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【Abstract】This thesis uses functional stylistic approach to analyze an English complaint letter.
【Key words】generic structure, English complaint letter
1. Introduction
With the globalization of business and trade in the world, the use of English in business activities has become more and more prevalent and inevitable. Business English as a new specialty in higher education and a new topic in academic field has become very popular both at home and abroad. Scholars, teachers, postgraduate and undergraduate students have attempted to explore the language of Business English from different perspectives such as from linguistic and stylistic aspects. In this thesis, I will use functional systemic theories in the study of a business English text: an English complaint letter.
2. A Case study of Business Complaint Letter
We take the following letter as an example:
Dear Mr. Wilcox, (1.Addressing)
Thank you for your subscription order for Investment Magazine. (2.polite opening) As of this date, however, we have not received payment of our first invoice. (3.Informing) If your payment has crossed in the mail with this letter, please accept our thanks. (4.Conditional complaint invalidity) If you have displaced our original invoice, please return this one with your payment so that we may credit your account. (5.Requiring solution)
Sincerely, (6. Polite ending)
Tom (7. Signing off)
In the above letter, different moves of the sample letter are marked by numbers 1-7. We can see that the participants include the seller Tom and the buyer Mr. Wilcox, which form a business relationship. In the letter, Tom is informing Mr. Wilcox of the news about his probable non-payment, and is also asking for a solution to the problem. In other words, Tom is making a complaint letter to Mr. Wilcox who has caused the complaint.
So a complaint letter is usually concerned with the writer’s complaint because of his suffering from the letter receiver’s fault. The personal tenor of the BCL (Business Complaint Letter) referring to a relationship between the writer and the receiver, between two business parties (the seller and the buyer, or importer and exporter) is rather formal in tone.
As for the functional tenor, Tom’s purpose of writing this letter can be summarized as follows: to inform Wilcox of the non-payment, to make Wilcox pay the money as soon as possible, to maintain their business relations and so on. We can see that Tom has more than one purpose by writing this letter. Among those purposes the first and the second are the most important ones which determine other purposes distributed in different parts in the letter. So the communicative purpose of this letter is to inform, to complain and to request. After a thorough analysis of other sample letters, we get to the following conclusion about the communicative purposes of the BCL: (1)to inform the receiver about the writer’s loss of interest which is caused by the receiver’s side,
(2)to persuade the receiver to take some action to solve the problem in question,
(3)to achieve some other possible purposes which serve the first two purposes.
These communicative purposes determine the generic structure or moves of the BCL.
There are seven possible moves in all which have been mentioned in the above sample letter, but among them, Move 2 and Move 4 are optional moves which may either appear or not, while others are the obligatory moves which definitely exist in any BCL, namely, addressing, informing, requiring solution, ending politely, and signing off.
3. Summary
From the above analysis, we can say that different business letters have their own generic modes based on some kinds of prototype. Meanwhile, they can show some flexible adjustments in terms of internal structure. And the letter writers can show their creativity and uniqueness while making such adjustments, so as to better fulfill the communicative purpose in business interaction.
参考文献：
[1]张应林.语篇分析学[M].武汉:华中师范大学出版社,2006.
[2]曹顺发,冯波.国际商务谈判[M].辽宁:辽宁教育出版社,2001.
[3]戴桂玉.商务英语文体研究[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社.2012.
【Key words】generic structure, English complaint letter
1. Introduction
With the globalization of business and trade in the world, the use of English in business activities has become more and more prevalent and inevitable. Business English as a new specialty in higher education and a new topic in academic field has become very popular both at home and abroad. Scholars, teachers, postgraduate and undergraduate students have attempted to explore the language of Business English from different perspectives such as from linguistic and stylistic aspects. In this thesis, I will use functional systemic theories in the study of a business English text: an English complaint letter.
2. A Case study of Business Complaint Letter
We take the following letter as an example:
Dear Mr. Wilcox, (1.Addressing)
Thank you for your subscription order for Investment Magazine. (2.polite opening) As of this date, however, we have not received payment of our first invoice. (3.Informing) If your payment has crossed in the mail with this letter, please accept our thanks. (4.Conditional complaint invalidity) If you have displaced our original invoice, please return this one with your payment so that we may credit your account. (5.Requiring solution)
Sincerely, (6. Polite ending)
Tom (7. Signing off)
In the above letter, different moves of the sample letter are marked by numbers 1-7. We can see that the participants include the seller Tom and the buyer Mr. Wilcox, which form a business relationship. In the letter, Tom is informing Mr. Wilcox of the news about his probable non-payment, and is also asking for a solution to the problem. In other words, Tom is making a complaint letter to Mr. Wilcox who has caused the complaint.
So a complaint letter is usually concerned with the writer’s complaint because of his suffering from the letter receiver’s fault. The personal tenor of the BCL (Business Complaint Letter) referring to a relationship between the writer and the receiver, between two business parties (the seller and the buyer, or importer and exporter) is rather formal in tone.
As for the functional tenor, Tom’s purpose of writing this letter can be summarized as follows: to inform Wilcox of the non-payment, to make Wilcox pay the money as soon as possible, to maintain their business relations and so on. We can see that Tom has more than one purpose by writing this letter. Among those purposes the first and the second are the most important ones which determine other purposes distributed in different parts in the letter. So the communicative purpose of this letter is to inform, to complain and to request. After a thorough analysis of other sample letters, we get to the following conclusion about the communicative purposes of the BCL: (1)to inform the receiver about the writer’s loss of interest which is caused by the receiver’s side,
(2)to persuade the receiver to take some action to solve the problem in question,
(3)to achieve some other possible purposes which serve the first two purposes.
These communicative purposes determine the generic structure or moves of the BCL.
There are seven possible moves in all which have been mentioned in the above sample letter, but among them, Move 2 and Move 4 are optional moves which may either appear or not, while others are the obligatory moves which definitely exist in any BCL, namely, addressing, informing, requiring solution, ending politely, and signing off.
3. Summary
From the above analysis, we can say that different business letters have their own generic modes based on some kinds of prototype. Meanwhile, they can show some flexible adjustments in terms of internal structure. And the letter writers can show their creativity and uniqueness while making such adjustments, so as to better fulfill the communicative purpose in business interaction.
参考文献：
[1]张应林.语篇分析学[M].武汉:华中师范大学出版社,2006.
[2]曹顺发,冯波.国际商务谈判[M].辽宁:辽宁教育出版社,2001.
[3]戴桂玉.商务英语文体研究[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社.2012.