The Study Of English Cover Letters From Modality Perspective

Cover letter plays an important role in the job-hunting process because it is an effectivemeans for the realization of better communication and understanding between the job-seekerand potential employer. The present thesis makes a detailed analysis on the modal expressionsof the English cover letters. The author intends to find out the distribution of different modalexpressions, the value distribution and the orientation distribution of these modal expressions.Fifty-two English cover letters from native speakers are selected as corpus in the presentresearch. The research is conducted on the basis of Halliday’s modal theory. According to thedata collection, the distribution of the modal expressions—modal operators, modal adjunctsand modal metaphors are explored. All of these modal expressions are analyzed to find outtheir value distribution and orientation distribution. The value of different modal expressionsis categorized into high, median and low, three categories and the orientation is classified intoexplicit subjective, implicit subjective, explicit objective and implicit objective.It was found that in all modal expressions of English cover letters, modal operators areused most frequently, while the modal adjuncts are the least. In the writing of English coverletters, the job applicants are inclined to choose median value and low value modalexpressions to increase the possibility of getting the job. As to the orientation, the implicitsubjective and explicit subjective are preferred to the other two orientations.The purpose of the study is to help the reader have a better understanding of cover letterfrom the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar, especially from the modal theory andat the same time, offer some guidance in the analysis of other contexts.