Apologies strategies used among American and Arabic speakers.

Unacknowledged Shame Theory is seen in a perspective that shame can cause a destructive emotion and can promote crime instead of preventing it if it is not managed positively. By using apology in return for forgiveness symbolises that reparation can commence (Braithwaite, 2004).

Deborah Tannen’s essay “But What Do You Mean?” focuses on what she claims are differences between men and women when it comes to social interaction. The essay is sectioned into seven categories, in which she talks about how men and women tend to think and react when it comes to apologizing, criticizing, thanking, fighting, praising, complaining, and joking with others. In general, she seems to promote the idea that women tend to be more polite and refined, considering the feelings of others when conversing and taking everything as a formality. In contrast, men are apparently more blunt, taking a more direct approach with matters and being more unconcerned with how they may affect others. Women tend to automatically apologize and thank others

Conversation is a ritual every person must encounter throughout their lives in order to function properly with one another in today’s society. However, every individual has a “different idea about what’s appropriate” when approaching someone in any sort of conversation; that is why we are referred to as individuals (Tannen 327). There are thousands of diverse languages to speak to one another with, in fact that means there are thousands of different ways to offend each other with our words. Within those languages there are several contrasting gestures that can offend any single person, such as the amount of times individuals apologize in one meeting, giving criticism too harshly, or thanking someone so often it does not seem genuine. In the article “What Do You Mean,” Deborah Tannen touches upon apologies, criticism, and thank yous in further detail to explain where individuals go wrong within conversation and how they can fix their actions. Individuals find it satisfying to please others by being polite because it is the ‘right’ thing to do, however like myself others need to stand up for themselves and get directly to the point now in order to avoid conflict later in life.

Japanese social culture is defined primarily by kindness, morality, and specifically manners. The population of Japan is so well-mannered that the Japanese language allows for 20 diverse ways to say “sorry”.

How a person responses to a compliment highly depends on the culture one lives in. Compliment is not only a positive statement about others, but it functions as a cultural tool which people use to harmonize their interpersonal relationships. Moreover, it represents similar ways of behaving in one culture (Tang & Zhang, 2009). In terms of different types of compliment responses, Holmes (1993) categorizes compliment responses into three main types consist of accept, reject and evade responses. Based on this classification, in accept responses, people acknowledge their competence by saying phrases like thank you, while in reject and evade responses they do not directly

Apologizing can be a gate way to forgiveness when you right your wrongs in a situation but to gain someone forgiveness is only earned with a small sincere apology.

My Dad once told me “Apologizing to someone may not do anything to that person; you have to apologize physically to help them out because speaking to him will just go in through one ear and out the other.”

In many cultures, it is not uncommon to show remorse for one’s transgression with an apology. People have been taught as young children to give an apology when they themselves have transgressed. While there have been previous studies on apology done with adults, there are very few empirical studies on children’s perspective on apologies. However, previous studies that have been done on children focused primarily on children’s ability to associate apologies with outcomes of forgiveness and the deservingness of punishment(Darby & Schlenker, 1982). Smith, Chen, and Harris conducted a study to explore children’s understanding of the emotional implications of an apology. The key functions of apology are the expression of remorse by a transgressor and the alleviation of upset feelings in a victim (Smith, Chen, & Harris, 2010). The main goal of the researchers was to determine whether children understand the emotional functions of the apology.

The topic of this paper is the importance and significance of “forgiveness” in resolving conflict. To resolve a conflict, forgiveness is at some point is a must. It may not come immediately but one has to be open to having the ability to both give and receive it in order for reconciliation to be successful. One may ask how forgiving someone they are in conflict with is important to achieving a positive outcome such as reconciliation. This paper is going to explore that question and show that yes, having the ability to forgive, is very significant in finding a resolution to the conflict.

I. Differences in cultural aspects: The differences in the frequency of saying “sorry” as an apology result from

Being familiar with the cultural variability and pragmatic rules of a certain culture and language, is significantly essential for achieving effective communication. That is, using these rules or norms does not mean necessarily that speakers obey them at all times and situations, but even if interlocutors, want to interact with each other impolitely or in a wrong way, they need to be aware of what forms a suitable behavior in order to violate it; therefore, what is seen to be polite or appropriate or not by interlocutors in a particular language and culture is highly related to their cultural variability and norms (Schauer, 2009:13).

According to Enright and Fitzgibbons (2000), forgiveness is not the same as one individual pardoning another, excusing the transgression or simply denying or forgetting the offense. But rather, Scobie and Scobie (1998) defined forgiveness as one that involve recognizing the offense, acknowledging its hurtfulness, and then choosing to give up a rightful claim for retaliation or restitution. However, based on these definitions, interpersonal forgiveness involves both individuals that engaged in a series of relational activities. It is important to understand the intrapersonal definition or precursors of their business or transaction. For instance, as one person’s motives begin to shift away from revenge and avoidance, and towards conciliatory gesture, the other person must choose how to respond. There may be potential for discrepancies on how each forgives from both individual perspectives. For example, people in a close relationship in most cases have different perspectives on the same transgression and are likely to value forgiveness for different reasons. At times it may be difficult to obtain both parties perspectives, especially if their relationship no longer exist or is cut off.

Despite the fact that the phenomenon of politeness is widespread in the entire world, after looking into different cultures it is possible to notice that in each one it reveals itself in various ways; it can have a small number of differences or it may differ starting from the basics. This is determined by a range of cultural specifications, customs, and way of life (Wierzbicka 2003). The essence of politeness is usually lies much deeper than in speaking syntax and language structure. An ignorance of given actions can result in misunderstanding and cultural stereotyping, which is highly dangerous to communication (Leech

Problems often occur due to misunderstandings, which come up as a result of cultural differences in methods of negotiation and handling conflict (Adler, 1986; Adler and Graham, 1989). The Americans who are associated with individualism believe in confrontation while the collectivist Chinese try to avoid conflict and heated arguments (Hofstede, 1984). This could lead to misunderstandings when the two parties communicate. For example the Americans might think that silence from their Asian colleague is a sign of consent when actually it isn’t. The Chinese might misunderstand their American colleagues’ arguments and confrontation as lack of respect. Even in negotiation, which is the two sided exchange of signals between parties, people from different cultures interpret signals differently; negotiators might thus misread the signals or transmit an unmeant message. Thomas & Pondy (1977) have suggested that often ones words, facial expressions, body language and speech lead to attributions of intent that could cause conflict. Augsburger (1992)

The rational actions people take to preserve both kinds of face, for themselves and the people they interact with, add up to politeness. Brown and Levinson (1987) also argue that in human communication, either spoken or written, people tend to maintain one another's face