The Study On Persuasiveness In English Sales Promotion Letters

With the development of modern society, English Sales Promotion Letters are very essential. During Business activities they will not only introduce products or service, but also be the bridge among producers, sellers and potential buyers. Therefore, the persuasiveness is an important factor to the success of the letters.Halliday’s theory of systemic functional grammar is well applied to make discourse analysis; however, English Sales Promotion Letters discourse is rarely touched upon within the functional frame. The author of the present thesis tries to analyze the persuasiveness following Aristotle’s three doctrines of logos, ethos and pathos from a systematic perspective.Through quantitative research on50English sales promotion letters, the author makes detailed analysis. To pursue rule of logos in persuasion of the sales letters, the present author finds that material process, declarative mood give the readers a rational statement or objective information, which can help to achieve the "rational appeal" well; besides, some of marked themes are employed to express the location, time, manner, cause, etc. others are transitional markers. Therefore, the marked themes which have conveyed the logical purposes that the writer wants to achieve. For ethos, the mental processes, imperative mood and the thematic progression pattern help to set up the charms and reliability of the promoter’s personality and make persuasive purpose be achieved easily; Furthermore, the English sales promotion letters use more second and first personal pronouns to close the distance with the potential customers, mood and modality elements also help achieve the "emotional appeal"—pathos. And the marked themes serving for pathos are usually modal elements.The thesis studies systemic functional grammar from a new perspective-how it helps to achieve persuasiveness of English Sales Promotion Letters. It is hoped that the research would enrich the study of persuasiveness.