Politeness in Business Letters
Politeness in Business Letters

Summary/Abstract: Business letters are mostly persuasive, that is the writer wants to convey a certain message to the recipient and thereby make him take a certain course of action. To supply an example, an offer is written in the hope of convincing the offeree to place the order with the offeror. One of the persuasion strategies used by writers of business correspondence is politeness. Authors of correspondence books have referred to the rule of the 3C's, implying that a business letter should be clear, concise and courteous (Eckersley and Kaufmann 1970: 14-27). This article deals with the significance of politeness as it comes out from works on pragmatics and illustrates different aspects, especially the language choices for expressing polite requests, making polite complaints, as well as writing courteous adjustments.

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