CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTION
1.1 Research background
In the era of economic globalization, international business trade has become morefrequent among different countries and regions, which has contributed to a newcommunicative form of business interaction among organizations ans institutions allaround the world--business English letter.Business English letter, as an effective communicative channel in internationalbusiness, has been playing a more and more paramount role in business activity totransmit information, exchange ideas, build and maintain good rapport amongcompanies. The special function of business English letter calls for employees inforeign trade companies to pay more attention to the language use in it. More oftenthan not, employees are incline to adopt various pragmatic strategies to achieve theircommunicative goals. Mitigation, which aims to attune with others with a view tomitigating negative influence, is frequently utilized as a strategy by employees.Therefore, the present study attempts to make an investigation of mitigation inbusiness English letter utilized by staff members in foreign trade company for thepurpose of working out the contextual factors that constrain its use and thecorresponding pragmatic functions.
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1.2 Rationale
As suggested in the title, this thesis attempts to study mitigation and its contextual constraints as well as its main pragmatic functions in business English letter. Thechoice of research topic on mitigation employed by staff member in foreign tradecompany is based on the preceding considerations:First of all, mitigation, as an effective linguistic strategy, are frequently tappedin business English letter by staff in foreign trade company. They utilize mitigationas a strategy out of uncertainty, caution or consideration, which aims at avoidingunnecessary risks and conflicts as well. In consideration of this, it is of paramountimportance to conduct a research of mitigation in business English letter of foreigntrade company so as to succeed in realizing the communicative goals.The second consideration is that mitigation is a multifaceted linguisticphenomenon, which combines factors of metapragmatics, semantics and pragmaticsfor the purpose of allowing active interplays among the factors. A comprehensiveresearch of these aspects can manifest the mutual impact of the factors and facilitateour better understanding of mitigating devices. It is hoped that the pragmatic studyof mitigation in the present study can shed some light upon the further rdesearch ofthis linguistic phenomenon.Thirdly, pragmatics does not confine itself to merely depicting how peopleutilize language, but also concerns itself with how to help them become better users(Mey, 1993). Thus the study of mitigation is of great practical significance to proffersome assistance to the staff in foreign trade company in better facilitatingcommunication in international trade.In other words, the foregoing considerations have aroused my interest in thelinguistic phenomenon of mitigation and contribute to the choice as the researchtopic of the present thesis.
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CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEW
A scholar cannot conduct paramount research without firstly understanding theliterature in the specific research field (Boote & Beile, 2005). Therefore, acomprehensive review of the previous studies related to the present study will bedone in this chapter. First of all, a general overview of business English letter will beproffered for the purpose of figuring out major findings and demerits of the previousstudies. Secondly, a survey of mitigation from the perspective of sociolinguistics,cross-culture and pragmatics will be rendered.
2.1 Previous studies on business English letter
With regard to business English letter, scholars have studied its function,classification and writing principle.According to Baugh (1986:18), businessmen are likely to utilize businessEnglish letters to realize their specific targets for they have a number of functions,such as sell goods or service, ask for information, meet the need and demand ofcustomers, establish and maintain good rapport with clients and so on. Moreover,Gan (2003) believes that there are three main functions of business letter: the firstone is to ask for or proffer information; the second is to make or accept offer; thelast is to proceed with business negotiation. In accordance with Qin (2001), businessletter has five kinds of function: to establish cooperative relationship; to offer oraccept a service; to negotiate business matter; to complain or handle complaint; topromote business.From the foregoing analysis, it is obvious that business English letter mattersa lot for the profits and affairs of organizations within the parties involved in abusiness circle.With respect to its classification, different kinds are given in accordance withpersified standards.According to Clark (2001), three basic types of letter can be identified on thebasis of the expected reaction of the readers on the letter. The first is ordinary letterwhich deals with routine in the company. The second is letters that are intended topersuade the receiver to better accept the request of the writer. The last is bad-newletters that are written to express some disappointment to requests.In terms of the content, business English letter can be classified into thepreceding categories: request letters, letters to answer requests, claim and adjustmentletters, credit and collection letters (Stewart, 1984).With respect to the function of letter in the process of a business transaction,there are letters for the establishment of business relations, inquiry letters, letters toorder and quote as well as letters to negotiate (Stewart, 1984).The above classifications are made on the basis of different standards. There isnot commonly-agreed one. In this thesis, only three types of business English letterare chosen as research data. They are letters of inquiry, letters of offer and letters ofclaim, which are frequently employed in foreign trade company.In order to realize the communicative goals of the writer, it is advisable toadhere to the 7 Cs, which subsumes completeness, correctness, clarity, courtesy,conciseness, concreteness and consideration in accordance with Wang (2007).
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2.2 Previous studies on mitigation
The etymology of the term “mitigation” can be traced backed to Latin where“mitigare” meant “to make mild or gentle”; the nominalization “mitigation” islinked mainly with environmental sciences and contexts, such as risk mitigation,earthquake mitigation, bicycle hazard mitigation, mitigation of erosion damage andthe like (www.answers.com/topic/mitigation).In respect of mitigation, there is no commonly-agreed definition of it. However,the relatively comprehensive and plausible definition of mitigation is given by Caffi(1999, 2007). She regards mitigation as weakening or downgrading of interactionalparameters, which lessens allocation and shuffling of rights and obligations. As awhole, mitigation minimizes obligations for both the writer and the receiver, thus making the statement of the different interactional aims easier. In a word, mitigationis a linguistic strategy which attunes discourse responsibilities of both the speakerand the hearer so that various communicative goals can be realized smoothly.In general, previous studies on mitigation are mainly conducted from threeperspectives: the sociolinguistic perspective, the cross-cultural perspective and thepragmatic perspective. In this part, the present study will make a summary of thefindings of the previous scholars and provide some implications for this thesis.
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CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK........16
3.1 Caffi's definition and taxonomy of mitigation ........16
3.2 A general introduction of Adaptation Theory..........17
3.4 Summary of this chapter .....22
CHAPTER FOUR LINGUISTIC REALIZATIONS OF MITIGATION INBUSINESS ENGLISH LETTER.........24
4.1 Bushes.........24
4.1.1 Fuzzy terms..............24
4.1.2 Epistemic modals .....25
4.2 Hedges ........27
4.3 Shields.........30
4.4 Frequency of different linguistic realizations of mitigation............33
4.5 Summary of the chapter ......35
CHAPTER FIVE CONTEXTUAL CONSTRAINTS OF MITIGATION INBUSINESS ENGLISH LETTER ........37
5.1 The physical world to which mitigation adapts ......37
5.2 The social world to which mitigation adapts ..........38
5.3 The mental world to which mitigation adapts.........40
5.4 Summary of the chapter ......42
CHAPTER SIXPRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF MITIGATION IN BUSINESS ENGLISH LETTER
Mitigation frequently employed in business English letter by staff in foreign tradecompany have produced a couple of functions, which makes it possible foremployees in foreign trade companies to succeed in achieving communicative goalsin international business. This chapter attempts to conduct an study on the mainpragmatic functions of mitigation in business English letter. It turns out that themitigation utilized by employees have three functions: namely establishingsolidarity between the writer and the receiver, persuasion and pacification.
6.1 Solidarity building
In the present thesis, solidarity is concerned with the social distance between twoparticipants or organizations, such as the closeness of their relationship, intimacy,etc.Solidarity building then refers to the establishment of a intimate or close relationship(Li, 2008).Solidarity building is relevant to international business for businessmen allaround the world may not meet each other and are yet not on close terms. In order toremove obstacles physically or psychologically that impede fully participation and ensure optimal cooperation and involvement (both cognitive and emotive), thewriter employs some linguistic devices in writing business English letters. Thefirst-person plural of shields is a good case in point to for the writer to buildsolidarity with the receiver. Example is rendered as follows:Extract 29If your price is competitive and quality satisfactory, we can place a trial orderand we can establish cooperative relationship in the near future.In the foregoing instance, the writer attempts to establish good rapport with thereceiver. The first-person plural “we” is employed to establish solidarity between thewriter and the receiver.Extract 30This error has been apparently made by careless of your shipping clerk, and canbe easily found out by examining the current stock on your side. In accordance withour contract, compensation should be made immediate.In the foregoing examples, “our” is utilized with a view to mitigating theillocutionary force of the utterance. It means that both parties have reached anagreement of compensation when damage occurs in the contract they have signed.The first-person plural remove the writer from obligation to impose on the receiver.It seems that the request of claiming compensation is stipulated in accordance withthe contract, not by the writer. Thus the illocutionary force of the statement will bemitigated in some sense. Then the solidarity between the two parties can be stillmaintained.
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CONCLUSION
This part will summarize the thesis by proffering the major findings, pointing out itslimitations and suggestions as well as its implications for further researcher.This thesis has spared no efforts to analyze and discuss the frequently utilizedmitigation in business English letter by employees in foreign trade companies. Somemajor findings are to be rendered in the preceding parts.Firstly, a number of mitigating devices are used in business English letterwritten by staff members in foreign trade company to realize the communicativegoals. The writer lessens the accurateness of his statement and reduce thecommitment to it through the use of bushes, which subsumes fuzzy terms and modalverbs. In addition, the writer mitigates the illocutionary force of his propositionthrough the use of hedges including politeness markers and subjective mood.Furthermore, the writer shifts the responsibility for performing the utterance throughthe introduction of a different utterer or changing the topic to another time or spacethrough the use of shields containing first-person plural, hypothetical constructions and evidential markers as well.Secondly, in terms of the frequency distribution, there are some differencesamong the three kinds of letters. bushes are most frequently employed in the lettersof inquiry and letters of offer. Shields are most frequently utilized in the letters ofclaim. This finding, to some extent, is consistent with the purpose of the respectivethree kinds of letters.Thirdly, with respect to the contextual constraints, there are many factorsinvolved, which subsumes the elements in physical, social and mental worlds underthe framework of Adaptation Theory proposed by Verschueren. In terms of thephysical world, the writer attempts to shift time or space to another one with a viewto adapting to the present world. In respect of the social facts, the social values suchas sincerity and restraint and the laws and regulations entail to be adapted to for theyneed to be obeyed in the business circle. With regard to the mental world, thenegative emotion of the receiver entail to be adapted to for the norm stipulates thewriter to take care of the negative emotion in the receiver sensitively and reasonablyby downplaying the information that is inclined to intensify the negative emotion orwriting in a considerate manner to pacify the negative emotion.
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References (abbreviated)