The Application Of Dynamics Of Adaptability Theory To The Analysis Of Courteous Language In Business English Letters

Business English is a language style used in business activities, while a business letter is its written form. Business English letters have their unique features, and one of them is courteous language. In business English letters, courteous language is widely applied, and the theoretical analysis of the use of courteous language in business English letters plays an important role in guiding business writing.The first part of this paper is the introduction to the significant, the purpose and methods of the research. In the second part, this paper reviews the usage of courteous language in business English letters, which mainly involves the function and the classification of the business letters, the researches of Chinese scholars on business letters, and the studies of the courteous language in business letters. The third part gives a detailed introduction to Verschueren's adaptability theory, including the proposal, the development and the application of this theory, especially the contextual correlates and dynamics of adaptability. The fourth part of this paper analyzes the usage characteristics of courteous language in business English letters on the basis of the examples, and attempts a fresh approach to the explanations on the usage of courteous language in business English letters.The previous study in this area is mainly based on Grice's Cooperative Principles and Leech's Politeness Principle, whereas the present research intends to use Verschueren's adaptability theory, especially the contextual correlates of adaptability and dynamics of adaptability, as the theoretic basis in the explanation of the application of courteous language in business letters. Using language is the process of the continuous making of linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously, for language-internal (i.e. structural) and/or language-external reasons. At least three hierarchically related key notions are needed to understand the process of'making choices'as the base-line description of language use. Adaptability mainly refers to the property of language which enables human beings to make negotiable linguistic choices from a variable range of possibilities in such a way as to approaching the points of satisfaction for communicative needs. Different from previous studies on courteous language in business English letters, this paper considers the use of courteous language in business English letters for communication as a dynamic and adaptable process, analyzes the characteristics and rules of using courteous language in a changing context, and based on the above analysis provides explanations on some of the expressions in business letters which are regarded as impolite by the traditional theories of Cooperative Principles and Politeness Principle, in the hope of providing guidance to the business letter writing.