Business Correpsondence

Kielikanava (Kielikanava@icenet.fi)
Mon, 16 Jun 1997 14:27:54 +0300

Dear Colleagues,

A big thank you to all who wrote in about business correspondence.
A. Renouf wrote to say that there is a corpus of business text held at
Univ. of PUC in Sao Paolo. Most replies were to say that there was interest
but little knowldge of this kind of thing.
Aside from the info already on this board, I have put together the changes
I have found (mostly not corpus based I'm afraid). They come from my own
research, an article by Louhiala-Salminen (ESP 15/1) and a booklet for
Price Waterhouse employees. I hope you find them useful. Would anyone like
to add to the list ?

Mike Nelson

Business Correspondence: Changes

Louhiala-Salminen, L 1996 The Business Communication Calssroom vs reality:
What Should We Teach Today ?
English For Specific Purposes 15/1 1996 Pergamon

§ A large scale survey of business to business communication carried out
in Finland in 1992-1993
§ Main questions were asked:

1. What communications media do you use ?
2. What are the messages ?
3. How do you see the language -
what changes have you noticed ?

FIGURE 1: TYPES OF MEDIA USED
Medium Total sample %

Mail 27
Paper telefax 48
Electronic telefax 6
Telex 4
In-house mail 4
Courier companies 2
email 9
Other 1

100 %

FIGURE TWO: CHANGES IN CORRESPONDENCE

Category Total Sample %

1. Less attention to formalities 38

2. More everyday language 28
- trend towards spoken language

3. Language more fluent 9

4. More American English 4

5. More Euro-English 3

6. Straight to the point, efficiency 14

7. Poorer language 7

8. Other 9
100
____________________________________________________

LANGUAGE EXAMPLES:

1. Block instead of indented style:

Mr John Smith
34 Bakewell Rd
Manchester M23 4PJ
England

2. Open punctuation:

Dear Sir

Yours faithfully

- th and rd no longer used
e.g. 3rd or 4th April =
3 April or 4 April

3. The use of Ms instead of Mrs or Miss

4. Sexism in language:
- do not use he/him, or she/her
- instead use they, their

Ask your partner is she/he likes fish
Ask your partner if they like fish

- Chairman ---> Chairperson

- Dear Sirs ---> Dear Sir or Madam
5. Increased informality:

- Yours sincerely ---> Best regards
- Yours faithfully ---> Best wishes

6. Saving time and energy:

- keep letters to one side A4
advice given by US DTI for people writing to the USA

7. Getting straight to business:

- use titles and headings

- Further to ---> (don't use it)
As you asked in your letter of 14
March .....

8. Not saying the obvious:

- Do not hesitate to .... ---> (Do not use this phrase)
They won't hesitate if it is important

Do not use:
- As soon as possible --->
- in due course --->

Use rather:
It would be helpful if you could .... by 15 July.

9. Splitting the infinitive:

- now allowed , but still not recommended

All additions to this list gratefull accepted.

Mike Nelson