A Corpus-based Study On The Modifiers Of Gratitude Expressions In Business Letters

With the development of economic globalization, economy and trade interactions between countries are increasing gradually, and connection and communication in enterprises are growing as well; therefore, prompt and accurate conveying of information is required to ensure successful business activities. Whether the language used in the business letters is appropriate or not implements direct influence on the success of business letters activities. How to express gratitude efficiently in business letters is a key factor to favorable business relationship between enterprises. Therefore, proper application of principles and theories is quite necessary in business letter writing; besides, different uses of words and phrases, choice of part of speech, and appropriate modifiers can also have various effects on expressing gratitude in business letters.This study, based on the Business Letter corpus, explores the words expressing gratitude and their modifiers, systematically analyzes the parts of speech, modifiers and the relative positions between the modifiers and the core words.The result shows that verb appreciate, noun thanks and adjective grateful are the most commonly used when gratitude is expressed in business letters. Several certain modifiers are universally applied to modify the noun and adjective words meaning thankfulness respectively. Many and sincere are often used to modify the nouns; much and sincerely are often used to modify the verbs and very and most are often used to modify the adjectives.Therefore, in business correspondence, appropriate language skills should be applied to make business letter convey information more efficiently, thus conducting qualified written business communication.