A Study Of Politeness Strategies In English Business Correspondence

The current thesis intends to apply Brown and Levinson's Face Theory on Politeness Strategies into the linguistic manifestation in international business correspondence writing. It is expected that this study will facilitate the research on the application of politeness theory in written literature from a perspective of pragmatics.First, based on Leech's categorizing model of illocutionary speech acts, international business letters are classified into collaborative, convivial, competitive and conflictive letters. Then, Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies are adapted for the analysis of linguistic realization in terms of in terms of lexicon, tense, voice and syntax, etc. Lastly, statistic analysis is made on the distribution and frequency of positive and negative strategies in terms of the four categories of business letters.Through the statistic analysis, the following conclusions have been drawn as follows:1. Leech and Brown & Levinson's politeness theory is applicable in guiding business letter writing, and furthermore, politeness is to be the first consideration for the business writing.2. Negative politeness strategies carry more weight than positive politeness strategies in native business letter writing.3. The four categories of illocution-based business letters tend to show an apparent preference towards the choice of politeness strategies.As last, this thesis makes some pedagogical explorations from three perspectives: teachers, students and class activities. It is hoped that this thesis will be of some help for the learners in improving the writing competence in business correspondence.