A Study On The “Congratulating-Wishing” Words Of Chinese Correspondences

Correspondence is an important way in traditional written communication.A correspondence is a discourse which aims at exchanging ideas,talking about work and passing on information.People who communicate by correspondence need to follow certain format.At the beginning and the end of a correspondence,people are accustomed to using some words which are relatively changeless to express greeting or blessing.These words are the subject of this paper.The paper studies the “congratulating-wishing” words of Chinese correspondences.The paper analyses the status of the “congratulating-wishing” words in a correspondence discourse,the function and classification of the “congratulating-wishing” words in Chinese correspondences,as well as the use of the “congratulating-wishing” words in E-mail from the view of verbal communication,using the method of combining describing with explaining and comparative analysis.We hope that the paper will make supplement to the study on verbal communication theory and offer guidance to daily spoken and written communication.The paper is divided into 6 parts.Chapter 1 is a general introduction.It is about the value,research methods,language material of our study and previous researches on the subject.It gives relative definitions as well.Chapter 2 divides frequently-used “congratulating-wishing” words of Chinese correspondences into classes base on studies of predecessors.We make the classification using the standard of meaning and applying situation.Chapter 3 analyses the status of the “congratulating-wishing” words in a correspondence discourse from the view of correspondence discourse structure.First of all,we provide a structure of a correspondence discourse as a whole.Then we analyse the status of the “congratulating-wishing” words in a correspondence discourse through observing the beginning and ending parts of a correspondence.Chapter 4 studies the function of the “congratulating-wishing” words of Chinese correspondences in three respects: common function of “congratulating-wishing” words both at the beginning and the end of a correspondence,function of “congratulating-wishing” words at the beginning and that in the end.The function mainly includes expressing emotional information,building or maintaining relationships and promoting the process of communication.Chapter 5 is about E-mail,a variant of traditional correspondence.It focuses on the similarities between E-mail and traditional correspondence,the features of E-mail application,the characteristics of the “congratulating-wishing” words in E-mail and the trend of how people use correspondence and E-mail.We make an explanation on the use of E-mail in an innovative way through analysing the data of the questionnaire survey.Chapter 6 is the concluding part.It summarizes the paper,points out people's attitude towards written format and the deficiencies of this study.In this study,the quantity of private correspondences is insufficient.As for the questionnaire survey,the sample has limited quantity and disproportion in distribution of age groups.In addition,our study hasn't gone far enough because of the limited ability of the writer.Those are the disadvantages of the paper.Exploration in depth on the subject remains to be done by other scholars.