could account for the expressions
of sympathy, disappointment or embarrassment which occurred
in both languages. There were numerous occurrences of expressions
such as kokorogurushı (it pains my heart), kokoro ga itamu ([my]
heart aches), and hazukashı ([I am] embarrassed) in Japanese, and
expressions such as ‘‘it is disappointing” or ‘‘it is disheartening” in
English. In Japanese, there were also polite inquiries that were not
directly related to the customers’ complaints, but which attended
to their face needs by expressing a concern for their well-being, as
in (16):
(16) Sono go, hiza no guai wa ikaga de gozaimashō ka? (Since
then, how have your knees been?).
In the English texts a shift to the customer’s perspective was some-
times marked by a switch from a corporate voice to an individual
voice, with response writers presenting themselves as fellow travel-
ers, as in (17):
(17) When the hotel is full it can seem a bit noisy—being a
fellow traveler I can understand where your [sic]
coming from.
This had the effect of making the responses seem less business-like
and more like exchanges between individuals with a shared
interest. In the framework of rapport management, adopting the
other person’s perspective can be seen as addressing customers’
association rights: It offers the social involvement which a reviewer
feels entitled to receive as a customer (Spencer-Oatey, 2008: 15-
16). In our data there were not many instances like (16) in which
response writers clearly signaled a switch in perspective, but the
use of sympathetic expressions did express an awareness of the
customer’s perspective.
In adopting the customer’s perspective and in their use of
accompanying moves, response writers in the two languages dis-
played some similarity in their ways of managing rapport. How-
ever, as the move analysis showed, there were differences in the
frequency of accompanying moves and in the manner in which
they were used. In the Conclusion we review those differences
and consider their implications.
4. Conclusion
In the newspaper article cited in the Introduction, a management
consultant referred to a perception on the part of Japanese that they
apologize and accept responsibility more than Americans. As
responses to negative TripAdvisor reviews usually contain apolo-
gies, response texts provide a rich source of naturally-occurring data
for examining this claim in one form of CMC. Investigating the use of
apologies and other speech acts on consumer websites is clearly of
import in this era of increasing use of digital communication for
commercial purposes across languages and cultures.
Overall, we found considerable similarity between English and
Japanese in the frequency of Apologies and in the tendency to
use a small number of IFIDs. Apologies occurred in 84 of the Eng-
lish texts and 91 of the Japanese ones. They comprised 20.0% and
21.3% of the total moves in the English texts and Japanese texts,
respectively. In each set of texts, there were two IFIDs that were
used frequently in Apologies: apologize and sorry in English, and
owabi suru and moshiwake nai in Japanese. These IFIDs accounted
for 91% and 89% of the total IFIDs used in the English and Japanese
texts respectively. In both languages, other IFIDs that are often
used in spoken apologies rarely or never occurred in these texts.
There was also similarity in the response writers’ use of a corpo-
rate voice. This could be seen in the use of plural forms of first per-
son pronouns in English and in the collective expressions used for
self-reference in Japanese. However, in English there were also
texts in which the response writers shifted from a corporate voice
to an individual one by identifying themselves with reviewers or
by switching from we to I. This did not occur in the Japanese texts.
The Japanese Apologies exhibited some distinctive features of
form. These included the use of repetition, causative expressions
and honorific language. In particular, the use of honorific language
was a prominent feature of the Japanese texts. Honorific expres-
sions were used in all of the Japanese texts. They served to encode
and reaffirm the relationship between the hotel and the guest,
thereby contributing to managing rapport.
Regarding the content of apologies, a distinction has often been
drawn between ‘‘genuine” or ‘‘heartfelt” apologies and ‘‘routine”
or ‘‘formulaic” ones (e.g., Owen, 1983; 119). Taking responsibility
for one’s wrong action is generally seen as contributing to a genuine
apology (Pace, Fediuk and Botero, 2010), but Page (2014: 37) found
that in corporate apologies on Twitter it was ‘‘extremely rare” to
explicitly accept responsibility for a problem. In our data, response
writers did clearly accept responsibility in about one-third of the
responses that contained Apologies, both in English and Japanese.
In Japanese there were cases in which the hotel accepted responsi-
bility for causing unpleasantness or discomfort, though it did not
explicitly accept responsibility for the issue that occasioned the
complaint. In English too, there was a tendency to shift the focus
of the apology from apologizing for a specific service failure on
the part of the hotel to apologizing for disappointing the guests or
 P.R. Morrow, K. Yamanouchi / Discourse, Context & Media 34 (2020) 100379
failing to meet their expectations. It is noteworthy that in these
cases, the response writers did not explicitly deny responsibility
for the problem, but instead left the matter of responsibility unspec-
ified. This allowed them to avoid publicly taking responsibility for
service failure, which could be damaging to the hotel’s reputation.
It also enabled response writers to avoid disagreeing with reviewers
which would be face-threatening and potentially damaging to
rapport.
On the issue of denying responsibility, our interpretation differs
from that of Ho (2017). In both our English and Japanese data, the
majority of response writers did not clearly accept responsibility,
but neither did they clearly deny responsibility for the problem
or deny that a problem existed. In contrast, Ho reported that 77
out of the 95 review responses that he examined contained at least
one ‘‘Deny Problem” move, a type of move ‘‘which explicitly or
implicitly indicated that the problems the customers mentioned
were not true” (2017: 9). The Deny Problem move was realized
through one of six ‘‘sub-moves”: Challenge Reviewer’s Decision,
Frame Problem as Isolated Incident, Rebut, Suggest or Recommend,
Highlight Facility or Service, and Emphasize Practice or Mission.
While a rebuttal or challenge to the reviewer’s complaint is likely
to involve denying a problem, it is not clear that the other sub-
moves are actually denials. For instance, Ho considered framing a
problem as an isolated incident as a form of ‘‘explicit denial”
(2017: 9). In our view, it portrays the problem as exceptional,
but does allow that the problem did occur or could have occurred.
It is true that the sub-moves that Ho identifies present a point of
view which differs from the reviewer’s, but this does not entail that
they are denying the reviewer’s complaint.
We also found some noteworthy differences in the use of
accompanying moves. Although cross-cultural studies of spoken
apologies (Barnlund and Yoshioka, 1990; Kotani, 1997; Sugimoto,
1997, 1998) reported that Americans used Explanations more fre-
quently than Japanese, there was not a large difference in our data.
This could be due to differences in the type of apology data: The
earlier studies were of spoken apologies between private individu-
als in private domains, whereas the apologies on TripAdvisor were
corporate apologies that occurred in a public domain.
Repairs occurred in almost all of the Japanese texts (94) but less
than half of the English ones (47), and there were 120 Repairs in
the Japanese corpus as compared to 49 in the English corpus. The
greater use of Repairs as a supporting strategy for Apologies sug-
gests that in terms of Spencer-Oatey’s (2008) rapport management
framework, equity rights have greater weight in Japanese than in
English. On the other hand, the higher frequency of Openings and
Closings in English suggests a greater concern for participants’
association rights in English.
In the present study our concern has been with investigating
and comparing the form and content of hotels’ online apologies
in English and Japanese. Further study is needed to determine
the extent to which the similarities and differences that we have
identified obtain in apologies in other forms of CMC. Further study
could also clarify how effective the various forms of apologies are
in restoring rapport, and whether they are equally effective across
cultures. Such findings would be valuable to business professionals
who increasingly interact with consumers cross-culturally through
CMC.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
9
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
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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
University in Nagoya, Japan. His research interests include discourse analysis, cor-
pus linguistics, and World Englishes. He is particularly interested in Computer-
Mediated Communication.
Kenta Yamanouchi teaches English in the Faculty of Intercultural Studies of
Nagoya Gakuin University. He recently completed a doctoral dissertation on
speaker models in English education in Japan. His main research interests are in the
areas of teaching English as an international language, speaker models, and non-
native English-speaking teachers.