| With the globalization of economy, the exchange of business letters ininternational business has become significantly important. English, as a tool ofcommunication in business, has been increasingly accepted as a media for the partiesinvolved in international business transaction. The letter writers use business Englishletters to convey not only the good news but also some bad news, such as some refusalletters and bad-news announcement. So, how to use proper attitudes and judgments tomake the letters more acceptable by the readers is of great importance. Business Englishletters of bad news refer to those informing the readers of the unpleasant or evendisappointing news. It is stressed by some scholars that telling a piece of bad newsshould not only conclude the process of informing bad news itself, but also containsome other stages like a neutral opening, a positive explanation and a positive ending.Adopting a proper attitude helps convey the bad news and maintain sound interpersonalrelationship. Therefore, comparing with other kinds of letters, business English letters ofbad news play a vital role in researches.Now that interpersonal meaning can be conveyed in business English letters ofbad news, the realization of interpersonal function appears to be more important. In SFG,textual function, ideational function and interpersonal function are called metafunctions.The interpersonal function means those personal relations expressed by languages. Asthe main carrier of interpersonal function, modality has received much attention fromthe all regions including logicians, philosophers and linguistics both at home and abroad.In this essay, the author calculates the occurrences of modality characteristics, such asmodal expressions, modal value and orientation, showing some supporting examples toillustrate their interpersonal significance. Besides, the author classifies34letters intotwo subcategories and makes a comparative study on modal expressions and modalvalues between them to find out the general similarities and the striking differences.In the last chapter the author concludes the features of modality and provides afull understanding of the interpersonal meaning. |
