A Study On Politeness Strategies In English Business Letters

Courtesy or politeness is an indispensable principle in English business letter writing, but it is very complicated for it is often influenced by various factors and is quite often implied or hidden between the lines, so it is not easy for business letter writing learners and teachers to master and handle this principle. In order to solve this problem and find the basic rules of politeness phenomenon in English business letters, the author conducts this study.The present study aims to explore what politeness strategies are applied in English business letters, in what way they are applied and for what reasons they are applied in this way, so as to find the hidden rules of being polite in business letters, and thus improve teaching and learning efficiency of English business letter writing. With Brown and Levinson's face-saving view as the major theoretical basis, the thesis examines and analyzes four types of English business letters respectively from the discourse level, the sentence level and the word and expression level. In the analysis of each type of English business letters, whether the information in the letters threatens or hurts the reader's face want is applied as the major criterion of what politeness strategies should be used and why they are used in the letters.This thesis draws the conclusion that politeness strategies in English business letters have certain rules to follow. To be specific, good-news letters tend to apply positive politeness strategies and emphasize directness and brevity; bad-news letters tend to apply negative politeness strategies and emphasize indirectness and being roundabout; complaining letters tend to apply both positive and negative politeness strategies since the reader has done something wrong; persuasive letters tend to use negative politeness strategies with the emphasis on indirectness and being roundabout.This study is expected to help business people, English business majors and English business writing teachers to handle politeness in business letters in a more effective way. It is also hoped that the study can help improve the teaching efficiency in English business letter teaching.