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Exploring Politeness in Business Emails explores the contextual complexities of workplace emails by comparing British English and Peninsular Spanish directive speech events and systematically assessing the impact of contextual factors. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis, and the inclusion of metapragmatic insights in the interpretation of the results, the book offers an innovative approach to the study of politeness. The book partially contradicts previous assumptions about English and Spanish directives and provides new insights into the role of politeness in the workplace. By offering a meticulous account of the linguistic choices made by the English and Spanish first language users and the contextual factors influencing these choices, the book suggests far-reaching implications for future research in cross-cultural pragmatics and business discourse, as well as practical implications relevant for academics, postgraduate students and practitioners interested in these fields.
This book is a timely and welcome contribution to the field. It rests on solid interdisciplinary theoretical grounds and employs an innovative, carefully designed methodological framework to examine two comparable data sets of naturally-occurring, socially-situated emails in British English and Peninsular Spanish. Its ethnographically-informed interpretation of the texts sheds fresh light on our understanding of language variation vis-à-vis a number of relevant social factors.
Vera Freytag is a Consumer Interaction Specialist for Beiersdorf AG in Germany. Her research interests include CMC, business discourse, sociolinguistics and politeness.
Chapter 1. Directive Speech Events in Business Emails
Chapter 2. A Mixed-Method Approach to the Analysis of Speech Events
Chapter 3. A Cross-Cultural Analysis of English and Spanish Email Directives
Chapter 4. The Contextual Complexity of Email Directives
Chapter 5. The Study of Politeness in Business Emails: Concluding Observations