A Study Of Pragmatic Presupposition In English Business Letters

Presupposition phenomenon is very common in language and it becomes graduallya very important topic in pragmatics. However, presupposition has long been neglectedin EBLs. EBLs play an important role in foreign trade. To some extent, whether abusiness letter is successful or not has great influence on the result of the businesstransaction. But previous researches on EBLs are mainly from the perspective ofpoliteness principle, there is nearly no works or papers which have involved the analysisof pragmatic presupposition in business letters. Therefore, this thesis is an attempt tostudy the application of pragmatic presupposition in EBLs with the help of Leech’sPoliteness Principle and Hjelmslev’s Principle of Economy of Language.This study is designed to explore:(1) Why is pragmatic presupposition applied toEBLs?(2) How does the addresser apply presupposition to business letters?(3) Whatare the functions of pragmatic presupposition in EBLs?In order to solve the three questions, the author makes great efforts from thefollowing aspects:(1) collecting112EBLs and making classification of them into fourtypes;(2) concluding the features of pragmatic presupposition;(3) making quantitativestudy about the distribution and frequency of pragmatic presupposition in collectedbusiness letters;(4) analyzing how pragmatic presupposition is applied in four typesbusiness letters;(5) concluding the functions of pragmatic presupposition in businessletters.This thesis is bases on the combination of a qualitative study and a quantitativestudy, with the qualitative one being the main method. The statistical analysis ofdistribution and frequency of pragmatic presupposition in business letters belongs to aquantitative study while the analysis of the application and the functions ofpresupposition belongs to a qualitative study.Results show that presupposition is applied in each type business letters. It occurs more often in good-news business letters, bad-news business letters and persuasivebusiness letters while it occurs infrequently in neutral-news business letters.This study concludes some functions of pragmatic presupposition in EBLs fromthree levels. In language level, pragmatic presupposition can make language in businessletters both polite and concise; in discourse level, it can make the discourse of businessletters coherent; in the level on the amount of informativeness, it can make the languageand the discourse of business letters informative.Pragmatic presupposition is very important in business communication by letters.The study has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it might enrichthe understanding of pragmatic presupposition and modify the existing studies of EBLs.Practically, it can help writers of EBLs design more successful and effective letters andmake daily communication more efficient.