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A Comparative Study of the Application of PP in English Business Letters by Germans and Chinese

Author: SunDanDan
Tutor: YuXiaoYan
School: Dongbei University of Finance
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: politeness principle English business letters cultural influence politeness strategies intercultural communication
CLC: H315
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 157
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Abstract

Nowadays, international companies have been established in many big cities. These foreign companies have distinguished corporate values and provided new development opportunities. With trade expansion and more opportunities for cross-cultural communication, English business letters have played important roles for commercial communication all these years. In order to establish and maintain good business relationships and long-term cooperation, English business letters have been widely applied in business area to deal with trade affairs or deliver business messages. A good master of business letters writing skills and language features are extremely crucial because they stand for the company public image and corporate reputation. Politeness Principle has been the basic regulation for English business letters, and different types of business letters have different politeness strategies. In the 60s of last century, many linguists began to probe into the field of English business letters writing and they mainly studied the Cooperate Principle. For achieving successful business communications and getting enough information, it is necessary to abide by the Politeness Principle and its related strategies. So this study uses the Leech’s Politeness Principle and Brown & Levinson’s Face theory as the theoretical foundations to do a research on English business letters. Meanwhile, it discusses business letters in real business field and analyses these letters in detail through the perspective of Politeness Principle and Face Theory.Politeness is an indispensable element in our lives; it is the social phenomena in each country. Polite language is the standard for successful communication. But different countries have different cultural rules and value systems. So it is necessary to consider specific application of Politeness Principle in English business letters. If only one culture’s regulations are used to decide all writing strategies, it could cause misunderstanding. So how to improve the efficiency of communication when writing an important business letter is an urgent task and challenge for all the businessmen. In this thesis, some effective remedies have been given to regulate the appliance of politeness strategies.Furthermore, politeness is universal and can be perceived from each perspective. Daily communications among different communities or business cooperation all need politeness for mutual understanding and relationship development. Meanwhile, English has become the most important intermediary for its international language role. Thus, in recent years, a lot of linguists have shown great interest in politeness theories and began to regard politeness as one important linguistic phenomenon. In fact, there exist Leech’s Politeness Principle, Lakoff’s View of Politeness, Brown & Levinson’s Face theory, from which their research all lay groundwork for further politeness study and politeness strategies. English business letters are significant means for establishing business relationships and communicate between business participants in trade area. English business letters can express important messages and help maintain business relationships. So, politeness has played a great role in daily business communications. In this research, sampled letters from German companies, well-known magazines and overseas business journals have been carefully collected and analyzed. Based on Leech’s Politeness Principle and Brown & Levinson’s Face theory, this study uses their politeness strategies to analyze the collected letters by German and Chinese writers.The most important part in this thesis is the cultural influence on the different writing habits and language usage in China and Germany. As a matter of fact, politeness and culture are inseparable in daily life. Culture is communication and communication is culture, politeness penetrates the business communication. Thus, to get familiar with the cultural differences, their politeness customs, conflict solution styles and core values are extremely urgent for all the Chinese teachers, students and foreign trade businessmen to improve the efficiency and completeness of business letters. Through detailed study, Chinese writers seldom adopt the negative strategies; they are more concerned about the self-, other- and mutual face even in a conflict situation. Surely, for example, in convivial letters, positive strategy is often used.There are six chapters in this thesis. Chapter One contains three sections about background of the study, significance and purposes of the study and structure of the thesis. Chapter Two is the literature review. It includes a general survey of English business letters and the relation between Politeness Principle and English business letters. The end is the previous researches in this field. Chapter Three is the theoretical foundations including Leech’s Politeness Principle and Brown & Levinson’s Face theory and the relationship between culture and politeness. Chapter Four is research methodology. There is an investigative approach about research design, research questions and data collection. Chapter Five comes to the details of this thesis containing the analysis of the sample letters, the results and discussion. The last chapter presents the conclusions. There are the major findings and limitations of the research, the implications of the research and future research suggestions.

A Comparative Study of the Application of PP in English Business Letters by Germans and Chinese

Abstract

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