| Business letters, being a very important way of exchanging information between business people, convey both good news and bad ones. As bad-news business letters inform the readers of unpleasant or even disappointing news and the writing of bad-news business letters should achieve two purposes: conveying bad news and maintaining good interpersonal relationship, it is required that bad-news business letters be written with more writing strategies, as compared with the writing of other types.The "you-attitude", that is, the reader-centered attitude of writing, takes the readers' feelings into account, so it plays a decisive role in guiding bad-news business letter writing. The application of "you-attitude" with this respect shows the writer's concern for the readers. Through adopting active linguistic strategies, the writer aims to minimize the negative influence of the bad news on the readers and save the readers' face. This thesis, by employing the Cooperative Principle, Face Theory and Politeness Principle of pragmatics, discusses the applications of "you-attitude" in the writing of bad-news business letters at lexical, syntactical and textual levels. The current research is qualitative in nature. It is discovered, after analyzing 34 sample bad-news business letters, that "you-attitude" is realized at lexical level in the form of positive language usage, hedges, modal auxiliaries and impersonal expressions, avoiding you-language; at syntactical level, positive tones, complex sentences, subjunctive mood, affirmative sentences, interrogative sentences, passive voice and at textual level, indirect approach. The study of bad-news business letters is of theoretical significance and sheds light on business letter-writing practice.
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