Chapter 1 - Spoken business genres: an overview

The reason why students of modern languages with an interest in business should be concerned
with spoken business genres is clarified in the following statement:
“Talk is central to doing business and business conversations play an important role in both the
performance and the coordination of corporate activities”.
We can find two spoken business genres: meetings and negotiations.

1.1 Meetings

Koester observes that meetings play an important role in almost every organization and a great
deal of working time is spent in meetings. As the substance of management, meetings are central
to organizing structure and action, time and space. Meetings are of the utmost importance in the
decision-making and problem-solving of organizations.
The Wellington research group has identified the three phases of problem-solving oriented
meetings:
- An opening section
- An exploratory phase
- A resolution section.
During the first phase, an agenda is agreed on or the problem is identified. In the second phase the
issue at hand is developed. During the last phase the participants agree on a course of action and
decisions are summarized. Within the language in the workplace project two approaches to holding
meetings have been identified: the linear approach and the spiral or cyclical approach. The more
traditional linear approach consists in proceeding logically through the various points, so that the
discussion is smoother and all topics are covered systematically. Instead, in the spiral or cyclical
approach, the main issue is briefly considered from different perspectives. One of the key points is
then chosen for a more detailed discussion and the various points may be touched on repeatedly
during the meeting before arriving at a solution. In this approach greater freedom is granted to the
participants, who can express their points of view. The researchers of the language in the
workplace project have highlighted that the role of chair is crucial in carrying out an effective
meeting. The tasks of the chair are opening the meeting, keeping track of the progress of the
meeting and negotiating consensus. Concerning the language used by Chairs, Koester stresses
the use of metalinguistic words or expressions such as discussed and give an overview and of
discourse-organizing and expressions such as “by the way”.

1.2 Negotiations

The important role of language in negotiations and their key role in business communication are
stressed by Koester, who states that:
“Many aspects of work and business communication involve negotiating. A negotiation is basically
about trying to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement in a situation where two people or parties
have some differing interests and goals. Sales negotiations, in which buyers and sellers discuss
the price and other conditions for the purchase of a product or service, are usually carefully
prepared and may last hours or even days. But negotiation can involve all kinds of things.
Negotiations have been investigated from various perspectives, in fact: compared to other types of
business talk, negotiations has been a much-researched genre.
However, it is claimed that there are relatively few studies that have considered negotiation at the
level of language or discourse. Bhatia’s approach has proved effective also in the study of
negotiations: Koester has indicated that negotiations can generally be divided into four phases:
- exchanging information
- bidding
- bargaining
- settling and concluding.

1
 Chapter 2 - Applying discourse analytical approaches to spoken business genres

In the present chapter the role of conversation analysis, speech acts theory and politeness theory
is briefly discussed in the study if selected spoken business genres.

2.1 Conversation analysis

Bargiela-Chiappini observe that CA is a specific analytical route to gain a systematic insight into
the ways in which everyday business is conducted at the level of talk, as well as into the
interactional and organization business that is accomplished through that talk. CA has proved to be
useful to illustrate how organizations are effectively run by talk, in that who talks to whom, when,
how and why determines how the organization works on a day-to-day basis and how it develops
over time. Within the framework of CA, communication is perceived as a joint activity. This is
clearly explained in Stubbe -> CA rejects the typical linguistic model of communication as sending
and receiving messages. In other words, it says that dialogue is not a succession of monologues.
So, CA is concerned with how the jointly organized activity of talk-in-interaction is carried out and
how participants produce joint achievements. Utterances are therefore interpreted as steps in a
joint activity in that CA does not analyze one utterance at a time. In what follows, the application of
CA is exemplified through a study by Helena Halmari which compares the telephone business
conversations of a Finn with other Finnish businessmen to his interest to students of modern
languages specializing in business because the genre of business telephone conversation, which
is very common in business settings. In addition, cultural differences in the management of
business conversations are illustrated. Such cultural differences also exist in cultures that are less
far apart. The study should also make students of modern languages aware of the fact that
knowing English is a different matter than knowing all the discourse conventions of the particular
cultures with whose members one needs to communicate, and thus the widespread use of English
can potentially create a situation where mutual misunderstanding can take place. The study is
valuable because it focuses on naturally-occurring business language data, which is notoriously
difficult go get. In the study, the business telephone conversations are analysed into moves,
identifying those which are constituted of this genre: opening, non-topical, business and close.
These moves can be further subdivided into sub-moves. Openings may comprise introductions,
greetings and “how are you”. How are you sequences are considered part of the opening episode if
the answer is limited. If how are you prompts a long answer, it is considered as belonging to the
non-topical episode, which may consists of jokes or other lightening strategies, and is placed
before the business episode. The business episode comprises business initiation, namely the turn
where the caller states why he is calling, and side-sequences, where topics related to business but
not linked to the reason for the call are discusses. The close comprises precloses, identifiable as
sequences unrelated to business, recapitulation, in which the reason for the call is summarized,
close initiation, often realized as the word okay, and formal closing in the form of goodbye
sequences. With the aim of making students of modern language aware of the potential differences
in the use of English by speakers of other languages, the four moves are now analysed.

1. Opening

In telephone conversations a short formal opening occupying one to four turns is obligatory.
Halmari’s data show that Finnish openings consist of introduction and/or greeting. It is customary
for both Finnish participants to mention their names. In the English conversations, instead, names
are not always mentioned and when they are, it is the Finnish business partner who introduces
himself. The opening consists simply of “How are you” routine exchanges. In the finnish exchanges
when how are you is present, it tends to prompt a long answer, thus creating a non-topical episode.

2. Non topical

When the participants in a telephone conversation know each other, a non-topical element seems
almost obligatory in Finnish. It consists of a joke or a topic whose aim is to lighten the atmosphere.
Unlike Finnish business conversations, American Business conversations seem to emphasize the
2
effective straight to business style. Misunderstanding may arise due to the different interpretation
of how are you sequences. A Finn is likely to interpret it as a genuine question and therefore to
answer fully, creating a non-topical episode. On the contrary, in American conversations a
formulaic answer is expected and how are you is typically a part of the opening.

3. Business

In business related telephone conversations business is naturally the self evident obligatory
episode in all cultures. However, interesting cross-cultural differences may emerge regarding who
initiates business and the presence of side-sequences. While in finnish conversations it seems
usual for the caller to initiate business, in some american conversations, it is the american who
initiates business, although he is not the caller. The reason may be understood by examining the
transcripts closely. Side sequences may be optionally included in business episodes. Within CA,
side sequences are defined as occurrences one might feel are not part of the discourse activity but
appear to be in some sense relevant. The side sequence which starts on line 8 functions as an
explanation of the reason why it is A, and not his shipping agent, who has called to ask about the
flight price.

4. Close

As well as opening and business, close is also the self-evident obligatory part of a business
telephone conversation. Pre-clauses, although optional, are frequent. According to Halmari, they
can be considered as a subtype of side sequence since they also introduce a change of discourse
topic which is somehow relevant to the business just discusses. Her hypothesis, however, is that
English preclosings are more matter-of-fact. Recapitulation of the business matter is almost
obligatory and it is usually the persone who has been asked to do something who recapitulates
what he is supposed to do. In Halmari’s data, Finnish close initiations are performed by the person
who initiates the call, either the caller or the person who left the message. In the English
conversations, instead, the English speaker sometimes initiates the close, even if he is not the call
initiator. Halmari claims that English speakers may tend to initiate business, while Finns may have
a tendency to non-topical side-sequences and precloses. In English conversations formal closings
follow the pattern okay, thank you, goodbye. Halmari also investigates interruptions: her data show
that native speakers of American English interrupted their interlocutors more than three times as
often as native speakers of Finnish. This confirms the fact that the typical Finn is a silent listener,
who vies interruptions negatively and relies on short vocalizations, nods and eye contact for back
channeling. The study shows that even in cultures which share the same generic structure for a
specific language event there may be cultural differences. In particular, English speakers want to
get quickly to business, and thus put emphasis on the business people.

2.2 Speech acts theory and politeness theory

Speech acts theory and politeness theory have been used in the investigation of business
discourse, in particular in the comparison of the realizations of speech acts in native and non
native discourse. Examples are the study of the way in which two potentially face-threatening acts,
requests and disagreement, are realized and mitigated in negotiations. Their conclusions are
relevant for students with an interest in business, in that they show that in negotiations mitigation is
less frequent compared to ordinary talk. This finding indicates that in negotiations business people
may prioritize conversational clarity over politeness considerations. An example of a study which
applies speech acts theory to English used in intercultural business meetings is now examinated.
The study is based on audio and video recorded business meetings held at a multinational airline
company in Hong Kong staffed by Chinese and Western employers. It aims to analyze the range of
commissive speech acts (promises and statements of commitment, and the differences of
realizations by Chinese and English native speakers. It is of interest to modern language students
in that commissives are frequent in workplace settings and are realized through a variety of lexico-
grammatical devices. The study also shows that cultural differences and one’s level of competence
in a foreign language influence the way in which this language is used. Bilbow’s data show that
3
commissive speech acts may be initiated or uninitiated. The former are uttered in response to a
preceding speech act. The later termed offers, occur spontaneously. Most commissive in the
corpus are promises. Linguistically, promises are typically realized through a restricted set of
minimal utterances like yes, sure, ok, certainly but sometimes the promise is assumed from the
context. Offers are quite common in the meetings analyzed. Some offers commit the speaker,
while others commit a group to which the speaker belongs. At times, however, it is unclear who is
committed, as in the case of we can do that. Requests for disambiguation are rare since it is
common for senior staff to make offers which commit absent subordinates. Often hearers check
offers made through confirming sequences in which the content of the offer is repeated. A special
case of offer is the self-reminder: the speaker offers to perform an action which has been
overlooked using sentences such as “I’d better check it up” or “I must remember to do that”. While
speakers commit themselves directly through the speech acts examined so far, there are cases
when commitment is indirectly expressed. Also in this case, commissives may be initiated or
uninitiated. Indirect initiated commissives are termed commissive hints by Bilbow since it is not
clear whether the speaker is committing himself or not. Another type of commissive is the
suggestory hint. This is the most ambiguous type of commissive speech act in that it is both
uninitiated and indirect. Its ambiguity derives from the fact that it is unprompted, it refers to an ill-
defined action and the person being committed is not clearly specified. Grammatically they may be
realized as statements such as that needs looking at, we ought to take this trial business seriously
or as questions like is it an ideal time to include talking to the ambassadors as well?. Comparing
the commissive speech acts performed by Western and Chinese participants in the meetings,
Bilbow found that Western commissive speech acts are more commonly spontaneous offers. The
Chinese more commonly perform promises in response to initiating sequences than do Western
speakers. According to Bilbow, this pattern may reflect the cultural predisposition of Chinese
speakers in such contexts not to initiate conversation, which may result in commitment needing to
be explicitly sought more from Chinese participants than from Western participants. It was found
that Western speakers made more indirect utterances compared to Chinese speakers. This may
be the result of cinese speakers’ perceptions of their own linguistic-weaknesses as second
language speakers in a native-speaking context.

Chapter 3 - Written business communication

Written business communication is a dynamic social process, which is particularly goal-oriented n

nature; in other words, it is mainly concerned with getting things done. The world of business
includes many types of human activity (es: producing goods, financing activities, lending money,
trading stocks and bonds, selling goods or insurance policies, providing services). In all of these
areas of activity, factors such as time, roles, power relations, company image, social and cultural
contexts contribute to the way written messages are drafted and transmitted.

3.1 Types of written business communication

Of the many types of written business communication (letters, emails, memos, faxes, presentations
and reports), we concentrate here on two types: letters and emails. In an age when email may
appear to be the most popular means of communication, companies that are not purely web-based
still send letters of various types out every day: they remain an important written business text
type. Understanding letters and emails is thus a fundamental skill in the world of work. The quality
of all written communication is important, and can be said to be a key feature in the success of a
business since a business organization is to a large extent determined by what the public thinks of
the organization.. thus every business letter should have the secondary objective of enhancing the
company’s public relations.

3.2 The chain-like and intertextual quality of written business communication

One feature of business communication that surfaces in both letters and emails is intertextuality,
namely, the reference to other texts. Business communication is sometimes described as a chain.
Ghadessy and Webster point out that this type of communication often takes the form of an
4
initiation, a response, and a response to a response. The initiation may have an informative or
requesting function, which is followed up by a response, which will refer back to the initial request
or enquiry. This chain of communication is common to both internal and external business
communication. Intertextuality can also be observed between types of written and spoken texts.

3.3 Content, style and form of business letters

The content of a business letter tends to concern practical matters. While personal letters may deal
with aspects of life itself (hopes, fears, joys and sorrows), these elements tend to be minimal in
business communication. Furthermore, business letters are not read at leisure: they must
consequently maximize easy reading. This means being clear in terms of format, and not too long.
Such clarity should result from the careful construction of the text content and its physical layout.
Business letters can be described both from a structural and a functional point of view. Structural
elements tend to be standardized, and include the following:
- The heading (letterhead, date line)
- The opening (inside address, attention line, salutation)
- The body (subject matter, message)
- The closing (complimentary closing, company signature, writer’s signature, writer’s identification,
reference initials, mailing notation, carbon copy notation, postscripts).

3.4 Rhetorical analysis - Sales promotion letters

One scholar who has made important contributions to the study of business letters is Vijay Bhatia.
He adopts Swales’ idea of moves. Moves are rhetorical patterns which are associated with a
particular communicative function. In this early work, Bhathia analysed the genre of sales
promotion letters, and a summary of this analysis. A sales promotion letter is an unsolicited letters
addresses to a group of prospective customers in order to persuade them to buy a product or
service. Since many prospective customers may not be interested in the product or service that
one is trying to promote, the writers of these sales promotion letters have a difficult task firstly in
capturing their attention. They also have to sustain the readers’ interest, and eventually convince
them of the benefits of the product or service being promoted. The main function of a sales
promotion letter is therefore persuasive, in the sense that its writer aims to elicit a specific
response from its readers. Persuasion is a complex communicative process; the following
communicative purposes also need to be achieved if the reader is to be persuaded:
• capturing the attention of the potential customer even if (s)he has no immediate need for the
product/service offered
• offering an appraisal of the product or service in terms of the perceived interests or needs of the
potential customers.
The letter must also be short and effective, given that time is precious for most people in business,
and yet sufficiently detailed; it should be the first contact of many with a potential customer and
should therefore encourage further communication. Seven main moves are identified:
• establishing credentials
• introducing the offer (offering the product or service, essential detailing of the offer, indicating
value of the offer)
• offering incentives
• enclosing documents
• soliciting response
• using pressure tactics
• ending politely.
Genres within the international business community share a certain degree of uniformity. Although
genres do have common structural or formal features, there is obviously a certain degree of
flexibility both in terms of the moves included and the order in which they occur. Bhatia points out
similarities between a sales promotion letter and a job application letter, given that their overall
communicative purpose is persuasive. While the first is promoting a product and is usually
unsolicited, the second is promoting a person, and is usually sent in response to an advertisement.

5
Thus sales promotion letters and application letters can be said to be two related sub-genres within
the broader genre of promotional literature.

3.5 Communicative strategies within moves

Analyzing the rhetorical moves at the level of discourse is the first stage of analyzing a letter, but it
also necessary to examine the actual wording used to achieve the pragmatica purpose of the
move. Language must create the impression intended by the writer on the recipient, and evoke the
desired action, response or result. The choices of mood and modality also construct the writer’s
relationship with the reader. Bhatia expands on this point by quoting an example of the move
establishing credentials. This move is sometimes achieved in the case of sales promotion letters
by depicting the company as one with a long and successful tradition. A we orientation can be used
to create this impression. An alternative is to create the sense in the reader that s/he needs the
service provided by the company writing, which is generally achieved by a you orientation.

3.6 Lexico - grammatical analysis

The third level of analysis is the examination of lexico grammatical choices: in promotional
literature there is a large amount of positively evaluative language (words that emphasize the
advantages of what is being sold).

3.7 Cross-cultural variation

Throughout the business community, letters with a particular function tend to grow into genres, or
sub-genres over time, with certain rhetorical strategies becoming established as successful.
Cultural variables, however, affect the way communicative purposes are achieved and
consequently the way in which texts are written. The discourse structures may vary in terms of the
order of moves, and some moves may be more frequent in one culture than in another. This is
pointed out in studies by Vergaro who compares Italian business letters of two different sub-genres
with the same sub-genres in English from the point of view of move structure. The two genres she
deals with are for your information letters and sales promotion letters.

Case study 1 - A comparison of For Your Information letters in English and Italian

At a macro-leve, if examples of a genre written by people from differing cultural backgrounds are
compared, it can be seen that pragmatic moves may vary. The argumentation plan behind the text
is made manifest in rhetorical choices, which subsequently affect the linguistic choices made
through the lexico grammar. Vergaro notes that sometimes the information move in an Italian letter
is minimal. In such cases, the move tends to be introduced by an illustration marker pointing out
the information such as “vi informo che/ abbiamo il piacere di comunicarvi che/ con la presente vi
informiamo che” which is then followed by the actual information. Vergaro compares the letters in
two corpora she built of FYI letters in English and Italian in terms of a) the number, type and
frequency of moves realized and b) their order of presentation. Starting from the first move, the
Italian letters always begin with a subject, and do not always include a salutation. By contrast, the
english letters may not have a subject but always start with a salutation. The central move in the
letters in both corpora is the information move which is generally short in the letters in Italian and
detailed in those in English. In the italian letters, following the information one, there is an optional
move which refers to enclosed documents or future information available elsewhere. This is totally
absent in the english letters given that the information move is more complete. In the english
letters, on the other hand, the information move is often preceded by other moves (es: thanks,
address issues, refer to previous contacts, communication, give reasons). In the italian letters, a
request move sometimes follows the information move: here, readers may be asked to make
changes according to the information communicated. This move is absent in the English letters,
perhaps due to the greater length and complexity of the information move. By contrast, the english
letters sometimes contain a solicit further contacts/communication move. Both corpora of letters
end with a closing salutation and the italian letters normally precede this with an ending politely.
6
3.8 Writer-responsible and reader-responsible texts

One overall tendency that can be noted in the corpora is the fact that the writers in English attempt
to include as much information as possible, so that the reader is left with few doubts about the
news communicated. This type of writing has been called writer-responsible: in writer-responsible
text, the writer is expected to make the communication as clear as possibile for the reader- another
term for this type of orientation is reader-oriented text. The Italian letters, on the other hand, require
more cooperation from the readers, and can be said to be reader-responsible or writer-oriented.
According to the latter orientation, if the information is not complete, readers are expected to take
the initiative and find out what they need from elsewhere. In the english letters, readers may be
invited to contact the writer for more information, but emphasis is laid on the fact that the writer is
available and willing to help the reader. In a high-context culture, a certain amount of information is
implicit in the message, and the reader is expected either to understand this missing information
through shared knowledge or gain it from the context. Thus, a high-context culture will also be
writer-oriented and reader-responsible. Conversely, in a low-context culture, information tends to
be made explicit in the message and the reader is not expected to infer much information outside
it. A low-context culture then like the British or American ones also tend to be writer-responsible or
reader-oriented.

3.10 Sales promotion letters and politeness strategies across cultures

A sales promotion letter is part of a business communication sequence, appearing typically at the
initial stage of a business dealing in making contacts situations. Its social role is that of finding a
buyer for a commodity or service the seller wants to sell. Vergaro investigated a corpus a sales
promotion letters in English and Italian and compared the moves in the two corpora. In this
analysis, the identification of moves is combined with observations about the pragmatic functions
behind the moves, in particular, the politeness strategies that are put in place. According to Brown
and Levinson, politeness strategies can be either positive or negative: positive politeness
strategies aim at creating closeness, intimacy and rapport between speaker and hearer. Negative
politeness strategies attempt to mitigate any inconvenience caused by a face-threatening act. It will
be seen that one of the major cultural differences between the sales promotion letters is the types
of politeness used in the english and Italian corpora - the english letters contain more positive
politeness, and the Italian more negative politeness. Another difference can be seen in the moves
where the strategies enacting politeness take place. According to Vergaro’s findings concerning
move structure, the sales promotion letters in the Italian corpus start with a subject, followed by an
opening salutation, which is generally extremely formal, as is the letter’s overall tone. In a situation
where a writer is making the first contact with a reader, particularly with the intention of selling
goods, one might think that a writer would seek solidarity from the reader: this can be achieved by
strategies of positive politeness, which attempt to create closeness with the reader. In Italian
culture, however deference is a sign of positive respect and therefore the formal salutations and
the use of the formal second person singular as well as hedging in other moves can be seen as a
negative politeness strategy. Most letters then proceed with the establish credentials move: the
company introduces itself as a trustworthy enterprise from whom the client could benefit if they did
business together. The next move tends to be the introduction of the product or service: introduce
the product/offer/service, followed by details in detail the offer/service and enhance the offer. Here
we can see examples of nominalization which indicate a high level of formality and distance from
the reader, typical of the formal style of the sales promotion letters in Italia. After the offer has been
made, the addressee is invited to take action: in the solicit/invite further communication, contacts
move. The writer is not forceful in inviting the reader to take action, which conforms to the overall
deferential tone of the letter and the lack of pressure placed on the addressee. A high degree of
negative politeness is also visible in the use of the subjunctive, the conditional and the hedging
used in the invitation. The end politely move closes the letters: the writer seeks collaboration from
the reader and is assertive in expressing the opinion that the reader will benefit from the product or
service offered, as well as promising help for any further requests. In Vergaro’s English corpus, the
following moves were identified in sales promotion letters:
- introduce the offer/product/service
7
- establish credentials
- detail the offer
- enhance the offer
- solicit/invite further contacts - communication
- end politely
- closing salutation

The opening salutation always begins with Dear and then is often followed by an in-group market,
such as colleague. Claiming common ground by calling an addressee a colleague is a positive
politeness strategy, which aims to create solidarity with the reader from the very beginning.
Sometimes the salutation is followed by a subject, but normally the next move is introduce the
offer/product/service. The product is sometimes introduced by a headline, which generally makes a
promise, using positive adjectives such as special or new. In the move establishing credentials, the
writer refers to the firm’s reputation and may quote someone authoritative in the field. The following
move provides details of the offer, sometimes in the form of questions and answers, and
subsequently customer advantages, such as discounts, are mentioned to enhance the offer. In
some cases, pressure tactics are used to encourage the reader to respond favorably, but in all
cases in the corpus there is a final solicit/invite further communication/contacts.
In the next move, negative politeness strategies can be found. The writer is making a request to
the reader to visit a website: in order to minimize imposition and save the addressee’s face, the
request is mitigated. The writer reports on his or her hopes of what the reader will do but the reader
is left free to choose whether or not to comply. The final move of the letter tends to use positive
politeness strategies, with the writer offering the reader support for his or her choices.

Chapter 4 - Email communication

In the business context, email communication is chosen as one means among many others, such
as letters, faxes, phone calls, videoconferences, meetings. The reason for choosing email rather
than other channels of communication have been investigated by Zhu and White. They conducted
a series of in-depth interviews into why two businesses situated on the west coast of north america
choose email as a means of communication. The interviewees in the study identified one dominant
purpose from email: getting things done. Within this generic purpose, the interviewees identified
the more specific aims of talking, reminding, recording and asking questions and requesting
information. This speaker identified personal relationships with phonecalls and getting things done
with emails. Apart from the personal side to a relationship, trust and dealing with people were also
seen to be important factors in deciding the means of communication. In these companies, email is
not used to build trust: that must be done face-to-face; neither is it used when personal relations
are tense or strained. Overall, the fact that the interpersonal element is missing in business email
communication is perceived as a possibile advantage. Business email communication generally
lacks socio-emotional content, enabling work-based interaction to be successfully carried out. It is
important to note that socio-emotional content is not precluded a priori from email: conventions
regarding content may vary according to different teams, work environments and across cultures.
Email is context-situated, and all forms of communication are shaped by cultural and contextual
norms. Four key adjectives were identified by the interviewees as characteristics: concrete,
specific, descriptive and correct. A different approach to email can be seen in Zemke & Connellan.
They look at email as a one-on-one way of improving the relationship between a customer and a
web-based company for personalization is the most straightforward way to uplift the shop-person’s
experience. They give advice on how to develop customer-friendly e-contact, and present five
email musts for building customer connections online: respond quickly, attend to presentation, be
personal, be concrete and do not be presumptuous. Speed is also said to count in a customer-
friendly approach. The reply time standard for business email is 1-2 h.

8
4.1 Differences between business letters and emails?

Business emails could be seen as an overarching pre-genre within which several genres exist. In
terms of genre, it has been said that nothing major seems to differentiate them from their paper-
based predecessors, expect the medium. In one of the first investigations into business emails,
business communication was found to be very similar to letters. However, the type of emails
analyzed certainly affect the findings: in Gains’ case, the emails were documents with legal value.
Gains reports the frequent multiple distribution of messages appears to have dictated a convention
which negated a personal or general salutation at the beginning of the message. This co-exists
with a wide range of salutations from the conventional Dear sir to the unconventional hello from. In
gains’ data, a convention for closings may have emerged which links thank you closings with
request messages and names-only closings with information messages. On the other hand, the
ease with which parts of messages can be copied encourages literal citations between < >
increasing the intertextual nature of the genre. A recurring problem linked to email is tone or
bluntness, which is often remarked upon as one of the risks of this type of communication, perhaps
because of the immediacy of the medium. Possibly linked to immediacy are also the implications of
carbon copying others on messages with another primary reader. Riley comments that most of us
recognize that cc’ing can be a rhetorical or political move. Another unclear area is privacy: email
can often be accessed at home and therefore out of normal hours. As Gimenez points out,
business letters might sometimes be written on Sundays, but they would never be dated as such.
By contrast, emails are dated automatically and therefore would carry the date of a Sunday, which
indicated a lack of privacy.

4.2 Emerging tendencies in register: spoken features where personal contact exists

The language of emails is sometimes described as hybrid, since it contains a combination of

written and spoken language features. Gimenez assesses the degree to which spoken features are
entering business emails. In his data where an established relationship existed between the writer
and the addressee, there were also features of a personalized register, such as simple syntactic
structures, elliptical and contracted forms. One feature that needs to be taken into consideration in
the data is the fact that some writers of the emails are non-native speakers of English, so some
inaccuracies in the spelling may be attributed to that, rather than be a feature of emails as such.
He concludes that email is seen as an efficient means of communication and efficiency in email
seems to equate with informality and flexibility of style. This correlated with a familiarity with the
addressee: the more personal the email, the more flexible the style used.

4.3 Features of unplanned spoken discourse

Although our primary way of interacting with computers is still written, the style of written language
we often use has at least as much in common with speech as it does with more traditional formal
writing. Gimenez noted features similar to those of unplanned spoken discourse in email
exchanges where writer and addresse knew each other: in syntax there is a preference for simple
syntactic structures, with coordination preferred to subordination. Cleft structures/existential there
structures are used to draw reader attention to the topic at hand. Elliptical forms and contractions
are common. And colloquial expressions where there is established contact between the writers.
Layout, spelling and punctuation are seen to be more lax when there is an established relation.
Similarly, Baron described the following characteristics of email:
- social dynamics: predominantly like writing. Interlocutors are physically separated and physical
separation fosters personal disclosure and helps level the conversational playing field
- format: writing and speech. Like writing email is durable, like speech, emails is typically unedited
- grammar. lexicon: predominantly like speech, heavy use of first persona pronouns. syntax:
writing and speech. Like writing, email has high type/token ration, high use of adverbial
subordinate clauses, high use of disjunctions. Like speech, email commonly uses present tense,
contractions.
- Style: predominantly like speech, low level of formality and expression of emotion not always
self-monitored.
9
4.4 Intercultural studies of email

As has been seen in the studies of moves in business letters, written business communication can
differ from culture to culture, and this applies to emails too. A study by Van Mulken and Van de
Meer looks at the influence of cultural differences in the Netherlands and the US on customer
service via email. Previous work by Abelen, Redeker and Thompson compared the rhetorical
strategies used in American and Dutch fund-raising letters and found that American letters were
more overly persuasive than their equivalent Dutch ones. In addition, American letters preferred a
more direct and interpersonal linguistic style than the dutch letters. Van Mulken and Van De Meer
expected to find the same kind of differences between American and Dutch companies in their
electronic communications, but at the level of moves little difference was actually found. One
difference was found regarding gratitude: only 2 of the 13 dutch companies thanked the customer
for their email enquiries, whereas practically all the American companies expressed their gratitude
for the contact. Expressing thanks was deemed to be a typically American move. The electronic
format was seen to be a choice of channel which then entails register consequences: the style of
the emails in both countries is more informal, salutations and closings are often omitted, and form
of address is direct and straightforward. Another study by Louhiala and Salminen examined 123
internal email communications with the Vice-president of a Finnish and a Swedish company where
English is used as a lingua franca. Their focus was on form, content, communicative purpose, and
linguistic characteristics. The emails had some features reminiscent of letter or fax discourse, such
as salutations and complimentary closes. Almost 80% of the messages contained salutations and
practically all messages had a complimentary close. The content was both informational and
interpersonal: the interpersonal level is reflected in the frequent use of first names, especially in
salutations and complimentary closes. Three types of genre or message were found: the most
frequent, that used for exchange of information, was called the dialogue genre. Dialogue genre
contains most elements of spoken dialogue, and might have replaced by phonecalls before the era
of emails. The two other genres, the postman genre, and the noticeboard genre are the most
stylized, containing fixed phrases such as please find enclosed, typical of traditional business
letters.

5.5 Tips writing business emails

Business emails are likely to part of most working people’s lives, and professionals may receive so
many email messages that they have very little time to read them. The following practical tips can
be easily followed and lead to better communication and management of time.
• write a meaningful subject line - if you don’t write a subject line, you are in effect assuming that
your name is enough to make the email a priority, which could be seen as rather arrogant, or
simply thoughtless. Rather than writing important, make the subject line informative so that if the
message is urgent, it is immediately clear
• keep the message focused and readable - long messages take up too much time to read;
unfocused messages may seem to waste the reader’s time. Use numbers or bullets if the
message is complex. Don’t use abbreviations appropriate to text message
• avoid attachments - busy people prefer to read extracts of documents
• identify yourself clearly - particularly when you are writing to someone you don’t know. Include
your name, occupation and organization in the first few lines
• think before you press send - don’t flame
• proofread your message - particularly if you are asking someone to do something
• don’t assume privacy
• distinguish between formal and informal situations
• respond promptly - if you want to appear professional and courteous, reply promptly, even to say
that you will reply fully when you have more time
• show respect and restraint. Be particularly careful when you send messages to groups of people
or when you forward messages. It is polite to ask if you can forward the message if you are not
sure and beware of pressing the reply all button if you are part of a group and responding to a
message. Be aware of the difference between the cc (carbon copy, where all addresses are
visible to everyone) and bbc (blind carbon copy, where addresses are invisibile).
10