Cohesion Analysis On "Business Letters To Stakeholders" With Transitivity, Mood And Theme-rheme System

Based on the theory of transitivity cohesion, interpersonal cohesion and thematicprogression cohesion, this thesis mainly does some researches on one of the commercial styles,the business letters from the President and CEO to the stakeholders (Sony Corporation2012and2013as examples), aiming at exploring pragmatic meaning of discourse cohesion amongbusiness letters with cohesion theory.It is concluded that the material process displayed much more in letters to stakeholders basedon the transitivity system, which made the business letters objective and logical. Additionally,modal cohesion displayed clearly in letters, aiming at acquiring support and confidence fromthe stakeholders, employees and the public to the corporation.This thesis is divided into5chapters in total.The first chapter mainly introduces background, purpose and methodology of the study.The second chapter is literature review, which introduces development of cohesion theoryat home and abroad.The third chapter briefly introduces theory framework of the thesis.The fourth chapter analyses how the transitivity cohesion, interpersonal cohesion andthematic progression cohesion are accordingly reflected in business letters from the perspectiveof ideational structure, interpersonal structure and textual structure.The last chapter summarizes major findings, puts forward some suggestions for the use ofcohesive devices in business letters, and finally points out limitations of the study.The thesis mainly analyzes the application and the influence of the transitivity, mood andthe theme-rheme system to the business letters. It is expected to offer a little help for readers inencoding or decoding similar letters in business frontier.This paper discussed the cohesion of the business letters on the transitivity, mood and thetheme-rheme system. We find that the material process displays well in the text based on thetransitivity system, and the “statement” and “command” of the verbal functions display clearaccording to the mood and modality system, while the “constant theme pattern” and “lineartheme pattern” display well after analyzing the realization of the thematic progression theory.However, the thesis has its own limitations for lack of time and knowledge, which madethe analysis seems insufficient. And the methodology just only concentrates on the qualitativestudies making the results less representative.