Written Communication Jul 1989

Linguistic Politeness in Professional Prose

JOHN HAGGE ; CHARLES KOSTELNICK

Abstract

Consonant with a trend toward investigating professional writing in naturalistic settings, this discourse-analytical study of a corpus of “suggestion letters” written in a Big Eight accounting firm demonstrates how auditors use negative politeness strategies to meet the complex demands of potentially threatening interactional situations. The study substantiates Brown and Levinson's claim that politeness is a linguistic universal by showing that the same politeness strategies found in speech also occur in written communication. Analysis of negative message strategies in ten leading textbooks shows that business communication pedagogy needs to modify strictures on the use of passives, nominalizations, expletive constructions, and hedging particles in light of research on the exigencies of real-world linguistic interaction.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1989-07-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088389006003004
Open Access
Closed
Topics
professional writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (15)

  1. Westerman et al. (2015)
    Opening a Performance Dialogue With Employees
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Friess (2013)
    “Bring the Newbie Into the Fold”: Politeness Strategies of Newcomers and Existi…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Friess (2011)
    Politeness, Time Constraints, and Collaboration in Decision-Making Meetings: A …
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Mackiewicz (2007)
    Compliments and Criticisms in Book Reviews About Business Communication
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. Rogers et al. (2003)
    Reconceptualizing Politeness to Accommodate Dynamic Tensions in Subordinate-to-…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Show all 15 →
  1. Locker (1999)
    Factors in Reader Responses to Negative Letters
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. GRAHAM (1998)
    Administrative Writing
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  3. KALMAN (1996)
    Joint Composition
    Written Communication
  4. GRAHAM et al. (1996)
    Power and Politeness
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. HAGGE (1994)
    The Value of Formal Conventions in Disciplinary Writing
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  6. SMELTZER et al. (1994)
    Managers as Writers
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  7. MOORE (1992)
    When Politeness is Fatal
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  8. CHARNEY et al. (1992)
    How Writing Quality Influences Readers' Judgments of Résumés in Business and En…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  9. MYERS (1990)
    The Rhetoric of Irony in Academic Writing
    Written Communication
  10. Hagge (1990)
    The First Technical Writer in English: A Challenge to the Hegemony of Chaucer
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 12 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.1177/002194368402100202
     ↗
  2. 10.1177/002194367901600305
     ↗
  3. 10.1016/0378-2166(88)90020-3
     ↗
  4. 10.2307/2184179
     ↗
  5. 10.1177/002194368902600104
     ↗
  6. 10.2307/2490016
     ↗
  7. 10.2307/2490285
     ↗
  8. Hübler, A.
    Understatements and hedges in English
     ↗
  9. 10.1177/105065198700100106
     ↗
  10. 10.1177/108056997904200102
     ↗
  11. 10.1177/002194367701400402
     ↗
  12. Winter, E.
    Towards a contextual grammar of English
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 42 View in citation network →

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