A Study Of Linguistic Features Of Business Correspondence From The Perspective Of Systemic-Functional Grammar

In the recent decades, Systemic-Functional Grammar has made such a rapid progress in the field oflinguistics and it has been employed to analyze wide ranges of texts, including literary and non-literaryones. This thesis is a practical application of the theory into the understanding of sales promotionletters. With the globalization of economy and the development of multinational cooperation, Englishhas been increasingly accepted as a media for international business transaction and the market forbusiness English courses and textbooks is booming. But according to an authoritative report onbusiness English, the impact of context of situation on different linguistic features and functions of thetexts do not seem to be given enough attention to. Based on Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar,the thesis makes an analysis of the English sales promotion letters to find out their specificlexico-grammatical features and how the lexico-grammatical features realize its context of situation.This thesis firstly presents a general review on Systemic-Functional Grammar which is the majortheoretical base. Relevant theories including Metafunctions and Register are also presented as they arecrucial in the explanation of the relationship between language and the context of situation. Then,based on the analytical framework of Systemic-Functional Grammar, it makes a close analysis of thefifteen authentic English sales promotion letters in the Transitivity system, the Mood system, and theTheme-Rheme system. Finally, a discussion on how the lexico-grammatical features realize the threevariables of the register, i.e. field, tenor and mode is carried out.The analysis of Transitivity system reveals that the realization of the content of the communicativeevent is through the different processes selected in the texts. The most process types in English salespromotion letters are material, relational and mental. They are used to describe what the reader shoulddo and how to do it efficiently, to tell what the product or service is and is like, and explain why thereader should purchase the product or service, etc..The analysis of Mood system unveils that in English sales promotion letters, the interpersonal distancebetween the participants has become less and an intimate atmosphere between friends has been created. iiThe realization of this is mainly through the choice of full declarative mood and imperative mood aswell as the choice of modulation and modalization.The analysis of Theme-Rheme system manifests that sales promotion letters blend spoken mode withwritten mode to create a lower interpersonal distance between the reader and the writer. The realizationof written mode is mainly through the use of marked Theme and the use of clause as Theme, whilespoken mode is created by the frequent use of personal pronouns in the topical Theme and the frequentuse of clause complex.The findings of this thesis indicate that the Systemic-Functional approach to the study of business letterdiscourse is powerful in that the relationship between situational context and linguistic realizations canbe exploited thoroughly and expressed clearly. It is hoped that the present study will contribute to thebetter understanding of business language as well as the design and practice of business Englishcourses.