A Study on

Politeness

Strategies in

English

Business

Letters

Abstract Courtesy or politeness is an indispensable

principle in English business letter writing, but it

is very complicated for it is often influenced by

various factors and is quite often implied or

hidden between the lines, so it is not easy for

business letter writing learners and teachers to

master and handle this principle. In order to

solve this problem and find the basic rules of

politeness phenomenon in English business

letters, the author conducts this study .The

present study aims to explore what politeness

strategies are applied in English business letters,

in what way they are applied and for what

reasons they are applied in this way, so as to find

the hidden rules of being polite in business

letters, and thus improve teaching and learning

efficiency of English business letter writing. With

Brown and Levinson’s face-saving view as the

major theoretical basis, the thesis examines and

analyzes four types of English business letters

respectively from the discourse level, the

sentence level and the word and expression level.

In the analysis of each type of English business

letters, whether the information in the letters

threatens or hurts the reader’s face want is

applied as the major criterion of what politeness

strategies should be used and why they are used

in the letters. This thesis draws the conclusion

that politeness strategies in English business

letters have certain rules to follow. To be specific,

good-news letters tend to apply positive

politeness strategies and emphasize directness

and brevity; bad-news letters tend to apply

negative politeness strategies and emphasize

indirectness and being roundabout; complaining

letters tend to apply both positive and negative

politeness strategies since the reader has done

something wrong; persuasive letters tend to use

negative politeness strategies with the emphasis

on indirectness and being roundabout. This study

is expected to help business people, English

business majors and English business writing

teachers to handle politeness in business letters

in a more effective way. It is also hoped that the

study can help improve the teaching efficiency in

English business letter teaching.