A Stylistic Study Of English Sales Letters: A Functional Stylistic Perspective

With the development of global economy, more and more Chinese companies are engaged in international business. To make a successful international transaction, the first step is to make your product or service known by your foreign customers. What serves this function is the subject of this thesis- English sales letters.Sales letter is a kind of business letter in which the writer tries to sell some kind of product or service to the readers, i.e. the potential customers. The purpose of sales letters is to persuade readers that they need what you are trying to sell and ask them to buy it. With a lower cost and a larger amount of information, sales letters have won much favor of companies. It is regarded as an important promotional device in international commercial transaction.Despite its importance, little systematic and overall research has been done in this field. In view of the fact, the author decides to conduct a quantitative analysis of 32 English sales letters on the basis of Systemic Functional Linguistics, aiming at discovering stylistic features which are motivated by the particular contextual factors of this variety. In the research, frequency of distribution of the related linguistic items are calculated and taken as the basis of further analysis to ensure its objectivity.The thesis is composed of seven chapters. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction of the whole thesis, including the background, definition of sales letters, purpose and significance of the thesis. Chapter 2 is the literature review of stylistics, functional stylistics and the current state of the research in this field. Chapter 3 presents the theoretical framework which the analysis is based upon. Chapter 4 introduces the research methodology, System Coder, analysis procedure etc.. Chapter 5 is the main part of the thesis in which analysis results at the four levels are presented. Chapter 6 interprets the findings with reference to the particular context of sales letters, showing how these stylistic features at different levels are motivated by contextual variables. Chapter 7 is the conclusion of the whole research, summarizing the findings and pointing out the limitations of this research.