From Business Correspondence To Message Exchange

The focus of this volume is on the business letter genre, a seminal and widely used genre in business communication. Since the introduction of the Internet, interest in this genre has increased once again, because of the digital format of the letter. E-mail has partially taken over the multiple functions of the traditional business letter and bypassed, again partially, the fax. However, the letter has also survived in its written form. Since the 1990s, genre theory has been receiving a lot of attention, both in academic and pedagogical circles. Discourse analysts have increasingly discovered the importance of the genre concept for the understanding of discourse. Not only do we get a better understanding of the linguistic characteristics (register, lexico-grammatical features) of texts, but we also become aware of their macrostructures which appear to be organised according to genre expectations and conventions rooted in the socio-cultural context. This evolution is also reflected in the different research approaches to the business letter, as shown by the various chapters of this volume.

The status of LSP (Languages for Specialised Purposes) in the contemporary socio-cultural context is an ongoing central issue of scholarly debate. Specialised Languages in the Global Village examines the impact of globalisation on intercultural communication within specialised communities of practice. The contributions to the volume provide linguistically and pedagogically-informed discussion on modes of communication practice in professional and institutional domains, frames of social action and the construction of professional identities. The contributors also address issues of languages and social entrepreneurship, and the acquisition and development of linguistic/cultural competence in foreign languages for specialised purposes. The edition is a valuable resource for researchers in LSP, specialists in the fields of discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and scholars in the area of rhetoric and composition. It will also be of interest to professional translators, language editors and language advisors in the fields of specialised academic/professional communication. LSP instructors and foreign language teachers will also find informed guidelines and useful pedagogical proposals for classroom implementation.

This volume originates from the editors' interest in one of the most relevant fields of research these days: Intercultural and International Business Communication. The needs of the business world to communicate effectively at an international level in order to overcome language differences have proved to be a fascinating topic for many scholars. International business discourse is culturally-situated and therefore context-dependent, and all three - discourse, culture and context - play a key role in the communication process. The present contributions analyse this topic under the perspective of theory, research and teaching. Different scholars have offered their views on the subject, presenting contributions on different areas related to business communication all over the world.

Explores the relationship between context and text and presents a comprehensive framework for the investigation of the communication practices that are currently in use in international business. It includes and extensive survey of multinational corporations in the Netherlands, and it goes on to present a detailed analysis of the genres and discourse strategies that could be identified in a large corpus of authentic documents written by Dutch and British writers, consisting of letter, reports and e-mails messages.

Business Communications Process and Product 6th Canadian edition takes you through a well-developed, consistently applied approach to communication. Using the 3 x 3 writing process as the cornerstone, students learn a process for solving future communication problems and become more effective communicators, skills that will carry with them into their future career.

The Handbook of Business Discourse is the most comprehensive overview of the field to date. It offers an accessible and authoritative introduction to a range of historical, disciplinary, methodological and cultural perspectives on business discourse and addresses many of the pressing issues facing a growing, varied and increasingly international field of research. The collection also illustrates some of the challenges of defining and delimiting a relatively recent and eclectic field of studies, including debates on the very definition of 'business discourse'. Part One includes chapters on the origins, advances and features of business discourse in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Part Two covers methodological approaches such as mediated communication, corpus linguistics, organisational discourse, multimodality, race and management communication, and rhetorical analysis. Part Three moves on to look at disciplinary perspectives such as sociology, pragmatics, gender studies, intercultural communication, linguistic anthropology and business communication. Part Four looks at cultural perspectives across a range of geographical areas including Spain, Brazil, Japan, Korea, China and Vietnam. The concluding section reflects on future developments in Europe, North America and Asia.

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview, as well as breaking new ground, in a versatile and fast growing field. It contains four sections: Contrastive, Cross-cultural and Intercultural Pragmatics, Interlanguage Pragmatics, Teaching and Testing of Second/Foreign Language Pragmatics, and Pragmatics in Corporate Culture Communication, covering a wide range of topics, from speech acts and politeness issues to Lingua Franca and Corporate Crises Communication. The approach is theoretical, methodological as well as applied, with a focus on authentic, interactional data. All articles are written by renowned leading specialists, who provide in-depth, up-to-date overviews, and view new directions and visions for future research.