english and vietnamese business complaint letters - a comparative study from systemic functional perspectives = so sánh thư khiếu nại bằng tiếng anh và tiếng việt trong lĩnh vực kinh doanh trên cơ sở lý thuyết

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Process types in English letters Table 2.1: Mood system in English letters Table 2.2: Modality in English letters Table 3: Theme system in English letters Table 4

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LẠI THỊ THANH

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTERS:

A COMPARATIVE STUDY FROM SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVES

(So sánh thư khiếu nại bằng Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt trong lĩnh vực kinh doanh trên cơ sở lý thuyết ngữ pháp Chức năng Hệ thống)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15

HÀ NỘI - 2010

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

LẠI THỊ THANH

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTERS:

A COMPARATIVE STUDY FROM SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVES

(So sánh thư khiếu nại bằng Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt trong lĩnh vực kinh doanh trên cơ sở lý thuyết ngữ pháp Chức năng Hệ thống)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15

SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN HUYỀN MINH, M.A

HÀ NỘI - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of tables iv

Table of contents v

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 General introduction and rationale of the Study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Method of the study 3

5 Design of the study 4

PART II: DEVEOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Introduction 5

1.2 Theories of discourse 5

1.2.1 The concept of discourse 5

1.2.2 Functions of language 6

1.2.3 Discourse context 7

1.3 Theories of Systemic Functional Grammar 8

1.3.1 Transitivity 9

1.3.2 Mood 12

1.3.3 Theme- Rheme 13

1.3.4 Cohesion 14

1.4 Business Complaint Letter 16

1.4.1 Definition and Purpose of Business Complaint Letters 16

1.4.2 Three contextual parameters of business complaint letters 17

1.4.3 The structure of a business complaint discourse – comparison between English and Vietnamese letters 17

CHAPTER 2: ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTERS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

2.1 Introduction 19

2.2 Analysis of English Business Complaint Letters 19

2.2.1 Transitivity 19

2.2.2 Mood 23

2.2.3 Theme- Rheme 25

2.2.4 Cohesion 26

2.3 Analysis of Vietnamese Business Complaint Letters 27

2.3.1 Transitivity 27

2.3.2 Mood 29

2.3.3 Theme-Rheme 31

2.3.4 Cohesion 32

CHAPTER 3: COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTERS 3.1 Similarities 34

3.2 Differences 35

PART III: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 1 Conclusion 38

2 Implications for writing business complaint letters 38

3 Implications for teaching writing business complaint letters 39

4 Suggestions for further studies 40

References 41 Appendices

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Process types in English letters

Table 2.1: Mood system in English letters

Table 2.2: Modality in English letters

Table 3: Theme system in English letters

Table 4.1: Cohesion in English letters

Table 4.2: Lexical Cohesion in English letters

Table 5: Process types in Vietnamese letters

Table 6.1: Mood system in Vietnamese letters

Table 6.2: Modality in Vietnamese letters

Table 7: Theme system in Vietnamese letters

Table 8.1: Cohesion in Vietnamese letters

Table 8.2: Lexical Cohesion in Vietnamese letters

Table 9: English and Vietnamese complaint letters in comparison in terms of Cohesion

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

1 General introduction and rationale of the study

It is generally accepted that in the last few decades of the 20th century, there has been a great source of research on language; however, their attentions were only paid to the form of the language systems, which are studied and explained apart from their functions in relation to social situations Besides, their concern was basically with structural theories, which show that small units were arranged and combined into larger ones The recent research, on the other hand, has fallen into the tendency toward discourse analysis, which focuses on factors affecting the communication and also the functioning of syntactic, pragmatic and social aspects Unlike the former studies, these ones pay attention to the meaning of not only the sentences but also utterances and discourses

The preference of the study is inspired from the fact that the theory of Systemic Functional Grammar has been widely accepted as an essential tool in language comprehension for communication According to Eggins (1994: 1 cited in Thao, Phuong 2003: 2), „Systemic Functional Linguistics is increasingly being recognized as providing a very useful descriptive and interpretive framework for viewing language as a strategic, meaning-making resource‟ Hallidayan linguists used the functional model of grammar to interpret how people use language and how language is structured for use This theory, in fact, has been proved as a great model of language for analysts when analyzing texts especially at discourse level

In Vietnam, there have been a great number of studies in the area of discourse analysis these days However, the number of those works based on Systemic Functional Perspectives does not seem to reflect the potential variety Especially in the last few decades, Vietnam has been seen its expanding relationship with many other nations in economics, scientific and technical fields; English language as an international language, therefore, has been widely used in every field, especially in business communication in general and business transaction in particular The issues of business communication as well as business transaction thus should be unsurprisingly a rich source for linguists in analyzing discourse An inspirational source that helps me to prompt the choice of the

analysis of business correspondence is the fact that this kind of letter is truly suitable and essential in Vietnamese background recently

It cannot be denied that business correspondence plays an important role in business communication Besides, it is a fact that defects seem to be unavoidable in carrying out business transactions; even for the best-managed organizations this seems to be in the same case Letters of complaint, therefore, can be made and understood as customers‟ inevitable reaction In Vietnam, customers have gradually had the tendency to write complaint letters; however, this has not become their habit and a number of customers, in fact, still hesitate to

do this although they know they have the right to do In addition, knowing how to write an effective business complaint letter is really a challenge for many people My own observation shows that even the students of business have limited knowledge and experience in writing complaint letters not only in English but also in Vietnamese

In the hope of working out some solutions to help Vietnamese people as well as Vietnamese students, to some extent, overcome their difficulties in writing business complaint letters, the study is an attempt to analyze some basic discourse features of business complaint letters from Systemic Functional Perspectives Based on this, similarities and differences between English letters and Vietnamese ones will be identified After that, some suggestions will be drawn out to improve the studying and teaching writing business complaint letters in English

2 Aims of the study

The object of the study focuses on only one kind of business letters, namely, the letters of business complaint in both English and Vietnamese Due to the constraints in time and limited knowledge in Business English, this thesis will not deal with all aspects of complaint letters but concentrate on analyzing transitivity pattern, mood, thematic pattern, and cohesion of letters in the light of Systemic Functional Grammar The study aims at:

- Presenting and describing transitivity pattern, mood pattern, thematic pattern and cohesion in both English and Vietnamese business complaint letters;

- Identifying the similarities and differences in both English and Vietnamese business complaint letters in terms of transitivity pattern, mood pattern, thematic pattern and cohesion;

3 Scope of the study

Business letters are the primary and useful tools of exchanging ideas, facts, recommendations, proposals and so on within a business or between a business and other businesses and individuals, which give chances to businesses to operate efficiently and productively Effective letter writing involves the use of grammar and vocabulary, discourse cohesive devices and the communicative strategies As mentioned above, due to the constrain in time and knowledge and the limitation of a minor thesis, the research cannot explore all the aspects of this broad area but only the transitivity pattern, mood pattern, thematic pattern and cohesion of the letters

The investigation and analyses have been based on the data in 30 business complaint letters written by both English and Vietnamese native speakers (15 in English and 15 in Vietnamese; both types of letters are numbered from 1 to 15 for more convenient reference) which I presume to be sufficient data These data are collected from textbooks, internet, and authentic English and Vietnamese business complaint letters written by businesses and customers as well as other business associates

4 Method of the study

The study is confined to the description, analysis and comparison in terms of transitivity, mood, thematic pattern and cohesion In order to achieve the goal, the approach

is inductive, which is based on the data as well as authentic business complaint letters

Firstly, a large number of business complaint letters will be carefully selected from textbooks, internet and authentic sources Because of the fact that there seems to be

no fixed format for this kind of correspondence, the letters were randomly chosen as data, providing they are of business complaints In addition, the authenticity is highly appreciated by the authors; most of the letters are, therefore, mainly chosen from authentic sources as mentioned above

Secondly, a certain number of the selected letters will be described and analyzed in terms of transitivity, mood, thematic pattern and cohesion

Thirdly, the data obtained will be analyzed and compared in order to find out the similarities and differences in both English and Vietnamese business complaints Finally, the research results will be discussed to figure out some suggested ideas to help Vietnamese people write effective business complaints in English

Besides, discourse analysis in the light of Systemic Functional Grammar helps to establish the framework of the theoretical background

5 Design of the study

This study is comprised of three parts:

Part One of this study is an introduction presenting some background information

and the rationale of the study The aims, the scope and method of the study are also dealt with in this chapter

Part Two consist of three chapters

Chapter One is aimed to present the theoretical background of the work Some

essential concepts closely related to the study are carefully discussed one by one Firstly, some theories of discourse including the concept of discourse, functions of language, and discourse context Next, in terms of Systemic Functional Grammar, some concepts such as

transitivity, mood, theme- rheme, and cohesion consisting of reference, substitution, ellipsis, lexical cohesion, and conjunctive cohesion are presented Finally, the definition,

purpose, three contextual parameters and structure of business complaint letters are also discussed in the chapter

Chapter Two attempts to analyze business complaint letters in both English and

Vietnamese in the light of Systemic Functional Grammar In this chapter, the four chosen

terms of transitivity, mood, theme-rheme and cohesion which consists of reference,

substitution, ellipsis, lexical cohesion and conjunctive cohesion are carefully analyzed to help figure out the differences and similarities of business complaint letters in the two languages in the next chapter

Chapter Three is concerned with the discussion of the similarities and differences

between English and Vietnamese business complaint letters in terms of transitivity, mood, theme-rheme and cohesion

The last part is set up to summarize the whole research Some useful implications

for studying and teaching writing effective business complaint letters are also drawn out in this chapter

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Introduction

This chapter aims at discussing literature in order to construct a theoretical framework for this study To begin with, the concept of discourse, functions of language, and discourse context are dealt with An overview on Systemic Functional Grammar focusing on transitivity, mood, theme-rheme and cohesion are then mentioned Finally, the definition, purpose, three contextual parameters and structure of business complaints are also presented in this chapter

1.2 Theories of discourse

1.2.1 The concept of discourse

Linguistics history has seen many different approaches in which language is studied There was a time when language was viewed as a biologically determined phenomenon and its social aspect was neglected Linguists then tried to examine the essential linguistic units of words and individual sentences in terms of grammatical rules Sentences thus were devoted to be studied out of their social context However, people have come to realize that using language to communicate successfully with other people should

be more important than only producing grammatically correct sentences It is not always the case that grammatically correct sentences are meaningful and incomplete sentences are uninterpretable The fact seems to be different People do not always produce complete sentences, yet they still gain success in social communication and vice versa This proves that language must be learnt and comprehended in its social context that leads to a modern approach of language in which the concept of discourse is examined

In spite of the fact that the term of discourse has been widely used in a variety of linguists‟ studies, the precise definition of discourse remains an elusive one Yet, it may be

basically defined as the language in use for communication While Cook (1989) and some

other linguists try to make a distinction between discourse and text, the others, however, prefer using the term interchangeably

According to Cook (1989), while a text can be defined as “a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context” (Cook 1989: 158 cited in Van, Hoang Van 2006: 14), discourse can be known as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive” (Cook 1989: 156 cited in Van, Hoang Van 2006: 14) M.A.K Halliday, as a

proponent of the idea of interchanging the term discourse and text, claimed that a text is a chunk of language that is actually spoken or written for the purpose of communication by real people in actual circumstances (Bloor, 1995) From Halliday‟s perspective, discourse can be understood as a unit of meaning and it is functional „It is functional in the sense that

it occurs in a context of situation In terms of size, a discourse may be realized by a word, a phrase, a clause or a sentence; a paragraph, a cluster of paragraphs, a book, or even the whole library of books” (Van, Hoang Van 2006: 17)

In this thesis, the author will use the term of text to refer to any written record of communicative event, regarding it as the product of discourse which serves as the process

of verbal creation for communicative purposes The analysis of business complaint letters, therefore, is the analysis of the product

1.2.2 Functions of language

It is a fact that there are a number of classifications of linguistics functions G, Brown

and G Yules (1987) viewed language in the two major functions such as transactional and interactional function From the transactional view, language serves in the expression of

content Linguists acknowledge that the most important function of the language is the

communication of information In order to convey the factual information, the speaker or

writer should put their mind in the efficient transference of information, so that the recipients are able to get the correct informative details Concerning interactional function, language is used as a tool to establish and maintain social relationships In other words, interactional function involves the expressions of social relations and personal attitudes Actually, most of the written language is mainly used for transactional function For a business complaint letter, its purpose is not only to transfer factual information concerning the unexpected business events or situations suffered by the writer as an individual customer as well as a business but also to express their unpleasantness and desire for sympathy and suitable solutions from the reader as well as the recipient The language in business complaints, therefore, performs both transactional and interactional function According to Halliday (1985), language has three main functions from the view of sociology such as ideational, interpersonal and textual

The ideational function serves for the expression of „content‟ or cognitive meaning that shows the speaker‟s experience of the real world that also involves the inner of his

consciousness One aspect of this function at the level of clause is the system of transitivity including the concept of roles, processes and circumstances

The function of interpersonal serves to “establish and maintain social relation: for the expression of social roles created by language itself” (Van, Hoang Van, 2006) In this way, sentences are created basing on the systems of mood to carry the cognitive and logical content of proportions and display the speaker‟s relationship with others to the recipients The roles created by language then may be questioner, informer, commander and so on The textual function focuses on “providing links with language itself and with the features of the situation in which it is used” (Van, Hoang Van, 2006) Basing on thematic system, this function enables speakers or writers to create linguistically linked texts or connected passages of discourse that is situationally relevant

In brief, in accordance with Halliday, the function of language is divided into

ideational, interpersonal and textual, of which the linguistic realization are gradually

examined in the thesis

1.2.3 Discourse context

As a matter of fact, context is a very important concept in discourse analysis In Systemic Functional Linguistics, there is a close relationship between language and its social context This relationship is a dynamic, two-way relationship: language construes and is construed by its social context (Halliday & Martin, 1993) In more details, the language that is likely to be used can be predicted by the context and vice versa the context

in which an interaction is situated can be inferred from the language that is used Context as

a non-linguistic element refers to the situation which gives rise to the discourse, and within which the discourse is embedded (Nunan, 1993)

Context in Systemic Functional Linguistics is derived from Malinowski‟s context of situation and context of culture Halliday and his followers divide the elements of

situational contexts into three aspects such as field, tenor and mode

* Field of discourse refers to “what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which

the language figures as some essential component?” (Halliday 1985: 12) Eggins (1994: 52)

also said that field indicates “what the language is being used to talk about” It includes the

subject matter of the text, the people and things involved, the nature of activities, the qualities or attributes of the involved entities and the activity circumstances

* Tenor of discourse examines “the role relationships between the interactants”

(Eggins 1994: 52) In other words, it refers to who is taking part, what is the nature of the relationship of the participants, what are their statuses and roles, including the speech roles they are taking on in dialogue and “the whole cluster of socially significant relationships in which they are involved” (Halliday & Hasan 1989: 12; cited in Van, Hoang Van 2006: 40)

* Mode of discourse, according to Halliday & Hasan (1989: 12 cited in Van, Hoang

Van 2006: 40) refers to the medium of the language activity, to “what is it that the participants are expecting the language to do for them in that situation.” Mode of discourse includes the channel of communication (spoken or written or some combination of thetwo) and also the rhetorical mode or purpose of a text, what is being achieved by the text in terms of such categories as persuasive, expository, didactic, and the like

Field, mode and tenor of discourse are in dialectical relationship According to Hatim and Mason (1990), “these three variables are independent: a given level of formality (tenor) influences and is influenced by a particular level of technicality (field) in an appropriate channel of communication (mode).”

1.3 Theories of Systemic Functional Grammar

Some of the ways that help to distinguish Systemic Functional Grammar from other

kinds of grammar is that it is a meaning-oriented model and the language in its perspective examined as a social phenomenon rather than an individual phenomenon It has been

constructed specifically for the purposes of text analysis to enable us to say useful things about spoken and written texts (Halliday, 1994) In Systemic Functional Linguistics, meaning is essentially equated with function, and the language is viewed as a form of

“doing” rather than a form of “knowing” and the central category of this model is the system consisting of interlocking options available for the users

Looking back at the history of language study, it can be seen that language has been approached in different points of views While a number of linguists tried to account for formal aspects of the grammar of language isolated from meanings, the others began their analysis with language forms then discovered how the forms represented the meanings Systemic linguists, on the other hand, managed to identify a close relation between the meaning and the wording which, for them, not an arbitrary one Furthermore, they also claimed that the form of grammar is closely related to the meanings encoded The model of Functional grammar; consequently, was taken as a tool to analyze the language in this way

The term of functional is explained by Halliday in his Introduction to Functional Grammar (1994) that „this grammar is based on the functional conceptual framework rather

than a formal one‟ In more details, the grammar in his view is functional in three closely related senses: in its interpretation of texts, of the system and of the elements of linguistic

structures Language is functional in the sense that language is used by people to satisfy

human needs and to achieve social goals Thus, Systemic Functional Grammar is semantically oriented It is concerned with language in use: How do people use language to make meanings, and how is language structured to make meanings? (Eggins: 1994)

In short, what makes functional grammar different from other models of grammar is that its theory is built on the principle viewing language as a means to carry out human communication It sets its own roles of analyzing, describing and explaining the rules that govern language use on two closely related aspects of form and meaning by observing language in communication (Hao, Cao Xuan, 1999) The basic unit of Systemic Functional Grammar is the clause equivalent to the traditional „simple sentence‟ All of the three functions of language in accordance with Halliday are reflected in the structure of the

clause In the following sections, three types of meaning of the clause and their realizations

in the lexicogrammar of English will be examined: The experiential meaning and its realizations through the system of transitivity (process types), the interpersonal meaning and its realization in the mood and modality system and the textual meaning and its realization in the theme system Furthermore, the issue of cohesion is also dealt with as

another preliminary theory for the later data analysis

1.3.1 Transitivity

The transitivity system, which is very central to the ideational function of language, accounts for choices made in relation to the clause element At the layer of transitivity system, the clause is analyzed for its potential to represent both the outer and the inner worlds of human beings, which is what the ideational metafunction does Contextually,

transitivity system is the field of discourse, which relates to what goes on in the social

action In more details, based on what the discourse is about, analysts can predict the choice

of processes that are being made to achieve interactants‟ communicative goals, and based

on process types used in discourse, analysts can figure out the meanings interactants are trying to communicate As a result, transitivity is sometimes referred as process type In accordance with Halliday (1994: 107), each process consists of three components in

principle such as the process itself, the participants in the process and circumstances associated with the process The different types of process are classified basing on our

awareness of our inner and outer experience In English, there are three main types of

process that are material describing the external or physical world, mental portraying our consciousness and relational relating one fragment of experience to another In addition to the three main types, there are three subtypes of process namely behavioral, verbal and existential

“Material process is the process of doing: action and event such as working,

walking, coming Related to the process itself, there may be one, two or even three

participants When a process has one participant, this role is referred to as Actor (performer

of the action); when it has two participants, these roles are referred to respectively as Actor and Goal (affected by the action); and when it has three participants, these roles are Actor, Goal and Receiver (benefiting from the process) The material process can be represented

in the form of active or passive (Van, Hoang Van 2006: 48) For examples:

Actor Process: Material Goal Receiver

(Van, Hoang Van 2006: 48)

“Mental process is the process of sensing such as thinking, loving, wanting, hoping”

(Van, Hoang Van 2006: 49) It is divided by Halliday into three classes: cognitive

(thinking knowing, understanding etc.) affective (liking, fearing etc.) and perceptive (seeing, hearing etc.) Mental process involves two participants: Sensor (one who thinks, feels, senses and wants), and Phenomenon (one that is thought of, felt, sensed and wanted) E.g.,I (Sensor) believe (process: Mental) you (Phenomenon)

It (Phenomenon) hurts (process: Mental) my ears (Sensor) (Halliday 1994:118)

Relational process is the process of being, having and being at, which is typically

realized by the verb be or some of the so-called copular verbs; e.g., become, appear, seem etc This process comes under three subtypes: (i) the intensive; (ii) the circumstantial and (iii) the possessive Relational process consists of two modes: attributive and identifying

An attributive relational process has two participants: the Carrier and the Attribute

(showing the quality or the class the Carrier belongs to) For example,

In the mode of identifying, relational process has two equating participants; one identifying the other, which are referred to respectively in two pairs of terms such as

Identified/ Identifier and Token/Value For example,

Identified/ Token Process: Relational Identifier/ Value

Circumstantial process expresses being in terms of circumstantial elements such as

time, place, distance, reason The relation between the participant and its circumstantial

element is that of Carrier and Attribute; e.g., the water (Carrier) is (Process: Relational:

circumstantial) in the bottle (Attribute/ Circumstance: location) Possessive process

expresses being in terms of ownership and the relation between the two terms can be

characterized as Possessor and Possessed, but for generalization and convenience they are

still referred to as Carrier and Attributive; e.g He (Carrier/ Possessor) had (Process: relational) a beautiful house (Attribute/ Possessed)

Behavioral process is the process of physiological and psychological behavior such

as breathing, crying, drinking It is the intermediary between material and mental process

Typical of this type of process in English is that there is usually one participant refered to as

Behaver, which is always a conscious being, e.g., the baby (Behaver) is crying (Process:

Behavioral)

Verbal process is the process of saying such as saying, speaking, talking, or of any

kind of symbolic exchange such as showing, indicating A verbal process does not require a

conscious participant and it can contain one participant referred to as Sayer, two participants referred to respectively as Sayer and Target, and Sayer and Verbiage, and even three participants such as Sayer, Target and Recipient Sayer is anything capable of putting out the signal; target is the entity the verbalization is directed to, Recipient is the one benefitting from the verbal process and Verbiage is the name of the verbalization itself

(Van, Hoang Van 2006: 49)

These are some examples to illustrate:

1) She (Sayer) spoke (process: Verbal) English (Target) to me (Recipient)

2) The manager (Sayer) will outline (process: Verbal) his plan of campaign (Verbiage)

Existential process is the process of existing, indicating that there is or there was

something This process typically employs the verb be or synonyms such as exist, arise,

occur In this type of process, there is one participant, the Existent and one or two

circumstantial elements; for example, there is (process: Existential) a man (Existent) at the door (Circumstance)

1.3.2 Mood

Mood is the exchange system realized by the choice between declarative, interrogative and imperative clause types Each type of mood is basically associated with an illocutionary act When we want to exchange information, we can make a choice of

indicative mood rather than imperative, which is used to express directives such as commands or requests In order to question, we generally choose interrogative mood rather than declarative which is used to express statements In short, mood is divided into two

types, namely indicative involving declarative and interrogative and imperative which are

available to perform different tasks in social communication

According to Halliday, in order to interpret clauses in their function as an exchange,

the clause is divided into two parts: the Mood and the Residue The former consists of the

Subject and Finite, the order of which determines the selection of mood in the clause The later, the Residue, as the remainder of the clause includes functional elements of

Predicator, Complement and Adjunct The following is an example:

She is doing her homework in the room

Subject Finite Predicator Complement Adjunct

Modality is considered a complex area of English grammar, which has to do with

different ways in which the language user tries to exchange his messages including

expressing attitudes and judgments of various kinds Specifically, modality is the category

by which speakers show their attitudes towards the event expressed in the proposition When modality is used to argue about the probability or frequency of proposition, it is

referred to as modalization When it discusses the obligation or inclination of proposals, it

is considered modulation In other words, modalization expresses the choices of degree of

certainty or usuality through the use of modal operators and mood adjuncts; i.e high (must, always, certainly), median (may, usually, probably) or low (might, sometimes, possibly)

Modulation expresses the degrees between obligation and inclination, which can be realized

in various ways such as using modulated verbal operators (must, have to, should, etc.) or the expansion of the Predicator typically by a passive verb like you are supposed to know that, or adjectives, e.g I‟m anxious to help them

1.3.3 Theme - Rheme

In order to explore the textual meaning of the clause, the two notions of Theme and

Rheme are employed The Theme serves as the departure point of the message, which in English coincides with the initial element of the clause; and the Rheme is the remainder of the message A theme may be realized by a nominal group, a prepositional phrase, an adverbial group, or even a clause in the case of predicated theme Furthermore, a theme

may be single (represented by just one constituent), or multiple (having a further internal structure of its own), and unmarked which is the usual or typical and often conflating with the subject in declarative, or marked theme known as unusual

With regard to the three-dimensional metafunctional structure of the clause, themes

can be identified in three different types namely topical, interpersonal and textual in the realization of the three types of clause elements A topical theme is the one that is conflated

with an experiential element of the clause, which can be Actor, Goal or Circumstance An

interpersonal theme is any combination of a modal theme consisting of a modal adjunct, vocative element (any item used to address) and a mood-making element (a finite verbal operator, or WH-interrogative or imperative Let‟s.) A textual theme represents meaning

that is relevant to the context or co-text It may have any combination of three textual

elements: a continuative element (yes, no, well etc.), a structural element (and, but etc.) and

a conjunctive element (also, therefore, etc.)

The following is an example of Theme-Rheme structure:

oh soldier, soldier, won‟t you marry me

textual interpersonal topical (experiential)

Theme

Concerning the system of markedness, themes are divided into two types, namely unmarked and marked themes Unmarked theme is generally understood as „usual and most typical‟ while marked considered „untypical or unusual‟ In relation to the system of mood,

a theme is called unmarked when it conflates with the Mood structure constituent that typically occurs in the first position in the clause For example, in declarative clauses, an unmarked theme is a constituent that conflates with the Subject, while a marked theme is the one functioning as some element of the Residue such as Complement, Adjunct, or Predicator Here are some examples:

Usually she loves horror films

1.3.4 Cohesion

According to Halliday and Hasan, (1976: 4), cohesion „refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a text.‟ It should not be surprising that without cohesion, a text will become a combination of unrelated sentences Thus, cohesion, in fact, is a part of the language system Halliday (1994: 309) pointed out that

there are four ways by which cohesion is created in English: reference, ellipsis, lexical organization and conjunction

Reference expresses the relationship of identity, which exists between units in

discourse Halliday (1994: 309) claimed that a participant or circumstantial element introduced at one place in the text can be taken as a reference point for something that follows In the simplest case, this means that the same thing comes in again Thompson (1996: 148) also defined reference as „the set of grammatical resources which allow the speaker to indicate whether something is being repeated from somewhere else in the text or whether it has not yet appeared in the text.‟ This can be understood in the way that the repetition has to be based on either in the text or out into the world As a reason for this

reference involves two kinds namely edophora (reference found in the text) and exophora (reference based on the context of situation) The former divided into two: anaphoric

(pointing the reader or listener „backwards‟ to a previously mentioned entity, process or

state of affairs) and cataphoric pointing the reader or listener forwards.)

In English, three items that have the property of reference are personals (indicated through personal and possessive pronouns, possessive adjectives), demonstratives

(expressed through this, that, these, those, here or there) and comparatives (through

adjectives or adverbs such as same, identical, similar, equally, more etc.)

Ellipsis, as another form of anaphoric cohesion in the text, is used in the sense that

something is omitted in a structure but the missing part can always be retrieved from another structure within a sentence (non-cohesive) or beyond a sentence (cohesive) This

kind of cohesion can be divided into nominal (omission of the head of nominal groups), verbal (omission of Residue), and clausal ellipsis (omission of a clause or a part of a

clause)

According to Halliday (1994), Ellipsis and substitution are variants of the same

type of cohesive relation: ellipsis is the omission of one item and substitution is the replacement of one item by another There are some grammatical environments in which

only ellipsis is possible, some in which only substitution is possible and some, such as I

preferred the other (one), which allow for either Like ellipsis, substitution has three types:

nominal (the substitution of the Head of a nominal group usually realized by one, ones and same), verbal (the substitution of the Head of a verbal group usually realized by do) and clausal substitution (what is presupposed is not an element within the clause but an entire clause, usually realized in two words: so and not)

Lexical cohesion is another kind of cohesive relation in which the cohesive effect is

obtained by the selection of vocabulary In more details, when two words in a discourse are semantically related, cohesion will occur undoubtedly According to Halliday and Hasan

(1976), lexical cohesion is divided into two types of reiteration in which two lexical items are related by having a common referent and collocation, which is achieved through the

association of items that regularly co-occur) The former involves repetition, synonym, antonym, super-ordinate meronymy and general word The latter consists of three types: resultative (the relation of one item leading to the outcome of another item: kill –die, rain- wet etc.), modificational (the relation holding between an item and one of its inherent qualities: run-fast, clear-voice etc.) and contextual (expectation can be made between the

process and the participant: house-build, doctor-examine etc.)

Conjunction differs from the earlier-mentioned in the sense that it is not an

anaphoric relation but a cohesive device since it signals relationships that can only be fully

understood through reference to other parts of the discourse In English conjunction is

expressed by (i) adverbs e.g., but, so, then, next, therefore etc., or (ii) prepositional expressions; e.g., on the contrary, in contrast etc or other reference items; e.g., as a result

of that, as a consequence etc Regarding to this, there are four main types of conjunction in

English namely adversative (however, yet, but, in contrast etc.), additive (and, or, nor etc.), temporal (then, next, afterwards, after that etc.) and causal conjunction (thus,

hence, therefore, as a result of that etc.)

In summary, it is undoubtedly accepted that cohesion plays a very important role in

discourse analysis With five main types of reference, substitution, ellipsis, lexical cohesion and conjunction (or four main types in accordance with Halliday (1994) as mentioned

above), cohesion can make a text a text or can create the texture or discourse

1.4 Business Complaint Letter

1.4.1 Definition and Purpose of Business Complaint Letters

Business letter is a formal means of communication between two people, a person and a corporation, or two corporations The purpose for business writings is to inform readers of information you want to get across or possibly persuade the readers to do

something There are many different types of business letters such as acknowledgement, adjustment, complaint, inquiry, order, and sales letter etc This thesis is aimed at complaint

letters

Complaint letters are written when one encountered problems in a business

transaction, like purchasing defective goods or being dissatisfied in services; e.g., statement that contains errors or even discourteous treatment etc It is an attempt to let the reader

know that an error has been found and needs to be corrected as soon as possible It voices out feelings of having felt injustice or disrespect

The purpose of a complaint letter is to inform business errors and require immediate

adjustment from the involved corporation; e.g., replacing or exchanging a product purchased, completing the promised service, adjusting the bill or money refunded etc A

simple phone call or email messages sometimes do not help to get results; therefore, the writer should know how to create an effective complaint letter In order to do this, it is a

„must‟ to identify a definite purpose to write letters and outcome that writers want to achieve, and indicate those ideas clearly in the letter of complaint

1.4.2 Three contextual parameters of business complaint letters

Field: The field of a business complaint letter is nothing than the field of business

communication This kind of letter is about the writer or customer‟ complaints about their dissatisfactions caused by business errors

Tenor: In the letter of complaint, the writer or customer is trying to inform of

business errors and expecting immediate adjustment from the involved corporation or a solution from a higher authority, the language; therefore; needs to be clear and convincing

In addition, the letter needs to sound formal because the relationship between the writer and reader is actually between a customer as an individual or corporation and a corporation or a higher authority whose responsibility is to solve the problem

Mode: The mode of business complaint letters we are studying is in the form of

written discourse

Field, tenor and mode are seen as determining the features of the ideational, interpersonal and textual component of discourse respectively How these three contextual parameters decide upon the three components of complaint letters, which are realized through the system of transitivity, theme and mood, will be discussed in the next chapter

1.4.3 The structure of a business complaint discourse – comparison between English and Vietnamese letters

A business complaint letter, like other types of letters, consists of a number of optional and compulsory parts Analyzing the format of business complaint letters in two different kinds of English and Vietnamese reveals some similarities and differences as noted below:

Formality Business complaint in English Business complaint in Vietnamese

Letterhead The name and address of the writer are

normally written on the top either hand or right-hand side of the page

left-The official name and motto of the country are typed in the top middle, which is considered compulsory in any Vietnamese legal document

Title It is considered optional All the letters in

our investigation has no title

Most Vietnamese business complaints in

our investigation have the title of „Đơn khiếu nại‟, „đơn xin khiếu nại‟ in capital

letters below the motto, which is considered the standard form

Dateline The date of writing letter is typed either

on the left-hand or right-hand side of the page and either right below the writer‟s address or addressee‟s address

The date is noted at the bottom on the right corner above the writer‟s signature

Addressee‟s

address

All letters in our investigation have the name and address of the addressee (and also the position if the addressee is an individual) noted on the left below writer‟s address and maybe above or below dateline

The name of the addressee as an organization or a part of an organization

is normally shown in the salutation:

“Kính gửi”; If the addressee and the

respondent refer to different people, the name and address of the respondent is then usually mentioned in the first part of the letter

Subject line It is an optional part and often started with

an abbreviation “Ref:…” (usually below

the dateline)

It is optional and often cited below the title

Salutation It is often started with “Dear sir”, “Dear

Madam”, “Dear sir or Madam” or Dear

followed by the readers‟ name or title

It is started with “Kính gửi:…” followed

by the targeted reader‟s name

Body The body often consists of three or four

paragraphs where the writer gives the reason for writing, necessary information about the complaint and what the writer expect as a result of the complaint

The body often consists of three or four paragraphs where the writer gives the reason for writing, necessary information about the complaint and what the writer expect as a result of the complaint Compliment

ary close

The common ones are “Yours sincerely”

when the targeted addressee‟s name is

cited in the salutation, and “Yours faithfully” if the targeted addressee‟s

CHAPTER TWO

ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTERS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 2.1 Introduction

This part is an attempt to present the result of our analysis of business complaint letters in terms of transitivity, mood, theme, which are the realizations of the three functions

of language such as ideational, interpersonal, and textual respectively, and cohesion In order to figure out a comprehensive demonstration of how the theory of systemic functional grammar has been applied and reflected in business complaint letters, we have usually had two broad questions engraved in our mind during the analyzing process:

In what aspects are the English and Vietnamese business complaint letters alike and

in what aspects are they different?

Do the similarities and differences reflect any of their relations to the three parameters of field, tenor, and mode? And how are they related to each other?

2.2 Analysis of English Business Complaint Letters

2.2.1 Transitivity

Our exploration of the fifteen business complaint letters shows that the processes

used by English people in this kind of letter are typically of four types: material, relational,

mental and verbal The results are summarized in the following table:

Table 1: Process types in English letters Process types Quantity

(in number)

Rate of occurrence

the matter of describing the actions and events rather than thoughts, feelings, behaving, being, existing or verbal exchange The following are some of the examples in which material processes are used

E.g., 1) I am writing to complaint about the holiday we were given (Complaint 2)

2) I had recently applied for an account detail book and had given a written

3) In fact, I had specifically checked with your Customer Services Manager before I

In addition, in 72.9% of these material processes, the Actor is mentioned and 97.1%

of these mentioned Actors, of which the human Actor occupies 82.4%, are located in the initial position This means that the majority of material processes are represented in the form of active and what the writers give more emphasis is the doer of the actions as the human agent However, of the total numbers of the Actors mentioned in material process, 2.9% are not located in the initial position, which falls into another aspect under the mood analysis that will be discussed in the following part Here are some of the examples in which Goal or Recipient of material process are used replacing the Actor in the initial position of the clauses with the main focus fallen into the others rather than the doers of actions

E.g., 1) It is also important to be able to take away leaflets on interesting products so that

more research can be done before deciding which system to buy However, by the time I attended the exhibition all the leaflets had been taken (Complaint 12)

2) I was informed that I would be issued a new account detail book at the earliest,

Occupying 24.3% of the total occurrence, relational processes rank second in the scale of frequency It should be noted here that this paper took into consideration all the

three different types of relational process, namely intensive, possessive and circumstance

Our analysis showed that in this kind of letters, the writers had a preference for intensive

type which occupies 69.6% with the pattern of “x is a” This preference can be due to its use in the notion of being including the expression of an entity having some quality

ascribed to it or something having an identity assigned to it, which can be considered appropriate and typical notions in this kind of letter The second choice for relational

process is possessive type occupying a percentage of 17.9% with a predominant use of the verb “have” Lastly, 12.5% of all in relational clauses is taken up by circumstantial aspect realized through the expressions of time, purpose, or matter Let us take a look at the following examples for demonstration

E.g., I purchased from your store last week and I have only had it for three days

(Possessive)

I have only had it for three days

TRAN Carrier Pro: Rel (possessive) Attribute Cir

This is with reference to Product Number

234567which we had bought from 3 rd January from your company

TRAN Carrier Pro: Rel

the Tour Manager, Mr

James Edward himself

was not

well-versed

with the itinerary

and kept missing schedules

(Intensive)

Attribu-te

Cir

The accommodation arranged

(Intensive)

circumstance Attribute

(Complaint 05) The only redeeming

feature of that evening

was the courteous service and the friendly

manner in which your waiters patiently heard our numerous complaints

(Intensive)

Identifier

Both mental processes and verbal processes take up an equal percentage of 16.2 % ranking the third in the popularity scale In our analysis, mental processes always occur with two participants as sensor and phenomenon In the same way, verbal process is also expressed with at least two of its participants such as Sayer, Recipient and Verbiage or Sayer, and Target This provided an evidence to explain that the Field and Tenor of business complaint letters have influence on the choice of language use To be more specific, this kind of letter is aimed at the writers‟ complaints about business errors, so that the question of how to state the problems convincingly is really important As a result, stating the truth by quoting or reciting some utterances from the involved people seems to

be considered an effective way Beside that, another typical characteristic of this kind of letter is expressing writers‟ thoughts, feelings and cognition so that the effectiveness of the letters would be higher and the requirement for adjustment can be more easily fulfilled However, the tenor of the letter requires that the language used needs to sound formal, mental and verbal processes, therefore, should not be overused Examples are as follows:

and we do not see why we should put up with it

(Complaint 2)

We expect a letter of explanation as well as a

substantial refund of our money

(Complaint 2) This is the

first time that

(Complaint 1) After five days, a courier who spoke only fragmentary English tuned up

Verbal

Target

(Complaint 2)

As the table indicates, the participant of existential and behavioral process in the scale of frequency is quite inconsiderable, respectively owning 2.1 % and 0.4% The rare occurrence of these two processes partly proved that the choice of language used in this

letter is influenced by the Tenor and Mode in which the concepts of behaving and existing

seem to be less typical than the others mentioned above

Here are some examples in which two processes are used:

1) So you can imagine the comforts of a room with nothing but the cold water tub

for cooling (Behavioural) (Complaint 2)

2) There was simply no one around (Existential) (Complaint 2)

3) I think you will agree that a communication problem exists (Existential)

(Complaint 13)

2.2.2 Mood

Our analysis of the mood system indicates that the prevalent mood choice in this kind

of letter is declarative, which holds up to 98.3% The interrogatives and imperatives occupy

a very small proportion of 0.4 % and 1.3 % respectively The following table is given for illustration:

Table 2.1: Mood system in English letters

(in number)

Rate of occurrence

actually between the customer and a corporation, which are of the equal status, so the language used should be formal and needs to sound polite enough Even though, with the use of imperative, we may be able to make this kind of clause sound more polite, the writers under this investigation usually keep making use of declarative as a more useful tool However, in this paper we do not have an ambition to clarify this matter, which may

be discussed in further analysis related to pragmatics

Our mood analysis also looked for the typical modality used in the targeted letters In order to investigate the modality, like other aspects, we also decided to study all clauses in our chosen letters and measure the frequency of occurrence The analysis‟s outcome reveals that the use of modality in these letters is not much preferred

Table 2.2: Modality in English letters

in the way that the addressees of these letters are expected to read for their own information and then make decision by themselves either to take an immediate action for adjustment or not They are supposed to feel free from any degree of obligation

These are some examples in which both the two senses of modalization and modulation are used The bold italic phrases represent the modalization and the underlined bold italic ones represent the modulation

3) As you will realise, we are highly dissatisfied with the holiday your company provided

and we do not see why we should put up with it

4) I have been a customer of this bank for the past 15 years and never before faced such an

issue

5) It is also important to be able to take away leaflets on interesting products, so that more

research can be done before deciding which system to buy

multiple, it usually contains an obligatory topical theme following a textual theme other than an interpersonal one A possible explanation for this can be traced back to the concept

of mode, one of three contextual parameters of discourse The mode of this kind of letters shows that these letters are written to be read, so that the expressions used in conversational

language such as vocative element, or polarity adjuncts like Yes, No can not be found in

these Only the two cases of interpersonal theme were found as shown in the examples below:

E.g., 1) Unfortunately, the substandard food served in your restaurant really dampened

our spirits (Complaint 6)

2) Could I please ask you to look into these matters not only on my behalf

……….your company, too (Complaint 15)

These are some examples in which multiple themes are used

but the image on the monitor was very unclear

(Complaint 1)

The starters

we ordered

were dripping with oil

though we had specifically

requested for free food

Table 4.1: Cohesion in English letters Types of cohesive relation Quantity

(in number)

Quantity (in percent)

Table 4.2: Lexical Cohesion in English letters

Types of Lexical cohesion

Quantity (in number)

Rate of occurrence

As the table indicates, reference proved to be the most prevalent and useful device

to tie clauses together with the rate of occurrence of 52.7% In the second rank, lexical cohesion accounts for 32%, among which repetition is dominantly used Other lexical devices are collocation, synonym, hyponym, antonym, and meronym Let us have a look at the following clauses where reference items are in bold, repetition is in bold italic, collocation is underlined, meronym is bold and underlined and synonym items are framed

E.g., “My family and I had visited your restaurant on 16 th

March to celebrate my son‟s promotion Unfortunately, the sub-standard food served in your restaurant really dampened our spirits.” (Complaint 6)

“I wish to complain about a computer I purchased from your store last week I have only had it for three days, and it has already stopped functioning

When I turned on the computer, the CPU went on but the image on the monitor was

very unclear I have tried to return it for a refund several times, but you have refused each time I do not want a new monitor for the following two reasons” (Complaint 1)

While the percentage of the total of ellipsis and substitution is only 0.5%, the number of clauses in which conjunctions are used account for 14.8%, nearly 30 times higher than the percentage of the two formers together

2.3 Analysis of Vietnamese Business Complaint Letters

2.3.1 Transitivity

Like in English complaint letters, the proportion of material process takes up the highest percentage in Vietnamese letters Table 5 in this part indicates that the rate of occurrence of material clauses in Vietnamese letters is 43.8% This is an evidence to prove that Vietnamese writers are also more interested in describing the actions and events than stating the thoughts, feelings, behaving, existing or verbal exchange Our result points out

that in all material clauses, the number of clauses with Actor located in the first position that is congruent with the Subject role of mood hold up to 80.5% of the total Moreover, in 80.5% of the Actor as the subject of material clauses, the human Actor reaches 93.8% All

of these prove that most of the material clauses are in active form and what the writers pay more attention is nothing other than the human agent of the actions However, there exist some cases in which the writers mention both Actor and Goal, but the more emphasized ones are the latter but not the former The number of clauses fall into this category holds about 5.2% The following are some examples, which include the Goal and Recipient role

in the first place instead of Actor In these examples, the Recipient is bold and italic, Goal

is bold and underlined and Actor is bold and framed

E.g., 1) Khi đó tôi mới phát hiện sữa bị chua và có kết tủa (Complaint 1)

2) Do thực tế sức khoẻ tôi bị suy nhược cộng với bị nhiễm virút (Complaint 5) 3) Trường hợp tôi là cá biệt còn nhiều người khách hàng khác cũng bị lừa

As can be seen in the table, mental and verbal processes appear in 12.9 % and 14.6 %

respectively in the total processes In verbal processes, most of the verbs realized are trình bày, báo cáo, nói, khẳng định, yêu cầu, đề nghị As in mental processes, the mental verbs that own the highest percentage of occurrence are Phát hiện, nhận thấy, thiết nghĩ, mong

This should be understood that all these verbs can be the most typical in business complaint letters and truly appropriate to the tenor of this kind of letter