A Study on Politeness Strategies in Bad—news English Business Letters

【Abstract】The focus of this paper is on how to realize politeness with various politeness strategies in bad-news business letters and at the same time to fulfill the writers communicative goal. Its aim is to analyze the manifestations of politeness strategies in bad-news business letters so as to see how people in the business world understand the importance of politeness in business letter writing and use politeness strategies in a more efficient way.

【Key words】politeness； politeness strategies； business letters

【作者簡介】黃丹艷，廣東外語外貿大學國際學院。

Part One Introduction

Business letters refer to those used in business transactions and they are the most frequently used means in business communication by business firms to keep in touch with their customers. According to common practice， business letters may be classified into good-news letters， neutral-news letters， bad-news letters and persuasive letters. Due to the space limit of a term paper， the author mainly focuses on bad-news letters in accordance with the last classification.

Part Two Literature Review

Politeness Principle proposed by Leech is one of the most influential theories of politeness. He adopts the Gricean framework and formulates a series of maxims and sub-maxims. These maxims of Politeness Principle include tact maxim， generosity maxim， approbation maxim， modesty maxim， agreement maxim and sympathy maxim. （Leech，1983：132）：

According to Brown and Levinson （1983）， since most of the speech acts are intrinsically face threatening， interactants of a conversation tend to avoid the FTAs or try to employ some politeness strategies while doing the FTAs to mitigate the damage of the FTAs so as to achieve their communicational goals successfully. He classified these strategies into positive politeness strategies and negative politeness strategies.

Part Three Manifestation of Politeness in Bad-news Business Letters

In Wayne and Dauwalders definition （Wayne & Dauwalder 1994：231）， bad-news business letters are those letters which are presumed to be received unfavorably by receivers， which may find much resistance in the readers mental filter and which may disappoint the reader. It is obvious that people who receive bad-news business letters may be offended and reluctant to be cooperative. Therefore， how to arrive at politeness in bad-news business letters should be of great concern.

The following example is a revised refusal letter which has the good characteristics of a polite and effective bad-news letter.

Dear Ms. Hodgkins：

①Thank you for sending your application for the executive assistant position in the office of one of our vice presidents.

②The personnel department received over 75 applications for this position. That is why we have taken longer than anticipated to make our decision and to notify all applicants.

③Our ad stated that the following criteria for this position： a bachelors degree， one year of work experience in a related position， and keyboarding skills of 60 words per minute with 97 percent accuracy on a three-minute timing. If you had the one year of work experience we are seeking， we could have considered you further for this position. However， we keep our applications on file for at least two years. If another position becomes available and you have obtained the desired work experience， we could be happy to interview you.

④You have many strong abilities and skills. Other companies in our area might be looking for an individual who does not need the work experience we require. Good luck.

Sincerely，

Signature

（Wayne&Daulwalder; 1994：240）

Paragraph①of this letter starts out in a positive tone by expressing gratitude to the reader. In this sentence， the reader knows the nature of the letter， but has no knowledge of the decision. The appreciation serves to mitigate the face-threatening act of a direct refusal at the very beginning.

Paragraph②provides a courteous explanation of why the process takes so long. This paragraph shows positive politeness by giving reasons why the reply to the application letter is delayed. Moreover， it shows that the writer is fully aware of the readers wants and expectations and the application letter is carefully discussed. Most importantly， the decision is made after thorough examination.

Positive politeness is fully demonstrated in Paragraph③.It， at first， reminds the reader in a non-accusing way of the criteria mentioned in the advertisement. If you had the one year of work experience we are seeking， we could have considered you further for this position. In this sentence， subjunctive mood is used to transfer the negative message---“we could not hire you owing to the lack of work experience”. This positive wording makes the reader logically accept the outcome. Furthermore， this sentence with a refusal message is put in the middle of this paragraph instead of at the very beginning or the end of the paragraph， which is hence de-emphasized. Later， the writer provides the reader with a long-term alternative with the company. By promising to arrange an interview for the reader in the future if possible， he writer shows involvement with the reader and the positive politeness strategy is thus carried out.

In Paragraph④，the first sentence uses compliments---“You have many strong abilities and skills”， o that the applicant may be relieved from the refusal for a moment. Then it provides yet another suggestion as an alternative for short-term success with another company. This paragraph starts with a positive tone by building up the applicants confidence and ends in a positive note of polite wish.

The analysis made above enables us to see that bad-news business letters require a comparatively high degree of politeness regarding to their face-threatening nature. Since bad-news business letters threaten the readers positive face and they are highly likely to arouse resistance from the reader， various techniques are therefore employed to mitigate the face-threatening force. Positive politeness strategies and negative politeness strategies are combined to fulfill this goal.

Part Four Conclusion

The study provides a descriptive analysis on the strategic patterns of politeness applied in bad-news business letter writing. Major theories on linguistic politeness are introduced in this study with an example from business correspondence for elaboration. Hopefully， the conclusions may be of some help to business people in this field as well as those business English teachers in their teaching practice.

References：

[1]Leech.G.Principles of Pragmatics[J].London：Longman，1983.

[2]Levinson Stephen C.Pragmatics[M].Cambridge：Cambridge University Press，1983.

[3]Wayne，F.Stanford，Dauwalder，David P.Communicating in Business： An Action-Oriented Approach[M].Austen Press，1994.