Genre Analysis of Business English Correspondences

Abstract

With the rapid development of China’s economy and the accelerating process of economic globalization, trade and cooperation between China and foreign countries will be closer. In foreign trade activities, English correspondences are used most frequently as communication tools. In recent years, many domestic scholars have been working on the research of foreign trade correspondence, mainly in the translation and teaching, and there are also a few studied linguistic features like fuzzy language and pragmatic strategies. However, with the fast development of foreign trade, these studies are relatively rare and rarely analyze foreign trade correspondence from the perspective of genre. Based on the theory of genre analysis, combined with examples, this paper analyzes business English correspondence from the micro and macro levels, exploring lexical features, syntactic features, textual features and pragmatic strategies. In the micro level, business English correspondence uses a lot of terminologies and abbreviations, and the sentences are rigorous and refined with fixed sentence patterns. From the macro perspective, the discourse of business English corresarts: introduction-detail-response-conclusion, which presents a prominent hierarchical structure. Correspondences often use specific pragmatic strategy for communicative situation. Business English correspondence shows distinctive genre characteristics and writing principles. This study concentrates on the whole framework  and textual structure of business English correspondence, and hopes to provide some references for relevant practitioners.

Key words: business English correspondence  generic features  pragmatic strategy

附件3（在论文写作时，去掉“附件3”这三个字）

外贸英语函电的体裁分析

摘要

随着中国经济的快速发展，经济全球化进程的不断加快，中外交流与合作会更加密切。在对外贸易活动中，英文信函是中外企业中使用最为频繁的沟通工具。近年来，许多国内学者开始致力于外贸函电的研究，相关研究主要体现在外贸函电翻译及教学方面，也有少数偏向于语言现象如模糊语的使用和语用策略等。但随着对外贸易的蓬勃发展，这些研究相对较少且鲜少从体裁角度对外贸函电进行分析。本文基于体裁分析理论，从微观和宏观两个层面结合实例展开分析，分别探讨外贸英语函电的词汇特征、句法特征、语篇特征和语用策略。从微观层面来看，外贸函电大量使用专业术语及缩略语，句子严谨且精炼，句式固定。从宏观层面来看，语篇一般由引言-详情-应答-结语这四部分组成，呈现出突出的层次结构。函电因涉及特定交际情境而衍生出特定的语用策略。外贸英语函电呈现出鲜明的体裁特征及写作规律。本文注重对外贸英语函电的整体框架和语篇构成的研究，同时希望能对相关从业人员提供一点参考。

关键词：外贸英语函电  体裁特征  语用策略

附件4（在论文写作时，去掉“附件4”这三个字）

Contents

一、 毕业论文（设计）文本构成

二、毕业论文内容要求

（一）前置部分

1.1 英文封面

1.2 承诺书

1.3 英文摘要

1.4 中文摘要

1.5 关键词

1.6 英文目录

（二）正文部分

2.1 引言

2.2 主体

2.3 论文中的章、节、条、款各级标题

2.4 结论

2.5 参考文献

2.6 致谢

（三）附录部分

三、毕业论文撰写及印刷要求

四、关于2021届商务英语本科论文写作及格式设置的补充说明

Acknowledgements

I Introduction

With the development of commodity economy and the increasing frequency of business activities, business English letters have become an indispensable communication tool in international trade. The discourse community of business English correspondence adheres to fixed formats and rules when writing business letters. Nowadays, the globalization of international trade has become an obvious tendency. For students majoring in business English and international trade, it is essential to master the basic reading and writing skills of business English correspondence. So the study of business English letters is required and it is of great significance. The widespread use of business letters has attracted the attention of different scholars who are concerned about this new genre in all aspects. Gains (1999) studied its linguistic characteristics and stylistic conventions, and Louhiala Salminen (2002) focused on its role in business communication. Some scholars have studied the vocabulary, grammar and textual level of business English correspondence, as well as some linguistic phenomena. Wei Guoping (2005) has analyzed their type of writing in terms of language, textual, grammatical and vocabulary features. Ju Yumei and Liu Jianfu (2004) have applied the interpersonal function and politeness theory in studies of business correspondence. But there are still more space for relevant researches. Meanwhile most of the researches concentrate on a specific aspect such as translating, teaching or pragmatic strategy rather than an overall analysis of elements and text structure. The prime purpose of business letters is communication which is accomplished by mastering the whole structure and principles for writing. In order to make a relatively comprehensive study of business English letters, revealing its distinctive features and general rules when writing, this paper uses the theory of genre analysis as the framework to explore business English correspondence. This thesis studies from the following two aspects:

 In the micro aspect, this study focuses on the lexical features and syntactic characteristics of business English correspondence, trying to reveal to some extent how it achieves the communication purpose of its transmission and inquiry information through language. Business English correspondence is established by many single sentences so this  paper pays much attention to its language features.

In the macro aspect, according to the definition of move, combined with the example, this thesis devotes to determine the move-structure and textual feature of business English correspondence. The study also explores its pragmatic strategies commonly used in specific communication situations. Analysis in this aspect mainly focuses in the whole layout of business English correspondences.

This paper adopts the genre theory as the theoretical framework of the study. It consists of five parts. Part one is devoted to a general description, including the aim and significance of the study, literature review and the organization of the paper. Part two is the introduction to business English correspondence and genre and genre theory. Part three is the body of this paper with the analysis process of business English correspondences which includes lexical features, syntactic features and textual features. Part four pays attention to pragmatic strategy. The last part is the conclusion of the thesis, summarises the significance of the study and points out the limitations of the study.

II Business English Correspondences and Genre

This chapter is going to introduce business English correspondence and genre. In the first part, it introduces the definition, classification, and previous studies of business English correspondence. In recent years, genre analysis draws much attention as a new method of exploring discourse. So in its next part, what is genre and the development of genre theory are also expounded.

Business English correspondence refers to various English correspondences which foreign trade companies and their personnel using in the foreign trade activities. There are different forms of business English correspondence used as communication tools in foreign trade activities, such as paper letters, faxes, telegrams, emails and others. Business English correspondence is primarily used to establish transactions or maintain good relationships with partners. The different functions and purposes of business English correspondence determine the specific correspondence. There are many groups of business English correspondence classified by their types. One of the most common classifications is depended by its functions. Another classification is according to their content. The last kind is produced by their given information. With the continuous increase of foreign trade activities, more researchers tend to value business English correspondence more than before.

2.1 Business English Correspondence

The relevant theories and research on foreign trade correspondence have been constantly improving for many scholars have shown keen interest in its study. In 1983, British linguist Geoffrey Leech divided foreign trade correspondence into four categories: cooperation, competition, harmony and conflict based on his research on Speech Act Theory. At present, many scholars have explored and studied its various fields. It mainly concentrates on writing and teaching of business English letters. From the perspective of teaching, Tan (2006) concentrated on analyzing use of case teaching method in business English letters teaching research. In the aspect of writing, there are mainly specific principles. Zhao Lu (2012) studied the application of pragmatic strategy such as principles of politeness and cooperation in business English correspondence. Then more researches are conducted by domestic scholars. Some researchers devoted to study of translating of business English correspondence and a few scholars concentrated on pedagogies. Also some researchers show interest in the linguistic phenomenon. Wu (2000) paid attention to the pragmatic function of business English correspondence focusing on fuzzy languages. Chen jianping (2007) has explored the features of lexis, syntax and text used in business English correspondences and blended the study result into classroom instruction. Apart from teaching and translating, other researchers devoted to stylistic features in business letters. In a word, studies and researches on business English correspondence are more and more but relatively comprehensive studies are not enough. So genre analysis theory is adopted as a new way of exploring business English correspondence.

2.2 Genre

Beginning in the second half of the 20th century, with the development of genre research in various disciplines (such as linguistic anthropology, conversational analysis, rhetoric, etc.), linguists began to explore genres. Genre research is focusing on the United States, Australia and China. The three prominent schools are: “ESP School” represented by Essex-Bhatia, “Australian School” represented by Martin, and “New Rhetoric School of North America” represented by Miller.

2.2.1 Definitions of Genre

The concept of genre and genre analysis was first put forward by John Swales in the field of linguistic research. Although some linguistics tended to define genres, scholars from different schools have divergence on this point. This thesis concentrates on the ESP school. Swales (1990) argued that genre actually is a set of structured communicative events. Swales’ definition of genre can be summarized as follows: The “genre” is a classification of communicative events. The main criterion for the classification of communicative events is a set of accepted and shared communicative purposes. Generally speaking, “genre” is a tool or medium for achieving communicative purposes. Therefore, the “genre analysis” of discourse is not limited to the analysis of the linguistic features or stylistic features of the discourse, but consists of the purpose of communication.

 Bhatia (1993), another representative of the ESP school, talked about his definition of the concept of genre in his book Analyzing Genre as that: a genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purposes and is used in specific community. Swales and Bhatia’s research on genre is mostly aimed at academic and professional discourse, which facilitates the understanding of these discourses for scholars and business participants.

2.2.2 Genre Theory

To express communicative purposes, members of a particular discourse community share “structure, style, content, and target audience” (Swales, 1990:58). Swales (1990) argues that schematic structures can distinguish different genres, and his famous CARS model was created to capture the ways how academic writers demonstrate and highlight their own contributions to the ongoing research profile of the field. Along with the development of genre theory, when analyzing discourse, “Swalesian School” often uses the move and step as the starting point of discourse analysis, and mostly uses academic and professional discourse as the analysis object. Many scholars adopted move-step structure as an analysis method and it is used to analyze the schematic structure of business English correspondences.

Genre analysis overcomes the shortcomings of previous language analysis methods, and strives to make a deep interpretation of the macro structure and communicative function of discourse, reveal the social and cultural factors and psychological cognition factors behind the discourse structure, and summarize the special ways and discourses to achieve the purpose of communication. In this thesis, genre analysis is used to explore lexical features, syntactic features and text structure of business English correspondence to get a relatively comprehensive understanding.

V Conclusion

This thesis concentrates on genre analysis of business English correspondence. It stars with introducing the background of business English correspondence and genre theory and then applies genre theory to analyze business English correspondence from both micro level and macro level. It explores the lexical features and grammatical features of general business letters from micro level and uses move-step structure to analyze textual features in terms of macro aspect. Through analyzing the specific contents of a counter-offer letter, this paper concludes that the discourse of business English correspondence is organized with a distinct hierarchical structure. Pragmatic strategies which often appear in business activities are also discussed from macro level in this thesis. Although relevant studies on business English correspondence have been done by some scholars in different aspects, these studies are not enough to meet the fast development of foreign trade. Some previous research explored the translating and teaching of business English correspondence and some scholars paid attention to contrast research focusing on difference between Chinese and native English speakers. But for relevant participants in trade activities, it is very useful and important to understand the whole structure of business letters and know how basic factors are organized. Communicative function is the prime purpose of business English correspondence. So based on genre theory, this thesis gives a relatively comprehensive analysis of the business English correspondence especially on the layout and text structure.

Nevertheless, despite the achievements of the study mentioned above, there are still some limitations in a way. The analysis of business English correspondence is not enough since there are other aspects to be explored and even a small aspect has a large amount of features to be found. The analysis is focusing on whole structure and thus it does not extend much on per aspect. There is still much room for improvement in this thesis.

如果正文部分有图表：

表2-1 城乡居民之间收入差距变化

年份

农村居民家庭人均纯收入

城镇居民家庭人均可支配收入

比率

（B/A）

绝对数（A）

(元）

指数

绝对数（B）

(元）

指数

1978

133.6

1979

191.3

1980

397.6

1981

423.8

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Acknowledgements

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Appendix