An Analysis On Error Types In Business English Writing

Business English writing,as a vital portion of business English,is the main communicative device for businessmen to deal with transactions.Meanwhile,students who would pursue work relating to international trade must master skills of Business English writing.A great many studies have been taken in business English writing by researches at home and abroad.However,researchers have different emphasis on various error types,the research degrees of these error types are uneven.And corpora in previous studies of business English writing mainly focused on business correspondence.Based on Error Analysis(EA)suggested by Corder and Ellis and classification of error types in business English writing proposed by Lin Kui & You Caihong,the present study aims to identify error types in business correspondence and business reports;to investigate the frequency distribution of theses error types;to clarify the similarities and differences of error types in the writing among business English majors and non-business English majors;to inquire the reasons causing these error types in business English writing;to make some recommendations to the present teaching situation of business English writing.320 samples of business English writing including business correspondence and business reports,were taken from business and non-business English majors from Grade 2014 in their final papers of business English writing course in Xi'an International Studies University.The study finds 6 error types in business English writing: text error,discourse error,pragmatic error and formality error at the linguistic level;trade error and format error at the non-linguistic level.Among these error types,the frequency of text error is the highest while trade error the lowest.Moreover,frequencies of error types in business writings among business English and non-business English majors are not totally identical.Additionally,besides intralingual and interlingual factors,business knowledge,formal language styles and writing features,discourse organization of business text are also the factors influencing the quality of BE writing.Finally,five teaching strategies have been proposed in BE writing for both business and non-business English majors: training in language,discourse,BE writing features,culture as well as in business knowledge.