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ERIC Number: EJ1211339
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Apr
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0033-6882
EISSN: N/A
Politeness in Business Communication: Investigating English Modal Sequences in Chinese Learners' Letter Writing
Qian, David D.; Pan, Mingwei
RELC Journal: A Journal of Language Teaching and Research, v50 n1 p20-36 Apr 2019
Politeness has been a source of inspiration for research in pragmatics and inter- and intra-cultural communication. However, the existing literature focusses more on how politeness is realized in the context of first language use. Few studies have investigated the issue related to the use of English by second language learners from varying subcultures within the same cultural tradition. The present study examines how Hong Kong and Shanghai tertiary-level learners of English convey politeness in their business letter writing, as reflected in the use of modal sequences. Three hundred business letters were collected from students in Hong Kong and another 300 from students in Shanghai. Majoring in various disciplines, these students were all in their final year of study, and their English proficiency level was generally scored at B2, as compared with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Following a mixed-methods approach, the study tracked a rather complex distribution of politeness realizations by different modal sequences. The findings were that Hong Kong ESL learners appeared to be more strategic users of modal sequences as evidenced by a variety of usage examples from the two purpose-built learner corpora, which were developed to monitor and compare English learners' business writing at the tertiary level. Another finding was that epistemic modality tended to better preserve politeness in the writing.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China; Hong Kong; China (Shanghai)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A