Vinh University Department of Foreign Language ---------------------o0o-------------------- Analysis of language used in business letters in term of speech acts (Ph©n tÝch ng«n ng÷ trong th tÝn th¬ng m¹i díi gãc ®é hµnh ®éng lêi nãi) Field: Linguistics By: NguyÔn ThÞ Kim Oanh Class: 44B2 Supervisor: M.A Lª ThÞ Thóy Hµ Vinh, May 2007 Table of content Acknowledgement Part A: Introduction Page 1.Rationale of the study………………………………………………… 1 2. Aims of the study…………………………….………….…………… 1 3. Scope of the study…………………………………………………… 2 4. Method of the study……………………………….….……………… 2 5. Design of the study………………………… ……….……………… 2 Part B: Development Chapter I: Theoretical background 1.Discourse. …………………………………………………………… 3 1.1. What is dicourse? ………………………………………………… 3 1.2. Spoken and written discourse …………… ……………………… 3 1.3. Discourse analysis ………………………………………………… 4 1.4 Context …………………………………………………… ……… 5 1.4.1. What is context? ………………………………………………… 5 1.4.2. Context versus co-text …………………………………………… 6 2. Speech acts ……………………………………………… ………… 7 2.1. Definition of speech acts …………………………………………… 8 2.2 Utterance and speech acts …………………………………………… 8 2.3. The process of speech acts ……………………… ………………… 9 2.4. Classiofication of speech acts ……………………………………… 10 2.4.1.Classification of Austin …………………………………………… 10 2.4.1.Classification of Searle …………………………………….……… 11 2.5.Direct and indirect speech acts in business letters … .……………… 12 3. Politeness …………………………………………… ……………… 13 4. Letters and business letters as popular texts ……………………… 15 Chapter II – Analysis of language used in business letters in term of speech acts 2.1.Business letters …………………………………………….………… 16 1.1.What is business letters? ……………………… ………………… 16 1.2. Why business letters are written? ………… .…………………… 16 1.3. What is the style of business letters? ………………………………17 2.2. Model of speech acts in business letters and language means expressing types of speech acts. ……………………………………………………… …… 18 2.2.1. Letters of sales. ……………………………………………………… 18 2.2.2. Letters of inquiry. ………………………………….………………… 21 2.2.3. Letters of order …………………………………….………………… 23 2.2.4.Letters of complaint …………………… …………………………… 26 2.2.5. Letters of adjustment ………………………………………………… 28 2.2.6. Letters of credit ……………………………….……………………… 30 2.3. Direct and indirect speech acts in business letter…………………… 33 2.3.1. Direct speech acts. …………………………………………………… 33 2.3.2. Indirect speech acts. …………………………………… …………… 34 Chapter III – Some implications for English learning and teaching and translating. 3.1.Language used in business letters in term of speech acts. ………….…… 37 3.2. Teaching and learning English …………………….…………………… 40 3.3.Suggestion for translating ………………………………… …………… 40 Part C Conclusion– 1. Review of the major findings …………………………….………….…… 41 2. Suggesion for further works ……………………………………………… 42 References Appendixes Acknowledgement This thesis would have never been completed without the support of my dedicate teacher, friends and family members. First of all, I would like to acknowledge my deepest gradtitude to my supervisor, MA. Le Thi Thuy Ha who has given me useful references and value advice during my researching process and edited my works carefully. I am also deeptly indebted to teachers in Foreign Language Departement, especially Mrs Van Huong, Mr Tran Ngoc Tuong, Mrs Kim Anh who provided me with many references. Last but not least, my sincere thank and gratefulness goes to my family and my friends whose love and encouragement have contributed to the completeness of this thesis. Vinh, May15, 2007 Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh. PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the world, the numbers of English speakers take up a quarter or a fifth of the total. It is estimated that there are about 350 millions English native speakers and more than double of that number of non-native speakers use English as a national, second or foreign language or as a language for commerce, industry, science and other purposes. Due to the greatly political and economical development in the world, the commercial relations among different nations have significantly increased and English is considered as an international language. Especially, in Viet Nam, our country has been a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), many investors intend to invest into our potential country, thus the transactions are made in the international language. It is very necessary to know a constituent part of business communication because more and more agreements or contracts are made in English. English is used in the global business for transactions in goods and services, technical specifications, financial reports and other purposes among native-speakers and non-native-speakers through out the world. The business transactions are developing quickly linking with the growth of the economy of the country in which the international cooperation is very important. Business letters written in English are viewed as a form of business communication and contribute to the success of the company. Although the communication technology has been widespreadly developed in the modern society, business letters are used as a main channel of business correspondence. Speech acts have been researched for a long time by many linguistic philosophers, especially by Austin and Searle. This subject researched what speech means within a particular discourse. In addition, business letters are considered as a popular discourses and written in a particular situation. Therefore, when we understand the speech acts of a text/ a letter, we will know the writer’s meaning in order to react in the way that creates mutual benefits in business. For all above reasons, we choose “Analysis of language used in business letters in term of speech acts” as topic of the graduation thesis. 2. Aims of the study. This thesis aims at: - Emphasizing the importance of speech acts in business letters on surface. - Making the matter of business letters less complicated and upgrading the style of English business letters for the learners. - Providing the utilities of speech act types within certain kinds of business letters. - Giving some implications for learning, teaching and translating of business letters. 3. Scope of the study This thesis analyzes language used in business letters in term of speech acts. However, we only research the speech acts in business letters on surface. There are a large number kinds of letters written in business, we can not include all in this thesis, but only 6 kinds of business letters: - Letters of sales - Letters of inquiry - Letters of order - Letters of complaint - Letters of adjustment - Letters of credit We also study a little about the directness and indirectness in those kinds of letters. 4. Method of the study. - Revise the theoretical publications - Collect business letters from published books - Analyze the collected letters - Investigate the letters to get statistics. 5. Design of the study. The thesis comprises of three chapters: Part A: Introduction This part discusses the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study. Part B: Development This part is subdivided into three chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical background Chapter 2: Analysis of language used in business letters in terms of speech acts. Chapter 3: Applications Part C: Conclusion This part reviews major findings and suggests some directions for further works. PART B: DEVERLOPMENT Chapter I: Theoretical background I- Discourse 1.1. What is discourse? Discourse definition has been discussed by many linguists with their own views. In discourse analysis, David Nunan defined discourse as “a stretch of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as being related in some ways”(1993:5). Cook (1997:156) gives definition of discourse as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive” Also, Crystal (1992:25) stated discourse as “a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative”(quoted in Discourse Analysis, Nunan, 1993:5) Cook showed that there are 2 kinds of language for study: one used to teach language or literacy and another to communicate something (may respond to a correct sentence or a series of correct sentences. “The later kind of language, language in use, for communication- is called discourse”(1997) 1.2. Spoken and written discourse. Although spoken and written discourse are similar in some aspects, they are quite different in form. The difference makes the gap between speech and the writing lager. Brown and Yule (1983) showed that: (a) The syntax of the written language is better organized than that of the spoken language. (i) Spoken language contains short sentences which are incomplete, the hearer can base on various elements to interpret meaning. For example: For what? Cutting. (ii) In spoken language, “and” is the most popular. The speaker usually forgets to use other subordinations during conversation. (iii) The active declarative forms are much more found in conversational speech than others, the speaker wants to points out clearly agent, action and result of the action (b) In written language, the relationship between clauses is marked by a large number of metalingual markers such as: that, when, while whereas in… spoken language, markers: “and”, “but”, “than” are popular, “if” is rare. (c) The heavily premodified noun phrases presents more frequently in written language than in the spoken language. For example: “ The federal ALP caucus aboriginal affairs committee” ( quoted in the The graduation thesis of Hoang Dinh Thuy Duong 2005:7) (d) “ whereas written language sentences are generally structured in subject- predicate form, in spoken language topic-comment structure of Givon (1979 b) is found” ( Nguyen Hoa, 2000:19) For example: The flowers they grow up quickly with enough water. (e) In informal speech, active structures with interminate group agents are used with a large number. For example: Something she bought in the holiday+ she gives them to her friends (f) “ In informal conversation about immediate environment, the speaker may rely on gaze direction to supply a referent” ( Nguyen Hoa, 2000:19) For example: The girl gazes the boy and asks her friend “how is he?” (g) Similar expressions can be used in speech to show the variety of language. (h) The speaker often uses a set of generalized vocabulary such as: a lot of, get, do, thing, nice, stuff within their talk.… (i) “The same syntactic form is repeated several times by the speaker as in: I look at fire exists + I look at what gangways are available + I look at electric cables what + are they properly covered.” ( Nguyen Hoa, 200: 19) (j) A large number of prefabricated “fillers”: well, erm, I think, you know, if you see what I mean, of course, and so on maybe produced in written language. After analyzing some differences in form between spoken and written language, it is concluded that written language is better organized, coherent than spoken one. In some case, these distinctions are useful, particularly, in cross- languages. 1.3. Discourse analysis. “Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and context in which it is used” (MC Carthy 1991:5) This subject has been researched since the 1960s and early 1970s and consisting of linguistics, semiotics, psychology. Discourse analysts study language in use, from the spoken data to written texts of all kinds and from conversation to highly institutionalized forms of talk. At the time when linguistics was as largely concerned with the analysis of single sentences, “discourse analysis” paper was published by Zellig Harries(1952) with the distribution of linguistic elements in extended text and the link between the text and its social situation. In 1960s, Dell Hymes provided a sociological perspective, linguistic philosophers were influential in the study of language as Austin(1962), Searle(1969) and Grice(1964).With the emerge of pragmatics which study the meaning in context, these philosophers researched the speech acts theory and the formulation of conversational maxims. Cook (1989) defined discourse analysis as a tool to “examine how stretches of language, considered in their full, textual, social and psychological context, become meaningful and unified for their users” Discourse analysis is affected by sources, styles and manners of countries. In British, it was greatly influenced by M.A.K.Hallyday’s functional approach to language in which his framework forced on social functional structure of speech and writing. British philosophers Sinclair and Coulthard also developed a model for the description of teacher- pupil talk in the classroom and debates and in business and so on. While in America, the discourse analysis has been dominated by works within the ethno methodology tradition which emphasizes the research method of close observation of groups of people communicating in natural setting. Its purpose is to examine types of speech events such as storytelling, greeting, ritual and verbal duels in different cultural and social settings. Discourse analysis has grown into a wide-ranging and composing different elements which find it unified within the description of language above sentence and an interest in the contexts and cultural influences which affect language in use. Now, this subject is applied in the second language learning and teaching in order to have a better understanding about language. 1.4. Context. 1.4.1. What is context? Context is an important factor in the interpretation of discourse. Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse and in which the discourse is embedded. However, the concept of context and context of situation are not overlapped. For some scholars, context seems just to be a minimal stretch of language that helps to understand what is written and spoken. When an utterance is produced, the hearer must base on the context to have an appropriate interpretation. The following example is offered by Brown and Yule to illustrate the same utterance but clearly different interpretation. a)Speaker: a young mother, hearer: her mother-in-law, place: park, by a duck pond, time: sunny afternoon in September 1962. They are watching the mother’s two- year-old-son chasing ducks and the mother-in-law has just remarked her son, the child’s father was rather backward at this age. The young mother says: I do think Adam’s quick. b)Speaker: a student, hearers: a set of students, place: sitting around a coffee table in the refectory, time: evening in March 1980. John, one of the groups of students has just told a joke. Every one laughed except Adam. Then Adam laughed and one of the students says: I do think Adam’s quick. (Nguyen Hoa, 2000: 39) In the first example, the meaning of the utterance is conveyed apparently when Adam compared favorably with his father. Also, the intonation’s role exists, we can understand the utterance’s meaning easily. On contrary, in the later instance, Adam compared unfavorably with the rest of the group of students. If we base on linguistic context, the meaning of the statement can not be interpreted completely. Rather, it is extra-linguistic factors when other students enjoy the joke immediately but Adam later. Therefore, we have to base on linguistic and non-linguistic factors to interpret the discourse in order to have a full understanding. 1.4.2. Context versus co-text. When we want to interpret an utterance, the physical and extra-linguistic elements are useful but may be not enough for a full interpretation. The previous discourse or context in traditional sense of the words is considered as an important factor and called co-text. According to Halliday, “co-text is the stretch of language that occurs before or after the utterance which need to be interpreted’’. For example: “The same evening I went ashore. The first landing in any new country is very interesting’’. (Brown and Yule, 1983:47) In above example, the word “landing “ is determined with a specific meaning because of previous discourse or the phrase word “went ashore” decides meaning of “landing” by ship not by other means. In conclusion, both context and co-text are important to interpret the discourse. But the difference is that context refers to non-linguistic elements: topic, purpose, setting While co-text focuses on linguistic elements: previous discourse.… . and business letters as popular texts ……………………… 15 Chapter II – Analysis of language used in business letters in term of speech acts 2.1 .Business letters. only 6 kinds of business letters: - Letters of sales - Letters of inquiry - Letters of order - Letters of complaint - Letters of adjustment - Letters of credit