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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
The event that Vietnam joined WTO this year is so meaningful. Vietnam had
been waiting for this for a long time before it was officially a member of this
organization. This event will help our country to develop more quickly and it helps
Vietnam to catch up with the speed of economic development of other countries. It
also eases the international business transactions, which are becoming more important
than ever before. International business transactions are an effective way of
communication as they enable the communication of every country in the world. The
international business communication is very important. Lockers (1992:14) states:
“Good communication is worth every minute it takes and every penny it costs”.
Business communication can be taken in the form of face-to-face meetings or of
written communication known as business correspondence. Business correspondence
takes a very large share in business communication as business associates who desire
transactions quickly are in different distance places and are unable to frequently travel
a long way for every single business discussion.
Every businessman would like their business to run smoothly without any
troubles as company closed down, orders are refused or complaints are made.
However, it is too perfect business. In business transactions, it is common for
businessmen to write business letters that convey bad news. Bad news certainly
displeases readers and may cause destruction in relationship between business
partners. Therefore, knowing how to write a good letter conveying bad news is
essential for the survival of a business.
With the hope of finding out how English writers write bad-news letters, the
writer does hope that her findings will be very useful for everyone who cares about
bad-new business English letters.
2. Aims of the study
The study aims at
- Studying the ways to convey bad news in English business correspondence;
- Finding out some strategies in conveying bad news in English business
correspondence;
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- Studying the way to convey bad news in some kinds of letters: letter of
rejecting a complaint, turning down a credit and refusing an order to help the
teaching and the learning of commerce English…
- Finding out how to create goodwill in conveying bad news in English business
correspondence.
- Giving some implications in writing a good bad-news letter.
Research Questions:
1. How do English writers convey bad news in English business correspondence?
2. Which strategy is preferred in conveying bad news in business letters?
3. How do they write to create goodwill in their bad-news letters?
3. Methods of the study
This thesis uses the methods of description, analysis, and statistics in linguistic
study.
A number of materials on applied linguistics, notably on speech acts and
politeness strategies are studied to build up a theoretical background for my thesis.
Data used in this thesis are mainly collected from textbooks and authentic English
written by native English speakers. The writer also uses a plenty of business letters in
the book Oxford Handbook of Commercial Correspondence published by Oxford
University Press in 2003, written by A. Ashley.
4. Scope of the study
This thesis focuses on how to convey bad news in English business
correspondence only. It describes common goodwill techniques in writing English
business letters.
Three kinds of bad-news business letters are analyzed are:
- Letters of refusing a complaint
- Letters of turning down a credit
- Letters of refusing an order
From the writer’s point of view, these kinds of letters are the most likely to cause
Face Threatening Act (FTA) to readers who may have negative attitude towards the
messages sent. However, during everyday business transactions, bad-news messages
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are always available in the three kinds of letter. What is more, time and reference
constraints are also the barrier for the extension in the scope of the study. For the
reasons above, the writer only focuses on the above-mentioned matters in her
research.
5. Design of the study
Part A is an introduction presenting the rationale of the study, the aims, the scope, the
method and the design of the study.
Part B consists of 3 chapters:
Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background of this work. Firstly, the notion
of, and the background of speech acts are provided. The emphasis will be on
dimensions and types of speech acts, face and politeness and the act of breaking bad
news.
Chapter 2 is the study which deals with how to convey bad news in English
business correspondence. Some strategies are employed in direct and indirect
approaches and some findings are given out.
Chapter 3 provides implications to write bad-news letters.
Part C is the conclusion, the summaries of the whole thesis.
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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1.Speech Acts and the act of breaking bad news
Speech Act theory was originally initiated by the Oxford philosopher, J. L.
Austin in 1930s and was expounded in a series of lectures which he gave at Hardvard
in 1955. In his book How to do things with words, Austin argues that when we use
languages, we are performing certain acts. Traditionally, philosophers have to
distinguish between actions and speaking; on the basis that speaking about something
is quite different from doing it. For example, a woman says, “ It is very hot in here”.
She doesn’t want to inform that it is hot but want the listener to open the window or
turn on the fan.
Those kinds of actions via utterances for the purpose of communicating are
called “speech acts”. In English, they are commonly given such specific labels as
apologizing, complaining, requesting, inviting, informing, complimenting or
promising etc.
Breaking bad news is a kind of speech act. When speakers break bad news,
they are performing an act, that is the act of informing bad news Bad news is a kind of
news that makes hearers sad, unhappy or bad. Nobody welcomes bad news. And thus
the act of breaking bad news is an act to say something that disappoints hearers and
makes hearers displeased, disappointed and depressed. For this reason, speech acts
theory will help the writer a lot in her study.
1.1.1. Dimensions of speech acts
Speech acts are defined by Hymes (1972) as the acts we perform when we speak –
such as agreeing, complaining, requesting, apologizing, promising, approving,
informing and so on. Austin believes that a single speech act actually contains three
separate but related acts: locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts.
- Locutionary act: When making an utterance, a speaker performs a locutionary
act, an act of saying something, with a sense and reference. It is simply the act of
producing a linguistically well-formed, and thus, meaningful expression. For example:
When making an utterance of breaking bad news, a speaker performs a locutionary
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act, an act of breaking bad news. This utterance used in breaking bad news is
meaningful because it informs bad news.
- Illocutionary act: The illocutionary act is the function of the utterance that the
speaker has in mind, the communicative purpose intended or achieved by the
utterance. For example: When a speaker performs an act of breaking bad news, the
speaker thinks that the news informed is bad and the communicative purpose intended
is achieved as the speaker breaks bad news in his/her utterance.
- Perlocutionary act: the perlocutionary act refers to the hearer’s recognition of
the illocutionary act. As a consequence, the hearer may feel amused, annoyed,
displeased, surprised, or pleased. For example: In uttering an act of breaking bad
news, the speaker thinks that the hearer may feel annoyed or displeased when being
informed the news.
Speech acts tend to concentrate largely on illocutions, locutions and perlocutions
coming before and after the illocutionary act, although important, are of less central
interest. When Austin first began his study of speech acts, he attempted first of all to
distinguish between a class of utterances which he called “performative” and those
which he termed “constatives”. Performatives are a special group of utterances of the
saying of which actually perform the action named by the verb.
For example:
- act of marriage: I hereby claim that you are husband and wife
- act of naming a ship: I name this ship the Saucy Sue.
- act of closing a meeting: I declare this meeting closed
- act of wager: I bet you a winner
- act of apology: I apologize
- act of informing: I hereby inform you that
etc
However, the act of breaking bad new tends to highly threaten the hearer’s face
and thus it is less likely to appear in performatives to avoid an FTA in uttering the
sentence.
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1.1.2. Types of speech acts
Speech acts can be classified according to how they affect the social interaction
between the speakers and the hearers. The most basic categorization (Searle, 1969)
consists of five different types of speech acts:
1. Declaratives : are those kinds of speech acts that change the world in their
utterance. For example, the priest claims: “I hereby claim that you are husband and
wife”. This claim will change the state of the two single people to married ones.
2. Representatives : are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker
believes to be the case. A representative can be either true or false as the speaker
asserts, says, concludes, describes, etc. For example, “the Earth is round” when saying
the utterance, the speaker believes that the Earth is round.
3. Directives : are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone else
to do something such as commands, orders, requests, and suggestions. For example,
“Wash clothes!, the speaker wants the listener to wash clothes.
4. Expressives : are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker feels.
They express psychological state and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes,
dislikes, joy or sorrow. For example: “I am lonely”, the speaker feels lonely.
5. Commissives : are those kinds of speech acts that commit the speaker to do
something such as promises, threats, etc. For example. “I will give it to you
tomorrow” is considered to be a promise. The speakers intend to do what is said.
To sum up, speech acts are the acts we perform when we speak. The speech act
theory helps to interpret the function of language in communicating, which plays an
indispensable role in interaction.
In studying the categorization by Searle, I find myself that the act of breaking
bad news belongs to representatives because when the speaker informs the bad news,
s/he believes that the news informed is true. That is why it may cause an FTA. In
informing the bad news, the speaker has to do the thing that s/he knows will threaten
the hearer’s face and certainly s/he does not want to do so. The hearer, moreover, does
not want to receive the bad news and s/he may have the negative reaction to the news
informed. If the speaker is not careful about word-choice as well as way to present the
bad news, a break in business relationship is unavoidable (see chapter 2).
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Another way of classifying speech act, according to Searle 1969:60) is based
on the structure and the use of word. And according to him, speech act can be divided
into two opposite ways of informing something: Direct and indirect speech acts.
Direct speech acts and indirect speech acts are distinguished from each other.
Indirectness is defined as “those cases in which one illocutionary act is performed
indirectly by the way of “performing another” (Searle 1969, p60). In direct speech
acts the speaker says what s/he means, while in indirect speech acts the speaker means
more than what s/he says (Searle 1980, p.8), for example speakers perform one
illocutionary act implicitly by way of performing illocutionary act explicitly. For
example, instead of telling a student that s/he is late for the lecture, the teacher may
ask a question “What is the time now?”. That is the indirect act and the direct act is to
ask what time is.
Concerning why indirectness is used, Yule (1996, p.56) writes “indirect speech
acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than direct speech act”.
1.1.3. Breaking bad news
Life is not always comfortable and enjoyable and it can be disappointing at
times. Problems like systems break down, mistakes are made, deadlines go unmet,
complaints and credit are turned down, orders are refused are not rare. In this case, the
speaker has to inform these problems – known as breaking bad news to the hearer. It
is not always easy to be the deliverer of ‘bad news’ to your colleagues, your
customers, or to anyone else for that matter. The act of breaking bad news is known as
a speech act as it informs bad news to hearers, i.e., it is the act of informing.
For example: when the writer says: “we can not offer credit facilities of any
kind at present owing to inflation”. In saying this sentence, the writer believes that
s/he cannot offer credit facilities.
Searle (1976, p.44) argues that each type of illocutionary act requires certain
conditions for the successful and felicitous performance of that act and these he calls
felicity conditions. Searle identifies four different kinds of felicity conditions:
propositional content conditions or rules, preparatory conditions or rules, sincerity
conditions or rule and essential conditions. These conditions relate, on the other hand,
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to the belief and attitudes of the speaker and the hearer, and, on the other hand, to the
belief and attitudes of linguistic device for communication.
The act of breaking bad news should meet the requirement of Searle’s felicity
conditions, if the speaker wants to have a successful and felicitous performance. For
me, the act of breaking bad news should satisfy the four conditions belows:
1. General condition: it focuses on the background knowledge of the Speaker
and the Hearer. That is who the speaker and the hearer are. How they are related to
each other and in what aspect. They can communicate with the full understanding of
the information sent or not.
2. Content condition: In the act of breaking bad news, the message sent is bad-
news message. The speaker is responsible for informing the hearer of the news and
the hearer has not been informed the news yet or the speaker believes that the hearer
has not been informed the news.
3. Sincerity condition: This condition concerns about the sincerity of the
speaker when informing the news. The speaker means what s/he say and the hearer
believes in what the speaker says.
4. Essential condition: In the act of breaking bad news, the speaker has to or is
responsible to inform the news to the hearer. The speaker believes that the hearer
should be informed the news.
These four conditions are of vital importance when breaking bad news. The
act of breaking bad news is mainly to inform the news that is bad, unhappy to the
hearer. The hearer is considered not to have been informed the bad news yet. (In the
case that the speaker knows that the hearer has the information but still say out the bad
news, this is out of the question of this thesis because it is not the act of informing).
1.2. Face and Politeness
1.2.1 Face and face-want
In everyday social interaction, to be respected and recognized, people try to keep
their public self-image, which is called face.
In interaction, “the positive image or impression of oneself that one shows or
intends to show to the other participants is called face” (Richard, J et all 1985:102.
Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistic).
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Face want:
Within everyday social interaction, people generally behave as if their public
self-image, or their face wants, will be respected. By doing that way, people can
maintain their face. It’s their face-work
Hudson defined that face-work is “the way in which a person maintains his
face”, which is carried out by presenting a consistent image to other people, so that
one can gain or lose face by “improving or spoiling” this image. Hudson stated that
through what one says or how to say it, the speaker presents a personal image for
others to evaluate.
If a speaker says something that represents a threat to another individual’s
expectations regarding self-image, it is described as a face-threatening act (FTA)
Alternatively, given a possibility that some actions might be as a threat to
another’s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat. This is
called a face saving act (FSA)
Besides, it should be noted that some certain speech acts flatter face such as
compliment, thanks or offer. This is called a face-flattering act (FFA).
Both an FTA or FFA might be the cause of the risk of losing face. To avoid
this risk, either an FSA should be used or greater attention should be paid to the
different use of routine and speech acts in different cultural communities.
Deriving from the theory of Goffman, Brown and Levinson (1987:61ff) we can
have two related aspects of face.
+ Negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, right to non-
distraction – i.e., to freedom of action and freedom of imposition.
+ Positive face: the positive consistent self-image or “personality” (crucially
including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by
interaction.
Face-work, therefore, proves to play an important part in making a
conversation work either negatively or positively. When the face is kept, the
relationship is maintained without much difficulty.
When we write business letters, conveying bad news can potentially cause the
loss of the reader’s face. Therefore, breaking bad news can be considered as an FTA.
It risk to threaten news receiver’s face. Also, when we turn down a complaint, a credit
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or an order, we may disappoint receivers, break the reader’s face and cause serious
misunderstanding between business partners if the bad news is not written out in a
way they save the reader’s face. This may cause the risk of breaking the business
relationship. Thus, in order to avoid this risk, politeness strategies is effectively used
to maintain face, and thus, to maintain a business relationship between the reader and
the writer.
1.2.2 Politeness
In order to maintain each other’s face, the interlocutors have to take into
account the consideration of politeness.
Politeness is defined in Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary as
“things you say or do simply because it is social correct to do or say them, rather
than because you mean them sincerely”. What should be discussed, then, is in what
standard people can judge something they (or others) do or say means politeness, or
rather, in what view something is socially correct. This issue should be considered
under each other culture for judging things.
In accordance with two kinds of faces in Brown and Levinson’s view: negative
and positive faces, politeness is divided into two types: negative and positive
politeness. Positive politeness, according to Brown and Levinson, is concerned with
the actions people take to maintain their face and that of the other people they are
interacting with. Positive face has to do with presenting a good image of oneself and
securing the approval of others. Positive politeness consists of acts, which are
designed to preserve or restore the Hearer’s positive face, by stressing the Speaker’s
sympathy with a social closeness to the Hearer. One linguistic way of doing this
would be to link the Speaker and Hearer together by using the pronoun forms: we/us
and our
Negative politeness is the effort not to be coercive against imposition on
others, in other words, not to poke one’s nose into other’s privacy. Negative
politeness consists of acts which are designed to preserve or restore the Hearer’s
negative face, by expressing the speaker’s reluctance to impose his or her wants on
the Hearer. One way of doing this would be to say something like: “I don’t like to
bother you but ” The tendency to use negative politeness forms, emphasizing
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[...]... a definition of You – attitude by looking into its components: You-attitude is a style of writing which looks at things from the readers’ point of view, emphasizing what the reader wants to know, respecting the readers’ intelligence, and protecting the readers’ ego In general, You – attitude is the way of writing that makes the readers feel that the most important in the business relationship is You-the... reasons that come before it, the audience is psychologically prepared to receive it There are some ways to de-emphasize the bad news: putting the refusal in the same paragraph as the reason, stating it implicitly, using as few words as possible for the bad news, subordinating the bad news in a complex or compound sentence, burying the bad news in the middle of a paragraph, and giving alternatives whenever... for writing bad-news letters 3.2.1.Techniques for first paragraph Begin with a buffer - something about which both sides can agree A buffer is used to avoid stating the bad-news message directly as it may shock the readers Avoid tipping off the bad news too early If we tip off the bad news too early, readers will be shocked and it is impossible to create goodwill in the letter Avoid starting too... their way of writing letters conveying bad news can help to avoid negative feeling of the reader and also create goodwill in business correspondence, especially in business letters of conveying bad news It helps to maintain faces of readers and makes the bad-news letters more relaxing and more understandable 2.2.3 Goodwill in business correspondence Goodwill plays an important role in writing effective... news too directly The reason may be that they do not want to lose the business affairs with their clients and they seem very careful when stating the badnews messages This helps the writer to come to a conclusion that direct approach is not a good choice for writing bad-news letters 2.2.2 Organization of a letter of conveying bad news As presented in 2.1 (see table 1 for clarity), if bad news is stated... a complaint, turning down a credit and rejecting an order The data from table 3 show that native writers of English business correspondence tend not to use you-attitude in conveying bad news in business correspondence They use the attitude that lacks you-attitude, which accounts for 72% for refusing a complaint, 70% of turning down a credit and 87% of rejecting an order This is clearly proved that in... complaint 22 (88%) 3(12%) 25 (100%) Turning down a credit 17 (85%) 3(15%) 20(100%) Rejecting an order 10(67%) 5 (33%) 15(100%) Table 4: The use of positive tone and negative tone in conveying bad news in business correspondence My findings in this study are also compliant with the above linguists The percentage in table 4 strongly gives the evidence that positive tone is more likely to be used Native writers... Refusing a complaint 17 (68%) 8 (32%) 25 (100%) Turning down a credit 15 (75%) 5 (25%) 20(100%) Rejecting an order 11 (73%) 4 (27%) 15(100%) Total Table 5: Focusing on what the reader can do instead of what the reader cannot do However, table 5 also shows that not very small number of letters used in this writing focuses on what readers cannot do rather than what the reader can do For example: As our plant... data for this study try to give an alternative when possible as the sub-solution for the bad-news messages The 29 alternative given the most often in letters of rejecting an order, which accounts for 73% Perhaps, with these kinds of rejecting an order, writers would try their best to sell the alternative merchandise or to strengthen the business relationship with their clients The examples extracted... indirect approach in writing bad-news business letters They organize the letters in 4 steps: First, they begin bad-news letter with a buffer Then, they give reasons caused the bad situation Next, they break the bad news and give an alternative if possible Finally, they end with a positive close to make the letter sound more helpful and friendly Belows are techniques for writing the four stages of a . communicating are
called “speech acts”. In English, they are commonly given such specific labels as
apologizing, complaining, requesting, inviting, informing,. news: putting the refusal in the same paragraph as the
reason, stating it implicitly, using as few words as possible for the bad news,
subordinating the
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