Politeness Strategies In Business Letters

Business letters are the letters which can be used to contact different economic bodies in trading. They are used in special field with its own distinctive forms, which can be used for testimonials. But business letters should pay more attention to the social etiquette. With the development of economics, business letters have become an important way to communicate. By sending business letters to each other, we can exchange information, contact business, negotiate and solve the problems existed in trading, and also promote friendship. Because of its characters and functions, in business letters, politeness should be paid more attention.Politeness is not only a cultural phenomenon, but also a language phenomenon, which extensively exists in the human society. But in different social background, politeness has different forms and connotations. In pragmatics, there are two main views about the politeness: the Conversational-maxim View and the Face-saving View.Following the Brown and Levison's politeness system, my thesis tries to further analyze the application of the politeness strategies in Chinese business letters, and tries to find the concrete manifestations, the frequency and conditions of its application, distribution and function to help the readers improve their writing ability and the ability of communication.There are nine main strategies in business letters. The first four are positive politeness, the last two are off record, the others are negative politeness.When the writer raises a claim, invitation, enquiry or the writer gets to know the receiver met unhappy things, he should use the strategy of showing his human interest. The writer can use congratulatory words to express his best wishes, or he use some expressions to show his understanding or sympathy. If the letters are used for establishment of business relations, invitation, inquiry and offers, the writer should use the former way; and the later is used for declining the complaint and for exchanging views.When the writer raises a claim, suggestion, enquiry or declining to the receivers, he can use the strategy for praising. At first, we can directly praise their products and attitudes in attending to customers, reputation and ability by using some adjectives and adverbs. Then we can use some meaning praise. It can be used in letters for seeking agency, order, recommendation, inquiry and establishment of business relations, business invitation and sales promotion letters.When the writer disagree or refuse the requirement asked by the receiver, but you don't want to deny him directly, you can use the strategy of avoiding disharmony. First use a mild tone ,and then give an unclear answer by using some words such as "I will think about it again" etc. Letters for declining the complaints and claims, letters for declining the establishment of business relations and letters for exchanging views usually can use this strategy. When the writer raises a demand or suggestion to the receiver, (they are familiar with each other) he can use the words which show their imitated relationship. That is to say, he can use the enlargedrelative's appellation or use the word "we" to make their relation more propinquity. The former appellation can be used in letters for establishment of business relations and for exchanging views. While in letters for invitation and letters for exchanging views, we can use the word "we".While the writer raises a claim or suggestion (and the writer expects the receiver would cooperate with him) he can use the strategy of optimistic views. When you write a letter for invitation or for exchanging views, you can use this strategy by following formula: "surely +v" or "should + v".The strategy of prominence can be used freely in Chinese business letters.We can nearly find these expressions for respect or modest in any kind of business letters,such as "nin", "gui",or "wo men".When the writer wants to raise a claim ,suggestion or critics, he usually uses the strategy of friendship tone. There are three...