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On the Courtesy in English Business Writing

Politeness Principle formulated by Leech. G in 1983 is considered as an important pragmatic principle in communication. A description og the six maxims of the princple are indicated below:

1)      Tact Maxim: The speaker minimizes the cost (and correspondingly maximizes the benefit) to the listener ;

2)      Generosity Maxim: The speaker minimizes the benefit (and correspondingly maximizes the cost) to herself;

3)      Approbation Maxim: The speaker minimizes dispraise (and correspondingly maximizes praise) of the listener;

4)      Modesty Maxim: The speaker minimizes praise (and correspondingly maximizes dispraise) of herself;

5)      Agreement Maxim: The speaker minimizes disagreement (and correspondingly maximizes agreement) between herself and the listener;

6)      Sympathy Maxim: The speaker minimizes antipathy (and correspondingly maximizes sympathy) between herself and the listener.

Politeness Call be seen as one of basic guidelines for all human behavior．It is generally accepted that politeness is a pervasive feature in human communication．Writing of business correspondence, as a kind of form of communication, should also observe this guideline. Accordingly，some skills are recommended.

1.       Vocabulary Strategies

Use courtesy words

Politeness can win the favor of the opposing party. Courtesy words such as please, thank you, We have pleasure can intensify your respect to the listener or the reader. In the long course of using business letter, there comes some words often used to express politeness.

(1). Allmost every business letter begins with Thank you for your letter of … or similar expressions

(2). Besides the letter beginning, words expressing appreciation scatter everywhere in the business letter. Following are some examples:

a. We wish to express our most sincere thanks for all your cooperation.

b. We should be thankful if you would arrange for immediate shipment.

c. We shall be appreciate it if you will quote us the lowest prices CIFC5% Port Shanghai.

d. We are appreciative of your cable responses dated June 3 and June 12 to our request for an 8% reduction in price.

e. We shall be grateful for further information you may be able to give us about Chinese fruits.

f. We are much obliged to you for the prompt execution of this order.

g. We shall be indebted to you, if you will make us a special offer on peanut.

Use You Attitude

In most business situations, the reader and writer have something to gain or lose. Focusing on reader benefit shows you've considered the situation from the reader's point of view. Our readers feel less threatened and respond better if they feel we as writers understand their needs.

The You-Attitude, then, is more than using the "you" pronoun. It is truly an attitude that we believe, and, as a result, we make our readers believe: that the most important person in our business relationship is you: my reader. The goal of communication in business is to get our readers to do what we want them to do, so then we have to them believe that they are valued and appreciated.

    A. We regret to say that we have to cancel your order because of your failurer to open the L/C in time.

B. please let us know if there is something in the way that precludes you form Establishing the L/C.

Compare these two sentences. In business letters, we seldom use such discourteous tone as the sentence A. By contraries, we use sentence B of You-attitude which is much more polite and proper than the We-attitude.

Generally, we should use You, Your business, Your needs more than I, We, My, Our, but this does not mean we should use You instead of all We or I. When the reader has to be blamed, we can use first person to convey the connotation of You-attitude. For in such circumstances, You-attitude may be all the worse. For example:

Your error caused the damage of the goods and you will be responsible for what have happened.

This sentence is too harsh and may cause antipathy from the reader. But if we change it into the following sentence, it would be much more considerate.

We are regretted to find that the goods has been damaged and we would like to have our representative to look into it.

2.       Sentence Strategies

Use of subjunctive mood

Subjunctive mood can put forward one’s hope or advice politely. For example:

    a. We would ask you to open L/C soon.

b. We wish we could lower our prices but unfortunately we can not do so.

c. If another instance of this discrepancy between the sample and the goods received should occur, it would be very embarrassing.

d. May we suggest that you could perhaps make some allowance on your quoted prices that would help to introduce your goods to our customers?

Use of passive voice

When narrating one thing, using active voice sometimes will reveal the tone of blaming or complaining, while passive voice would be more unobjectionable.

    A. You must exert your best effort to wind up the longstanding issue at an early date.

B. You are kindly requested to exert your best effort to wind up the longstanding issue at an early date.

If we change the sentence A into the sentence B, the tone is much more gentle an polite.

Use of protasis

    a. We would appreciate it very much if you would send us the latest samples with their best price.

b. If your quality is good and the price is suitable for our market, we would consider signing a long-term contract with you.

c. This is the trial order. We will place a large order in the foreseeable future if you could give us a substantial discount.

d. We would advise you therefore to let us have your order by the end of the month, if you are really interested in having a stock of these attractive lines by Easter.

These protases seems stately and reasonable. Compared with those abrupt requests and advices, they can gain more respect from the readers and achieve the goal of communication.

（1002）

On Adoption of a Good Tone in W riting Busines Correspondence from the Angle of Politeness

LIANG Zhi-jian, Foreign Language Departmen~Putian University,Putian 35 1 100，China

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莆田学院学报Journal of Putian University 第12卷第4期，2005年8月

Politeness Principle and Vocabulary Strategies in English Business Letters

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“On How to”Form a Good Image Through Decency Performances                       — The Application of Courtesy in Writing English Business Letter

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