An Analysis of the Face Threatening Act Strategies Used in International Trade Email Correspondence

Shu Pin Nall National Kinmen Institute of Technology

Introduction
Face was defined by Goffman (1967:66) as the public selfimage that every member wants to claim for himself.

The Concept of Face defined by Goffman (1956)

Positive Face: described a persons desire and need to be appreciated and accepted Negative Face: the need not to be imposed upon or disturbed

Face Threatening Acts

FTAs (Face Threatening Acts) are acts and strategies which could harm or threaten the positive or negative face of ones interlocutors (Brown and Levinson, 1978 & 1987)

Five possible strategies for performing FTAs

Do the FTA on record without redressive actions (the least polite); 2. Do the FTA on record with redressive action addressing positive face; 3. Do the FTA on record with redressive action addressing negative face ; 4. Do the FTA off record 5. Dont do the FTA (the most polite strategy) (Brown and Levinson, 1978 & 1987)
1.

Objective: Examine FTA strategies in actual business collection emails

The company: ABC company from St. Louis, U.S.A. Data: 765 emails were sent to ABC companys by twelve vendors in year 2004. All 14 debt collection emails were examined. Six native speaking buyers were interviewed. Their perceptions of the FTAs in the collection emails were compared to those outlined by Brown and Levinson (1978 & 1987)

FTA vs. No FTAs

Chart 1: Did FTA vs. Did not Do FTA 40 30 20 10 0 Did FTA Did Not Do FTA 14 34

FTA vs. No FTAs

Chart 2: Did FTA vs. Did Not Do FTA

Did FTA, 14, 29% Did FTA Did Not Do FTA Did Not Do FTA, 34, 71%

Tendency for doing FTAs

only 8 out of all 12 vendors (66%) used FTAs as a strategy, and requested payments from ABC, but the remaining 4 vendors (34%) never did. The vendors that received smaller orders or have not had business relationships with ABC for a long time were found to be more likely to do the FTAs.

Timing for doing FTAs

Newer vendors are more likely to request payments before shipments, whereas vendors that have a longer history of business relationships with ABC tend to make payment requests after shipments.

Timing of Doing FTAs

Char t 3: Tim ing of Doing FTAs
12 10 10 8

6 4 4 2

Be for e Shipm e nt

Afte r Shipm e nt

Timing of Doing FTAs

Chart 4: Tim ing of Doing FTA

Bef ore Shipment, 4, 29% Bef ore Shipment A f ter Shipment A f ter Shipment, 10, 71%

Tendency for Chinese Face

In business negotiations, Chinese people tend to avoid public disagreements because it is considered a face-losing act for one or both participants. Chinese people also tend to use indirect strategies in public negotiation in order to save face. Assertiveness in opinions or speech is culturally perceived to have negative connotation (Gao & Ting-Toomey,1998)

FTAs Found in the Data

It is reasonable to assume that the politeness strategies used in debt collection e-mails might follow these similar patterns. However, using the five levels of strategies for doing FTAs outlined by Brown and Levinson (1978 and 1987), it was found that not all of the business emails written by Chinese vendors follow the previously mentioned politeness strategies observed by Gao & Ting-Toomey (1998).

Off Record FTAs Found in the Data

Only 6 out of the 14 payment requests (42.9%) did FTA off record. Examples: Till 7/9 @ 6pm, we have not received payment yet or confirmation from our bank. Pls kindly advise us the issuing date from local bank or number for tracking.

On Record FTAs Found in the Data

8 out of the 14 payment requests (57.1%) did FTA on record. Examples: (a). Please kindly tell Ms. To release full TT

payment asap; (b) Please tell Ms. Lu to remit full TT a.s.a.p. to our assigned back

Types of FTAs
Cha r t 5 : FTA Ty pe s

9 8 8 7 6 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

FTA Of f R e c or d

FTA On R e c or d

Types of FTAs
Char t 6: FTA Type s : Pe r ce ntage

FTA Of f Record, 6, 43% FTA On Record, 8, 57%

FTA Of f Record FTA On Rec ord

Tendency for the Types of FTAs

Newer vendors tend to do FTAs off record whereas vendors that have had longer business relationships with ABC tend to do FTAs on record. the greater the frequency and longer the history of interactions, the greater the preference for directness. (Beamer, 2003:233).

Common Features in Collection Emails in the Data

Adopting an inductive approach to introduce the main request (64.29%) Mentioning of the proof of shipment (50%) Requesting for ABC to show an additional proof of payment (28.6%) Newer Vendors Using words or phrases to indicate an urgent need to receive payments, and to atte20mpt to induce a more rapid response (28.6%) Using terms that show politeness (100%) Including statements that increase solidarity (57%) Using informal and conversation-like discourse.

Using Brown and Levinsons (1978 and 1987) Guidelines

7 of these 14 payment requests were categorized as doing the FTAs on record without redressive actions, and hence the most face-threatening, and the least polite type of requests. However, all six of the buyers disagreed with Brown and Levinsons taxonomy. They perceived, and rated, all of these seven requests as of the least degree of facethreatening when doing FTAs.

Native Speaking Buyers Perception of FTAs

All buyers expressed their belief that the format of all of these fourteen payment requests reflected very routine practice in International business. Regardless of how impolite a vendor may have sounded, none were considered impolite, since vendors have the legal right to request and receive payment from their buyers after a shipment. Moreover, brevity is considered a virtue rather than a face-threatening act.

One Buyers Explanations

Well, we have hundreds of e-mails to read daily. We like it better when the vendors make their payment requests short and to the point, and dont worry about being polite. As long as they dont threaten to hold our shipments, or to find legal solutions, they are considered as being reasonable and polite.

Combining Theory and Practice

This finding showed that even though linguistically some very direct debt-collection requests might be considered the least polite based on Brown and Levinsons model, due to the limitation of time that buyers have, they might prefer more direct and short (less time required for reading the emails) requests than the more polite ways of making requests as often taught in ESL/EFL textbooks.

Conclusion

Different contextual factors might affect linguistic pragmatics and usage in business writing. The inclusion and the analysis of the authentic business corpus data is essential in business writing teaching and learning. Authentic business corpus data may be used as a good way to raise students awareness in these factors involved and how these factors may influence the usage of language in business correspondence.