A Comparative Study Of Engagement Resources In English And Chinese Conlfictive Business Letters

Business letters are a kind of telecommunication document which are used toconvey information and handle with business activities. Conflictive Business Letters, asa genre of business letters, offer a communicative way to solve trade disputes effectively.Conflictive Business Letters are divided into Claim, Adjustment and Refusal Letters, etc.from the perspective of Speech Acts. At present, the domestic and overseas scholars’research on Conflictive Business Letters mainly focuses on politeness strategies,interpersonal meaning, rhetoric, etc., however, they do not give enough attention to thecomparative study from the perspective of J. R. Martin’s Appraisal Theory. The thesisadopts the subsystem of Appraisal Theory―Engagement System to proceed to thecomparative analysis about English and Chinese Conflictive Business Letters, and triesto find out the similarities and differences in using engagement strategies so as to providethe effective way in cross-cultural business communication.The thesis will conduct research from the following aspects:1) Whether there are some Engagement Resources existing in English and ChineseConflictive Business Letters? Whether writers adopt the same and different engagementstrategies to express their view and attitude? Which Engagement Resources are mostcommonly used in both sides?2) What are the main factors leading to the same and different engagementstrategies used in English and Chinese Conflictive Business Letters?The research takes the subsystem of Appraisal Theory―Engagement System, putforward by J. R. Martin and P. P. White (2005), as a theoretical framework. EngagementSystem means that language users adopt language strategies to adjust theirresponsibilities and obligations for what they say. Engagement System is divided intoMonoglossic Engagement and Heteroglossic Engagement. Heteroglossic Engagementmainly studies lexical and grammatical resources used by writers to show their viewsand attitudes and then forms a different dialogic space with readers. In order to conductthe comparative study of Engagement Resources in both English and Chinese Conflictive Business Letters, the thesis chooses60Conflictive Business Letters as acorpus database (Claim, Adjustment and Refusal Letters20respectively), the presentresearch has made both quantitative and qualitative analysis by using the linguisticanalytical software (UAM Corpus Tool2.8.12). The main findings are as follow:1) Engagement Resources are widely used in Conflictive Business Letters, andEnglish and Chinese writers have the same tendency in choosing the commonly usedEngagement Resources, however, differences also exist. English writers tend to adoptContract Resources, especially Concur; while Chinese writers prefer to employ ExpandResources, especially Attribute. This suggests that English writers compress the dialogicspace with readers, and are inclined to use more subjective involvement to highlighttheir authority. However, Chinese Conflictive Business Letters are softer in solving theconflicts.2) The research deems that English and Chinese Conflictive Business Lettersbelong to the same kind of language expressive system, have the same purpose ofwriting and Engagement System itself also has a consistent operating mechanism.However, due to different cultural views, different national systems and differentdevelopment levels of enterprises, both English and Chinese Conflictive BusinessLetters’ writers use different engagement strategies to cope with the conflicts.3) The thesis puts forward constructive suggestions based on the research findingsabove. Chinese authors should try to add some contract resources and grasp readers’attitude accurately by which cross-cultural business communication could go oneffectively.The analytical findings have certain theoretical and practical significance. Thethesis makes the quantitative and qualitative analysis on English and ChineseConflictive Business Letters, which will hopefully widen the scope of the research inthis field, meanwhile provide certain theoretical basis for cross-cultural businesscommunication.