中国跨国公司内部英文电子邮件中请求言语行为的语用研究-a pragmatic study of request speech acts in english e - mail of chinese transnational corporations.docx

Master Master’s Dissertation of Henan University of Science and Technology IV IV Chinese staff have the same preference as native speakers to choose imperatives when making request in emails. The proportion of declaratives or the proportion of imperatives is comparatively lower but Chinese staff do not avoid these two forms in making request. The statistics shows that it is the conventionally indirect strategies that have high proportion in 182 English email texts, and then the direct and non-conventionally strategies. It means that staff intend to email request in a polite way. There are two points that differ from any other researches which using oral or writing discourse. One is that the percentage of performatives is 0 in 80 English direct request email texts. Staff prefer to use hedged performatives rather than employ performatives barely. The other is that Chinese staff usually use strong hints rather than mild hints to realize their request illocutionary force. According to this thesis, the social variables like power, social distance and the degree of imposition do have influence on request speech act in English email texts. There are some internal modifications in 140 English request emails like interrogative, interrogative + please and so on. Meanwhile, the statistics shows that Chinese staff do prefer to employ the supportive moves before the Head Act, i.e. the pre-modifications. The tendency of choosing pre-modification or post-modification is different from English native speakers. Key words: Request; Strategies; Politeness; English email texts Dissertation Type: Applied Basic Research List List of Tables and Figures 49 49 List of Tables and Figures Table 4-1 Frequency of language forms of request…………………………………..P24 Table 4-2 Frequency of perspective of request……………………………………….P25 Table 4-3 Frequency of main strategies of request…………………………………...P26 Table 4-4 Frequency of Sub-strategies of request: direct……………………………..P26 Table 4-5 Frequency of Sub-strateg