English Job Application Letters By Native English And Chinese Writers: A Genre Study

This thesis is a genre study on English job application letters by native English writers and Chinese writers. A three-space model including the space of society, the space of social cognition and the space of text is put forward to find out the contextual features, generic structures, and linguistic features of English job application letters. A contrastive analysis is conducted to disclose the similarities and differences between English job application letters by native English writers and Chinese writers. Possible underlying causes for theses differences are discussed. Qualitative analyses together with quantitative analyses with the help of software Oxford WordSmith Tools 4.0 and Text Analyzer are carried out.Contextual analyses indicate that English job application letters play an important role in the communicative event of job hunting. The most important purpose or function of a job application letter is to promote the job applicant. This purpose determines the organization of generic structures and the use of language in this genre. Generic analyses demonstrate that there is an eight-move structure of this genre. Of the eight moves, Promoting the Candidate (PC), Soliciting Response (SR) and Ending Politely (EP) are obligatory moves while the moves of Source of Job Vacancy (SJV), Information about the Job (IJ), Expressing the Desire (ED), Introducing the Candidate (IC) and Enclosing Resume (ER) are optional moves. Linguistic analyses show that, nouns and gerunds are most frequently used than other kinds of words in this genre. Many hard words and long words are adopted. The average sentence length of this genre is longer than the average sentence length of English. English job application letters are hard-reading texts. These linguistic features make this genre look formal, solemn and elegant.Contrastive analyses find that similarities and differences exist between English job application letters written by native English writers and Chinese writers. At the generic level, Promoting the Candidate (PC) and Ending Politely (EP) are taken as obligatory moves by both of them. However, Soliciting Response (SR) is an obligatory move in corpus A but an optional move in corpus B. Introducing the Candidate (IC) is an optional move in corpus A but an obligatory move in corpus B. At the linguistic level, native English writers tend to use longer sentences, more hard words and longer words than Chinese writers do. The underlying causes for these differences can be explained by three factors:disparity in language competences, power distance in social patterns and cultural traditions.Findings of this thesis show that genre analyses involving social space, social-cognitive space and textual space can disclose the features of English job application letters, provide job applicants with suggestions for writing English job application letters as well as improve students'cognitive abilities and critical thinking skills.