Why I’m Sorry Doesn’t Always Translate: Class 9 English Exercise

📖 Reading Text E ven after decades of cooperation in business and politics, America and Japan still trip over a seemingly simple concept: the apology. Neither culture appears to fully understand what the other means or expects. For instance, most Americans were unmoved by Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda ’s effusive apologies in 2010, after widespread reports of malfunctioning Prius accelerators . Japan, for its part, bristled when a U.S. submarine commander didn’t immediately apologize after colliding with and sinking a Japanese fishing boat off Hawaii in 2001. The confusion over the meaning of and occasion for “I’m sorry” extends beyond those countries; indeed, it seems that virtually every culture has its own rules. In India, other researchers have noted, that apologies are far less common than in Japan. In Hong Kong, they are so prevalent and ritualized that many people are inured to them. Core Finding: Our own work found that a core issue is differing perceptions of culpability : Americans see a…