The Application Of Cooperative Principle And Politeness Principle In Business English Letters

At present, international business cooperation between the countries all over the world is in constant development, and China’s policy of opening to the outside world is also in unceasing deepening. Therefore, Business English plays a more and more important role in international trades. Business English letter is the carrier of business information, which is written in a formal style and is widely used in international businesses, and it is the tool to carry out foreign trades and international businesses. An appropriate Business English letter can not only facilitate transactions, but can also change or strengthen the cooperation and maintain trade relations between the two parties of trades. Under the premise of understanding the different cultures and customs in different countries, clever use of cooperative principle and politeness principle can avoid unnecessary losses in international business activities. Therefore, the understanding and grasp of the methods and skills to write Business English letter is very important for traders.This thesis introduces two important pragmatic principles:cooperative principle and politeness principle. People need to follow cooperative principle and politeness principle in their communication. Cooperative principle makes verbal communication be carried out smoothly, and politeness principle explains why people sometimes deliberately violate cooperative principle. The author analyzes Business English letters through these two principles, aiming to provide some knowledge of pragmatic theory to the writers of Business English letters. This thesis also introduces the traits and classifications of Business English letters. The writing of different types of business letters has different characteristics, and their focuses are not the same. So, we need specific analysis and comparison in order to understand different Business English letters better. Many scholars have mentioned7C principle of Business English letters, and the principle is different from the principles of other English texts, it is the unique principle of Business English letter. In this thesis, the purpose of researching the theories that mentioned above is to combine the theory with practice. Reasonably apply the pragmatic principles in Business English letters can help Business English letters writers express their meaning more concisely and clearly in the future.The thesis mainly adopts the methods of literature research, comparative analysis and case analysis. The literature research method is mainly to study the previous analysis on the cooperative principle and politeness principle. Whether in the China or foreign countries, the quantity of academic papers to study cooperative principle and politeness principle is considerable. Except for analyzing English business letters, cooperative principle and politeness principle can also be used to analyze many different texts. Comparative analysis is also widely used in this thesis, in the chapter of introducing cooperative principle and politeness principle, comparative analysis is used to compare cooperative principle and politeness principle. In the chapter of the description of Business English letters, comparative analysis is used to compare the differences of different types of Business English letters. In the case analysis part, comparative analysis method is also used to compare the differences of diverse cases. In addition, Case analysis can help the readers to better understand the combination of theory and practice.This thesis can be divided into six chapters. The first chapter is the introduction, which introduces the background of the thesis, the significance of this topic, as well as the main framework and methodology of this thesis. The second chapter is the theoretical framework and previous study on cooperative principle and politeness principle. In this chapter, the author states the previous study of the theoretical framework of the thesis. This chapter studies conversational implicature, cooperative principle and the maxims under it, the face theory, politeness principle and the maxims under it, and the relations between cooperative principle and politeness principle. The third chapter is the survey of Business English letters. It includes the brief introduction to Business English and Business English letters, the traits of Business English letters and the classifications of Business English letters. The fourth chapter mainly expounds the usage of cooperative principle and politeness principle in Business English letters, which explains how cooperative principle and politeness principle be used in Business English letters. And it also defines the unified relationship between cooperative principle, politeness principle and7C principles in Business English letters. The fifth chapter is case study. Based on the classification of Business English letters, the author selects seven Business English letters as cases, and analyzes these letters with cooperative principle, politeness principle and the7C principle of Business English letters, so as to make the readers can understand the process of the combination of the pragmatic theories and actual letters. The last chapter is conclusion, the author summarizes the main findings of this thesis, as well as the limitations and suggestions on future study.