The Realization Of Interpersonal Function In English Recommendation Letters From The Perspective Of Functional Grammar

Recommendation letters are business letters which are used to objectivelyintroduce the candidates’ qualities, academic background information, capability andcharacteristics etc. for the target schools or companies. They play an important role infiercer and fiercer study applying and job hunting. When writing recommendationletters, how to deal with the relationship among the candidates, referrers and targetreaders should be considered seriously. Based on Halliday’s Systemic FunctionalGrammar, together with other scholars’ theories on interpersonal function, this studytakes25English recommendation letters as analysis texts to demonstrate by whatmeans the interpersonal function is realized and how the interpersonal function isrealized in English recommendation letters. The present thesis analyzes it bycombining the following four aspects: mood system, modality system, evaluationresources and the personal pronoun system and tries to come up with some practicalsuggestions about how to establish suitable interpersonal relationships inrecommendation letters.This thesis applies both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the datasystemically. The first step is to find out the distribution of collected resources whichcan realize the interpersonal function and present them in the form of tables. And thesecond step is to explain in English recommendation letters how interpersonalfunction is realized by mood system, modality system, evaluation resources and thepersonal pronouns through concrete examples.Through analysis, it is found that the mood system, modality system, evaluationresources and personal pronouns are supplement to each other and together constructa nice, trusted, honest and recommendatory relationship in English recommendationletters. Firstly, as far as the distribution of the interpersonal resources is concerned, inthe mood system declarative mood takes up the absolute advantage, imperative moodaccounts for the second place while the other moods are employed less; in themodality system, modalization is used much more than modulation and among themmedian value modal operators are used mostly, and explicit orientations are more thanimplicit ones; it is found that evaluation resources are mainly on the lexical level andthe evaluation nouns and adjectives are used much more; in personal pronouns, thethird personal pronouns, especially the singulars are used mostly and frequently, the first ones is on the second places while the second ones are used rarely. Secondly, interm of the realization of interpersonal function in English recommendation letters, inmood system, it is realized by means of subjects, finites and different mood types; inmodality system, it is realized mainly by choosing different modality types, moodvalues and orientations; evaluation resources, especially the positive evaluation nounsand adjectives can realize the interpersonal function best; and in the personal pronounsystem, it is realized mainly by choosing different personal pronouns.This study tries to analyze the realization of interpersonal function in Englishrecommendation letters from the perspective of Functional Grammar, which canbroaden the sphere of applying the interpersonal function to a certain extent, deepenthe understanding of the realization means to the interpersonal function inrecommendation letters and construct appreciate relationship with suitable ways inrecommendation letter writing. In addition, this thesis is hoped to make somecontributions to the application of interpersonal function in thus practical writings andprovide a reference approach for the study of other discourses’ interpersonal function.