Introduction
With the development of commodity economy in China and market’s further opening up to the world, business English correspondence has become one of the commonly used forms in daily diplomacy. It has many kinds of functions, such as establishing the business relations between both sides, communicating commercial information and expanding business.
In the 1920’s from the study of rhetoric and type of writing, Leech, the distinguished British linguist put forward the famous “courteous principle” on the basis of Grice’s “cooperative principle”, whose key contents are: Try hard to make oneself suffer a loss and others a profit, in order to give good impression on the other side. In that case, communication will go smooth, and one will obtain large profit from it. Business people have much work to do, so they are only concerned about the letters, not the flowery language.
This thesis, within the framework of politeness principle, aims at dealing with the characteristics of business letters, such as correctness, completeness, concreteness, clarity, conciseness and courtesy. The politeness principle is studied in detail. This thesis is arranged in four main parts: basic characteristics of business letter, selection of courteous words and sentence patterns, and some problems under politeness principle.
I Characteristics of Commercial English Correspondence
Commercial English correspondence is also called business letter or business writing. It can help people to negotiate the business and consult the question in the activity of international economy and trade. Economic activities and commercial trade are its estimated purpose. And it confirms and places the matters that both sides consult on record in the form of written characters. Regarding its style of writing and language system, we can find that it not only has obvious differences with Chinese business letters, but also differs from general English letters. Rapid development of market economy and keen competition of international trade must demand new changes to English business writing style and language of letters too.
As is known to all, time and efficiency are keys to business success. So when writing commercial correspondence, people need not spend a lot of time on looking for the beautiful words and phrases or wonderful and complicated modifiers. We also not need those polite formulae of expressing the personal emotion to greet the receiver. What it needs is simple words and expressions of daily use, concise and accurate vocabulary, jargon of economic trade and specialized term.
Generally speaking, business letter has six characteristics: correctness, completeness, concreteness, clarity, conciseness and courtesy.
1.1 Correctness
The commercial correspondence involves both parties rights, obligation and stake directly, it is foundations of different commercial documents. So the correctness of the language is the most basic requirement of the business letter. We should not merely pay attention to using correct words grammar, but also notice to use specialized terms and figures accurately, avoid causing ambiguous, different understanding between both sides.
1.2 Completeness
The content of business letter should strive to be complete, because this kind of letter has already been conclusion contract in fact. After this letter is sent out, it is binding to both sides. So one commercial letter should summarize every essential item, for instance the invitation letter should explain time, place, and really avoid sending an ambiguous letter.
1.3 Concreteness
As to the content of business letter, it usually talks about a concrete item, and related details must be clearly narrated. Everything that you want to emphasize on should be put into a new paragraph at all. If there is more than one piece of item that needs to explain, it should segment to list and narrate one by one. And the paragraphs should be arranged well in logic order to make them concrete and distinct. Otherwise using the equivocal or abstract words and phrases will cause the other side’s unnecessary enquiry, affect the opportunity adversely and cause damages.
1.4 Clarity
