Minding Your Maxims

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© 1997 R.V.White.This paper is copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.rdg.ac.uk/AcaDepts/cl/SLALS/maxims.html

Minding Your Maxims

Ron White

Abstract

Business correspondence can be analyzed in terms of Grice’s maxims and Brown andLevinson politeness principles, giving both teachers and writers a way of understandingsuccessful and unsuccessful communication in mono- and cross- cultural settings. WithGrice’s maxims in mind, a small corpus of letters of adjustment, written by students and

by business people, was used for a survey among white collar workers to discover howthey responded to variations in length, content and organization. The letters and their

responses to them are discussed in terms of the ways in which writer and reader behaviourcan be explained by systematic violation of or conformity to Grice ’s maxims. Results ofthe survey reveal variations in readers’ responses, showing that there are individualdifferences in the way the maxims are interpreted. Even so, the readers’ responsessuggest that in suchcorrespondence they expect clarity, brevity and sincerity, and that letters which do notmeet these expectations will be unfavourably received. The discussion also considers

problems arising from task specification and the use of models in the teaching of businesscorrespondence.

1. Introduction

The survey reported here had its origins in the kind of problem common to many teachersof business writing: a student has produced a text which, while

grammatically acceptable, fails somehow to fulfil the requirements of the writing task. Myencounter with just such a problem gave rise to four questions, the first of which concernsthe applicability of pragmatic principles -- notably Grice’s Co-operative principle (Grice,1975) and its associated maxims -- in cross-cultural settings. The second raises the

question of how authentic readers -- rather than teachers andstudents -- respond to samples of business correspondence. Thirdly, there is thequestion of task specification in the writing classroom. Finally, there is the matter of usingmodels in the teaching of writing. Each of these issues will be dealt with during thecourse of this paper.

Let us begin with the cross-cultural issue. Wierzbicka (1985, 1991), Goddard andWierzbicka (1997) and Meier (1997) challenge the claims that are made for theuniversality of Grice’s Co-operative Principle (CP) and Brown and Levinson’s theory of

politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987), making a case for the cultural relativity of, forinstance, definitions of sincerity and relevance in a given communication, or the ranking

of imposition when making a request. While taking note of the need to relativize Grice’smaxims and Brown and Levinson’s politeness principles, I believe that their analyticalframeworks have practical application, as has been demonstrated, for instance, by Maier(1992) in her study of politeness strategies in business letters. As I now hope todemonstrate, Grice’s maxims can provide a simple but powerful

tool for understanding and explaining successful as well as problematic communication.

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To this end, I will take a small corpus of business letters (see Appendix I), two of whichwere written by students for assessment purposes, while the other three are authentic inthat they were written by business people as part of their regular work. All letters have

been used in a survey conducted among people whose jobs involve writing andresponding to business correspondence of this type.

2. Theoretical Background

In an attempt to account for the way participants read into an utterance meanings andintentions other than those obvious from the surface forms themselves, Grice proposed theCP and a set of maxims which define the default assumptions underlying interpretationsof a speaker’s or writer’s intentions. Stated as a set of imperatives, these maxims are

presented in modified form below.

1. Quality Speak/write the truth, be sincere

2. Quantity Say/write neither more nor less than is necessary for the purpose at hand

3. Relation Be relevant

4. Manner Be clear, avoid obscurity

As Grabe and Kaplan (1996:41) point out, writing is ‘structured to communicateinformation within certain accepted .....principles’, including Gricean maxims and‘the systematically interpretable violations of these maxims’. Whereas skilled writersflout, violate or ignore these on purpose, less skilled writers do so by accident. In

both cases, implicatures are set up whereby writer intentions (or illocutionary acts) areinterpreted by reader (the perlocutionary effects). It is possible for each party tocommunicate and derive quite different meanings as a result of reading into each others’ contributions intentions which are at cross purposes. Indeed, for unskilled writers, there isa distinct possibility that their intentions will be subverted by their inept or unintentionalflouting or violating of the maxims and, as we shall see, this point is demonstrated in theresponses by the subjects who took part in the survey to

be reported here.

Grice’s maxims have much in common with the so-called C-B-S style of professionalcommunication (Scollon & Scollon, 1995:94). Both define communicative efficiency interms of clarity, brevity and sincerity, all being valued attributes of businesswriting, brevity in particular ‘ being a much-prized virtue’ (Eustace, 1996:53) The C- B-Sstyle is located within what Scollon and Scollon call the Utilitarian Discourse System(UDS), which has evolved over the past three centuries, establishing the norms prevalentwithin professional and corporate communication, including business correspondence.

The conduct of daily interaction entirely in conformity with the CP, while being efficient,would be brusque and socially disruptive. Consequently, a set of politeness principles(Brown and Levinson, op. cit.) can be invoked so as to mitigate the effects of adhering tothese maxims. Central to Brown and Levinson’s theory is the concept of face (cf.Goffman, 1955) which may be defined as the public self-image that every one wants toclaim for him or her self. Brown and Levinson somewhat confusingly distinguish between



what they call negative and positive face, summed up as follows:

Positive face

the want to be desirable, accepted

concern with being thought of as a normal, contributing member of one's social world the desire for common ground

Negative face

the want to be unimpeded by others

maintaining right of independence, freedom of action within one's own territory the right not to be imposed upon

Scollon and Scollon (1983:166) prefer to use the terms solidarity and deference whenreferring to positive and negative politeness respectively, and it these terms which will be

used in this discussion.

Brown and Levinson (op.cit.:74f.) relate solidarity and deference politeness strategies tothree factors:

Power (P) Distance (D) Ranking of Imposition (R )

They define power as ‘an asymmetric social dimension of relative power ’ (op.cit.:77), being the degree to which one party can impose their own plans and self-evaluation (or face) at the expense of the other party’s plans and self-evaluation. In thekinds of commercial transaction of which the letters in this survey are a part, the powerrelationship between writer and reader is an asymmetrical one because the writer is havingto redress an imposition suffered by the reader by virtue of failure to fulfil a service.

Distance is a social dimension of similarity/difference. In many cases (but not all) it is based on an assessment of the frequency of interaction and the kinds of material ornon-material goods exchanged between the parties concerned. (Goods include non-material goods like information, as well as the expression of regard and other face

payments.) In other words, the more frequently two parties interact with each other, the

closer their relationship is likely to be. As Maier (op.cit.: 191) notes,

English discourse style...is grounded in positive (‘solidarity’) politeness, which assumes alow degree of distance between speakers and is characterized by expressions ofcommonality and sameness.

Thus, the impression of symmetry in the social relationship between reader and writer iscreated, even if, as both parties will acknowledge, there is no actual basis for suchsolidarity. Its most obvious manifestation is in sales letters -- or junk mail -- whichassume a stance of social closeness in relation to the readership, or in the veiledexpression of authority in some official correspondence.

Finally, ranking of imposition, ‘is a culturally and situationally defined ranking ofimpositions by the degree to which they are considered to interfere with an agent’s wantsof self-determination or of approval...’ (Brown and Levinson, op.cit: 77). Impositions can

be ranked on a scale in proportion to the expenditure of (a) services (including the provision of time) and (b) of goods (including non-material goods). The ranking of



impositions will vary according to

whether the parties concerned have specific rights or obligations to perform the act whether they have specific reasons for not performing them whether the people concerned are known to enjoy being imposed upon in

some way.

As far as the letters in the present study are concerned, the providers of goods and serviceshave obligations to provide a certain level of service, such as reliable delivery within adeadline. The customer has certain rights and expectations with regard to the meeting ofdeadlines and quality criteria and the helpfulness of staff. What will become clear in theanalysis of these letters is that the ranking of imposition, and of rights and obligations,varies from individual to individual, and from one context to another, although somegeneral trends are observable.

3. The Letters of Adjustment: Sources & Purposes

As noted earlier, two of the texts in this study were written by students: in one case, thewriter is a Polish undergraduate who aspires to join the UDS, while in the other he is aHong Kong business man, who is already a practising participant in the UDS.Both writers are non-native speakers of English, and both are concerned withdeveloping effective written communication skills within the public discourse of the

business world. Since both are communicating in a non native language across cultural boundaries, inter-cultural differences between themselves and their readership will be

relevant in terms of defining the what is acceptable within the constraints of the writingtasks they have been set.

The remaining letters were written by native English speaking writers for fellow nativeEnglish speaking readers. Since both readers and writers of letters C to E are participantsin real events -- the provision and purchase of goods and services -- they have a

background of shared knowledge and assumptions to draw on which are more extensivethan the make-believe context in which the two student writers are operating. Such sharedknowledge -- which is typically part of the cultural background of participants in anycommunication -- will in turn influence the ways in which the default assumptions ofGrice’s CP are locally interpreted.

In the relationships involved in all of these letters, there is an asymmetrical distribution of power between customer and supplier. Indeed, power difference is inherent in thisrelationship. If a supplier has failed to fulfil part of an undertaking, such as the supply ofgoods or services, the customer is then in the more powerful position, as it is the supplierwho owes the customer an apology as a way of redressing or adjusting the imbalance ofobligations. A conventional form of offering redress is the letter of adjustment, of whichall these letters are examples.

Although three of the five letters are authentic, having been written by real managers to areal customers, two are non authentic, having been written for display, albeit while havingto satisfy certain contextual constraints specified in the prompt provided. For letters A orB the prompt was in the form of a rubric to establish the background and specify the task,which was to write a reply to a customer ’s complaint. No word length was specified,although, given the display requirement involved in the task, there tends to be anunspoken assumption, shared by students and teacher alike, thatit is better to write as much as possible in order to demonstrate linguistic skill. This is an



assumption which may, as we shall see, be counterproductive in the type of authenticdiscourse that these tasks were designed to simulate.

For task A, the Polish student writer had to imagine both context and content, while fortask B, the Hong Kong writer was dealing with an incident which had occurred in a

branch of a well known chain of clothes shops, so that a lot of non specialist, localknowledge was assumed and could be invoked. Both letters are also the Response movein the two part exchange, and while composing a letter of complaint is a fairly hackneyedELT writing task, replying to a complaint is less common, although handbooks ofcommercial correspondence (e.g. Ashley, 1984) usually cover this particular genre.

As is clear from a cursory reading, Letter A (see Appendix I) is a response to a customerwho, having ordered goods which have not been supplied by an agreed deadline, has beenattempting unsuccessfully to get in touch with the supplier. It is clear that the letter is veryclosely modelled on one in Ashley (1984) (see Appendix II).

Letter B (Appendix I) is a reply to a complaint by a customer who was pick-pocketedat a shop belonging to the chain of which the writer is ‘Customer Relations Manager ’.The victim had found the shop staff unhelpful, while the 24-hour ‘hot- line’ had not beenanswered. In both cases, then, the organisation concerned had failed to fulfil an obligation-- the provision of goods in one, and a secure shopping environment in the other. Thefailure to fulfil the obligation had, therefore, imposed on the other party, and the letters area way of redressing this imposition. For the purposes of the task, the writers are cast in therole of representing their organization to the reader and of redressing in some way theimposition on the customer resulting from this failure.

Letter C (Appendix I) is the first of the authentic texts, all of which were written by

British writers for British customers. This letter was written in reply to a disgruntledcustomer, whose house had been damaged by workmen employed by the companyconcerned. The writer is having to apologize not for failure to supply, but for flawed

performance during the supply of goods and services.

Letter D (Appendix I) was an unsolicited letter of apology in which the writer pre- emptsa complaint by apologizing for an error in mailing a statement to an overseas client.Letter E (Appendix I) is a response to a complaint by a customer on a recently privatizedrail service in the UK.

The most obvious difference among the letters is length:

Letter A B C D E

Length 345 126 140 209 199

Table 1: L ength of L etters

It is assumed that length may influence the way readers respond to the letters.

4. Gricean Interpretations of Readers’ Responses

To find out how authentic readers would respond, I approached seven people in the UKwho deal with customers and suppliers as part of their routine work. Two of the readerswork as purchasing officers in a university, while the remaining five are business school

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administrative staff, answering inquiries from clients, and dealing with outside suppliersof services. A questionnaire to accompany the letters was completed by the sevensubjects, four women and three men. The results appear in Table 2, while thequestionnaire is Appendix III.

Several conclusions can be drawn from the results. By and large, most subjects felt thatLetter A failed to achieve the writer ’s purpose, a majority either not being pleased with or being annoyed by it. All but one felt that the writer had written too much. It should beacknowledged, however, that there was not a complete consensus, and that there wassome variation in reader response. (One reason for the variation might also be therespondents’ lack of imagination or empathy with the letter writer.) Two subjects felt thatthe writer had achieved her purpose, and one even felt that, from their viewpoint asreader, the writer had not written enough.

Letter Response A B C

Purpose Yes No Unsure 1

5

1

61

0

41

2

Reaction

Pleased Indifferent Not pleasedAnnoyed Other

01231

30212

41110

Quantity

Insufficient Sufficient Too much 1

0

6

3

4

0

6

0

0

Table 2: Resul ts of Survey: Letters A to C

The one subject who felt that the writer had achieved her purpose said that she was‘satisfied that a full explanation has been given’ and that she ‘will probably give them asecond chance.’ Another subject, who was unsure whether the writer had been successful,said that they were ‘ pleased, with reservations’ and that while they were‘happy to get explanation’, they ‘would expect some reassurance about the‘associates’ quality’ and that overall, they felt that what the writer had written was

‘overall about right.’

This was definitely not the view of the majority, however. Of the two British purchasingofficer subjects, one commented that the writer was an ‘unreliable supplier ’, while theother criticised the letter as being ‘gushing and over the top. Not very professional, couldhave stated facts without so much prose!’ This was a view shared by another subject, whofelt that ‘the letter was clumsily written and did not reach the point quickly enough. It alsoseemed to be making excuses rather than admitting fault and apologizing for the fault. ’Another subject was ‘not impressed with the language used and the ‘over-the-topexplanations’, while another observed that ‘it is too verbose and not to the point enough.Too many meaningless clauses or sentences’ and that ‘ a definite delivery date would have

been more what we were looking for ’. More bluntly, another subject said that ‘it is full ofwaffle and doesn't tell me what I want -- i.e. when my order will be fulfilled.’

These reactions tend to confirm the view that the writer of Letter A has violated themaxims of Quantity and Relation to ill effect as far as the majority of these readers areconcerned. It seems that the writer has insufficiently taken account of these readers’



expectations, which seem to be in line with the characteristics of the CBS style (clarity, brevity, sincerity). In other words, what they appear to expect is clarity, brevity andsincerity. They were also looking for a solution to the problem rather than an explanationwhich could be interpreted as an excuse.

Letter B is the briefest of all the letters. Readers were almost equal divided as to whetheror not the writer had written enough. One of those who judged that the writer had notwritten enough commented that he ‘would have liked to be re-assured that the deficienciesin their reporting system had been improved and not just investigated’ and that he ‘would have liked a fuller response’, while another commented that while‘the company make a good effort to re-imburse the customer...[they] say nothing aboutensuring it won't happen again.’ A similar comment was made by two others, who ‘wouldhave liked re-assurance that they are intending to do something about the problems’ orthat ‘the problems were to be corrected at the store.’ Among those who felt that the writerhad written enough were some who commented critically on the writer ’s style: ‘a bit"flowery"’, ‘it’s patronising and uses inappropriate words/phrases’. There were also such

comments as ‘not happy about the use of present tense -- "You are disappointed" -- andhow can the sender "look forward to" the customers’ "future pleasant shoppingexperience"?’ Another also commentedunfavourably on the language: ‘very badly written with shocking grammatical errors’.

By and large, in evaluating Letter B, subjects criticised the writer for having failed tosatisfy the Maxim of Relevance because, for many of them, taking corrective action wasat least as important as receiving compensation. Again, the writer has not consideredwhat is going to be important for the readership, and a failure to take this into accountreduces the effectiveness of the letter. It is also clear that among these subjects, there is afairly low tolerance of deviations from their expectation of grammatical and stylistic

correctness which unwittingly result in violating the Maxim of Manner. One subject feelsthat the writer has imposed on her freedom of action by assuming that she will have"future pleasant shopping experience".

Finally, there is Letter C. Here the subjects’ responses to the writer were largelyfavourable, but one of the purchasing officers felt that the writer had not been successful,and her reaction was one of annoyance. She commented that she wanted‘action now not some time later. I want restitution but there is no mention of this. Thewriter is not reassuring me about the company’s good intentions towards me.’ Bycontrast, another subject felt that the writer had been successful, and that ‘the letter is

brief, of sufficiently apologetic tone and to the point. It gives the customer all the

information they need about how reparations will be made’. Another subject said that he‘would have wanted a guarantee that the work would be completed but would be fairlyreassured by the letter ’. What is more significant is the level of satisfaction of the actualrecipient: he felt that the writer had been successful, having written sufficient for his own

purposes as reader/customer.

What of letters D and E? The results of the survey are given in Table 3.

Letter Response D E

Purpose

Yes No Unsure 6

10

3

31



Reaction

Pleased Indifferent Not pleasedAnnoyed Other

42001

12320

Quantity Insufficient Sufficient Too much 0

63

043

Table 3: Resul ts for L etters D and E

For letter D, the subjects identified the writer ’s purpose as apologizing to a client for alapse in service and providing explanation and reassurance. The majority felt that he hadachieved his purpose, and over half were pleased with the letter. Likewise, over halfthought the writer had written sufficient. The authentic recipient -- also British, but livingabroad -- was less tolerant, however, stating that in his view the aim of the writer was ‘tomaintain a front of "client-centred efficiency" in a situation where there has been anobvious botch-up arising from their not taking individual client’s circumstances (livingabroad) into account.’ One purchasing officer subject was similarly critical, saying that itseemed to her that ‘they haven’t got a clue what hasand has not been sent’ which ‘indicates a lack of control of mailing procedures. The writeralso contradicts himself’. A similar point was made by the authentic recipient, who feltthat ‘making all the statements about "service to clients" in trying to explain inefficiencyhas a contradictory, even hypocritical effect, particularly since every client knows thathe/she is in reality dealt with via computer rather than on a personal basis, and that that ishow mistakes like this arise.’ (By contrast, three subjects felt that the writer had been

efficient in dealing with the error. )

How, then, can these responses to Letter C be accounted for by Grice’s maxims? It seemsto me that, unlike letters A and B, the Maxim of Quality can now be invoked, since in theview of some of the readers, including, most crucially, the one to whom the letter wasactually sent, the writer violates the requirements of truthfulness and sincerity. Thisviolation was augmented by writing too much for the purposes of the authentic reader.Thus, by violating two of the maxims (Quality and Quantity), the writer ’s intentions arein danger of being subverted by the implicatures which are made available to the reader.

As with Letter D, so for Letter E there was a range of views on the success of the writer in

achieving her aims which most did not identify as apologizing, but acknowledging andassuring that some action would be taken. One subject identified the aim of the writer

being ‘to stop me being annoyed/badly disposed towards company, while trying to drawattention away from fact that nothing has been done.’



The same subject went on to say that ‘the letter says effectively nothing, and does noteven refer to my specific complaint -- it looks like a standard letter sent to everybodywho complains about anything.’ And that was exactly my response, as the authenticrecipient of the letter.

Again, the maxims can help account for the readers’ reaction. The writer doesn’trefer to the specific complaint which prompted the Initiate move in the sequence, thusviolating the Maxim of Relation (Relevance), which in turn casts doubt on herobservation of the Maxim of Quality. An apology, supported by explanations and the

promise of remedial action, appears to lack sincerity if the specific source of theinfringement is not mentioned. Thus, as in Letter D, it appears that two maxims areviolated, from which the reader derives implicatures casting doubt on the writer ’ssincerity, either in apologizing or taking remedial action. The result, then, is failure.

What this survey has shown is that even within a group of readers sharing a broadlysimilar cultural background, there are some noticeable differences in the way in which

one and the same letter is interpreted and responded to. Although Letter A was generallyconsidered to be too long, and the writer was felt to have failed to reassure the reader,this was not the view of all subjects. Likewise, although there was a division ofviewpoints on the comparative brevity of Letter B, it was mostly on the issue ofrelevance that the letter was judged to be deficient. Both letters A and B werestigmatised on matters of style and, in the case of B, of grammar, which suggests thatamong a ‘lay’, as opposed to teacher readership, there may be a comparatively lowtoleration of such features. It certainly cannot assist the writers’ cause if, throughunwittingly flouting or violating the Maxim of Manner, they lose the sympathy oftheir readership, especially in issues so crucial to the maintaining of good will andcontinuing custom. Conversely, a readership more familiar with corresponding with a

non-native English speaking range of writers may develop a higher level of toleration ofthe kinds of grammatical, lexical and stylistic variation exhibited in these two letters.

Letters D and E appear to most heavily criticised in terms of sincerity; violating themaxim of Quality results in the reader doubting both the truthfulness and the sincerity ofthe writer. This is a serious outcome in a response to a complaint, leading to a degree ofcynicism on the part of readers dealing with the organizations concerned.

In business terms, there has been a loss rather than a growth of goodwill.

5. Pedagogical Implications

Applying Grice’s maxims to these samples seems to me to provide a useful basis foranalyzing and understanding such letters of adjustment, while also providing a helpfulguide for writers. It is also clear that it is important to do field work among the writersand readership of such correspondence because, as we have seen, there is a range ofreaders’ responses even among people sharing a similar cultural background-- in this case, white collar southern British. In dealing with such writing in a cross-cultural situation, checking authentic reader and writer responses is especially important.While my own intuitions, influenced by Grice’s maxims, have been largely



supported by the results of this survey, I think it is equally clear that variations ininterpretation have to be taken into account, from which we see that differentimplicatures can be drawn from the observing, flouting, ignoring or violating of Grice’smaxims.

Finally, there is another issue to consider. Two of these letters were written forassessment purposes, which quite typically involves an assumption that more is better

because of the display requirement implicit in such tasks. As has been discovered, moreis not always better if it means needlessly violating the maxim of Quantity, thus settingup an implicature which may be entirely at odds with the writer ’s intentions. Teachersneed to be aware of such considerations when setting writing tasks because encouragingstudents to write as much as possible for display purposes may be encouraging

performance which is inappropriate within the conventions of the UDSin which, ultimately, they may wish to be participants.

Letter A also illustrates another problem which can arise when using models without

taking account of the context in which the communication is taking place. While thewriter of Letter A has cleverly drawn on the model from Ashley (Appendix II), she hasnot appreciated the legal basis of the contractual relationship between supplier andcustomer. In the model letter, the writer provides an account of the industrial dispute inorder to support his case, which he states in the subsequent paragraph, when he refers tothe standard contract clause ‘stating that delivery dates would be met unless unforeseencircumstances arose’ -- the industrial dispute being a case of such unforessencircumstances. By omitting this crucial reference to the legal conditionsof the contract in her adaptation of the model, the writer of Letter A appears simply to beoffering an excuse for non delivery, contributing to a predominantly negative evaluation

by the subjects in this survey.

One way of developing awareness is to use such questions as those given below as a wayof guiding analysis of models and tasks, and drafting of letters. These questions, whichform part of a more extensive set applicable to virtually any writing task, are based onGrabe and Kaplan’s extensive taxonomy of academic writing skills, knowledge bases,and processes (op. cit: 217f.) The idea behind such questions is to move away fromsurface features of the text to underlying motives and expectations. The maxims to whichthey relate are indicated where relevant.

1. What is the reader's main concern? Inconvenience, loss of business, financial loss,etc.? (Relation)2. Why did the reader communicate with us? Expectation of receiving apology,compensation, solution to problem, etc.? (Relation)

3. Is there a track record of relations with this reader? If so, what has been the natureof our relationship?

4. How important is this reader/customer/client to us?5. What does the reader expect us to do? (Relation)6. What are the constraints on meeting these expectations? Legal? Financial?Practical? (Quality)7. How much information about the topic does the reader probably expect from us?(Quantity, Relation)

8. How much information is it feasible/sensible to provide? For instance, if we givetoo much information, is this likely to be used against us in litigation? (Quantity)



9. How will the reader feel about receiving insufficient information? (Quantity, Quality,Relation)10. How will the reader feel about receiving too much information? (Quantity, Quality,Relation)11. What form of compensation might the reader expect? (Quality, Relation)

12. Is the form of compensation being offered sufficient to meet the reader ’sexpectations? (Quality, Relation)

Such questions can help writers to position themselves in relation to their reader, whilealso developing an awareness of cultural relativity, whether between corporate ornational cultures. The questions will also develop writers’ perceptions of the relationship

between themselves and their readers so that they honour or flout the maxims of quality,quantity, relation and manner and deploy politeness strategies in ways which arecompatible with the making of effective contributions. In short, writers will learn tomind their maxims in ways which should enable them to optimise the effects they wish --or need -- to have on their readership.

References

Ashley, A.1984. A Handbook of Business Correspondence. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Brown, P., & S.C.Levinson.1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eustace, G. 1996. 'Business writing -- some aspects of current practice.' English for Specific Purposes 15/1:53-56.

Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A. 1997. 'Discourse and culture'. In Discourse as Social Interaction, edited by T. A. Van Dijk. London: Sage.

Goffman, E. 1955. 'On face work: an analysis of ritual elements in social interaction'. In Face to Face Interaction, edited by J. Laver, & Hutcheson, S. Harmondsworth,

Middlesex: Penguin.

Grabe, W., & Kaplan, R. B.1996.Theory and Practice of Writing London & New

York: Longman.

Grice, H. 1975. 'Logic and conversation'. In Speech Acts, edited by P. Cole, & Morgan,J. New York: Academic Press.

Maier, P. 1992. 'Politeness Strategies in Business Letters by Native and Non-NativeEnglish Speakers.' English for Specific Purposes 11:189-205.

Meier, A. J. 1997. 'Teaching the universals of politeness. 'ELT Journal 51/1:21-28.



Scollon, R., & S.W. Scollon.1995. Intercultural Communication -- a Discourse

Approach. Edited by P. Trudgill. 22 vols. Vol. 21, Language in Society. Oxford:Blackwell.

Tribble, C.1996.Writing Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wierzbicka, A. 1985. 'Different cultures, different languages, different speechacts.' Journal of Pragmatics 9:145-178.

Acknowledgements

I should like to acknowledge contributions of texts and critique on drafts by colleaguesat the Department of English Philology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, the EnglishDepartment at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the Centre for Applied

Language Studies, at the University of Reading. The limitations remaining are myresponsibility.

APPENDIX 1

Letter A

[Sender ’s and receiver ’s addresses, date]

Dear Mr Smith,

Thank you for your letter of July 7th concerning the order No 179/XZ/93 which shouldhave been delivered to you on July 3rd.

First I would like to apologise for your order not being delivered on the due date. Let mealso apologise for the problems that you have experienced in getting in touch with usabout the delivery.

I am going to explain to you the reasons why ‘ALA’ Limited did not manage to fulfil theabove obligation. The point is that both our administrative staff and employees wereinvolved in a very important industrial dispute. As a consequence all production was heldup over past few weeks.

I am glad to inform you that the dispute is over and we are back to normal production.For obvious reasons there is still a backlog of orders to catch up on. In order not to letour customers down we are using the associates of ours to help us fulfil all ourcommitments.

I would like to assure you that ‘ALA’ Limited is vastly interested in continuing ourco-operation. That is why I want to assure you that your order has been given priority



and thus we should be able to deliver the pink buttons before the end of this week. Ican assure you there will not be other delays.

Once again I would like to say that I regret all the inconveniences this delay has causedand emphasize the fact that it was due to the factors independent of us. The dispute is an

exceptional circumstance and could not have been foreseen by us. We did not knowanything about it when we accepted your delivery dates.

Let me express the hope that our companies can still make it big in the clothing industry.Thus I think our co-operation is worth continuing.

Please call me or send me a fax letting me know if you wish to complete your order orwhether you would prefer to make other arrangement within the next few days.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely, [Signature] Name

Body text: 345 words

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Letter B

[Sender’s and receiver’s addresses, date]

Dear Miss X

We are sorry to learn that you wallet was stolen when you were shopping in ourCauseway branch.

You are disappointed that we failed to help to stop the ‘ pick-pocketing’ gang from

getting way from the branch. We understand and apologise about that.

We have investigated the incident and concluded that the volume of the music was above

our normal standard, the staff should have been more helpful, and the ‘hot line’telephone service should have been more reliable.

We would like to do something about your unpleasant shopping experience with us. Ifyou do not mind, I enclose a $1,000 shopping coupon with our company and lookforward to your future pleasant shopping experience with us.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Yours sincerely(Signature)

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Customer Relations ManagerGeorgiano Limited

Body text 126 words

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Letter C

[Sender’s and receiver’s names and addressesDate]

Dear Mr (Family Name)

Thank you for your letter dated 18th August 1997, regarding the problems that you haveexperienced whereby part of your house has been wrongly removed and disposed of byXXX.

I share your disbelief in what has happened and advise you that the matter is furthercompounded by the Customer Business Centre Manager, Mr Banham, being on holiday.

However, I can assure you that we will replace any item removed in error to your entiresatisfaction.

Mr Banham returns to work on Wednesday 27th August 1997, and I have asked him tocarry out a full assessment of what is required and then to arrange for all outstandingwork to be completed as soon as is possible.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the obvious inconvenience, and I trust that thismatter can now be resolved to our mutual satisfaction.

Yours sincerely [Signature] NameOperations Manager


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Letter D

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Sanderson Investors Unit Trust Statements

Please find enclosed your Sanderson Investors Unit Trust statements as at 25 June

1997. This sets out your holdings in Sanderson Investors Unit Trusts on that datetogether with details of any purchases or sales from 5 October 1996.

You may have recently received a statement dated 5 April 1997 which was mailed toyou, in error, by second class UK post. As you are based overseas, I am sending anupdated statement of your unit trust holdings, as the previous one would have been out ofdate.

The error occurred at our mailing house, and to my belief, is the first time this hashappened. Please accept my apologies for the mistake. I will ensure that it doesn't happenagain.

Service to our clients is of the utmost importance and we are constantly striving toimprove the service that we offer you. Unfortunately, from time to time, errors such asthis do occur. However, they are unacceptable and we endeavour to avoid them.

I hope that you find this updated information of use and I apologise for anyinconvenience caused by the delay in receipt of the previous statements, if you receivedthem at all.

Thank you for your patience in this matter. Yours sincerely

[Signature] NameDivisional Director, Product Management


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Letter E



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Thank you very much for getting in touch and for letting us know about your recentexperience of our services.

I am very sorry that our shortcomings on this occasion meant that you have had anunsatisfactory experience and hope that you will accept my sincere apologies for the

difficulties we caused you.

Each of your comments have been noted and we are determined to learn from them aswe strive for the service improvements which are required. Much has already been donesince we took over your route earlier this year; much remains to be done by ourselvesand our supplies as we bring about the changes that are needed.

As you may imagine we have a huge postbag just now - as like yourself manycustomers respond to our invitation to let us know about our service and the things thatneed improvement. Rather than delay this response for a more detailed answer to your

points, I will pass on your comments for practical action by the manager concerned.

Once again, thank you for taking the trouble to write. We look forward to welcomingyou back to XXXX Trains for a more satisfactory journey in the future.

Yours sincerely

Signature[Name]Customer Relations Consultant


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APPENDIX II



Thank you for your letter of 6 June concerning your order (No. VC58319) which shouldhave been supplied to you on 3 June.

First let me apologize for your order not being delivered on the due date and for the problems you have experienced in getting in touch with us about it. But as you may haveread in your newspapers we have experienced an industrial dispute which has involved

both administrative staff and employees on the shop floor, and as a consequence has heldup all production over the past few weeks.

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However, I can tell you that the dispute has been settled and we are back to normal production. Nevertheless there is a backlog of orders to catch up on, but we are usingassociates of ours to help us fulfil all outstanding commitments; your order has beengiven priority, so we should be able to deliver the dynamos before the end of this week.

May I point out, with respect, that your contract with us did have a standard clausestating that delivery dates would be met unless unforeseen circumstances arose, and wethink you will agree that a dispute is an exceptional circumstance. However, we quiteunderstand your problem and will allow you to cancel your contract if it will help you tomeet your own commitments with your Scandinavian customers. But we will not acceptany responsibility for any action they may take against you.

Once again, let me say how much I regret the inconvenience this delay has caused, andemphasize that it was due to factors we could not have known about when we acceptedyour delivery dates.

Please phone or cable me letting me know if you wish us to complete your order orwhether you would prefer to make other arrangements.

I look forward to hearing from you within the next day or so. Yours sincerely[Signature] [Name]

Managing Director

APPENDIX III The questionnaire

Respondents were asked to answer the following questions for each of the 5 texts (asshown in Appendix 1):

What do you think is the aim of the writer?

Do you think the writer is successful in achieving her/his purpose?

o Yes o Noo Unsure

What is your reaction to the letter? Are you



o Pleasedo Indifferento Not pleased o Annoyedo Other (say what)

Briefly explain your reaction to the letter.

For the purposes of yourself as reader, do you think the writer has written o insufficient

o sufficient o too much

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