西安外国语大学商学院 陕西 西安710128
作者简介：党静静，1991年12月9日出生，女，汉族，现就读于西安外国语大学商学院2016级外国语言学及应用语言学专业。主要研究方向：商务英语。
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Abstract:Business English writing plays a crucial role in daily business operations in most companies. The sales promotional letter is one of the most frequently-used genres in Business English writing. Therefore, this paper will carry out a genre analysis on a sample sales promotion letter selected from the Internet.
Keywords: business English writing; genre analysis; sales promotion letter
1 Introduction
Business English writing plays a crucial role in daily business operations in most companies. Therefore, employing Business English writing is a must for business communication in both local and international settings. Generally speaking, the sales promotional letter is one of the most frequently-used genres in Business English writing. Thus how to apply genre techniques to create a decent sales promotional letter is becoming important in establishing business relationship between companies. Therefore, this paper will carry out a genre analysis on a sample sales promotion letter selected from the Internet.
2 Sample Sales Promotion Letter
A Letter to Promote the Sale of Products
NEVER WASH PANS AGAIN
Dear Customer:
We said it and we mean it: NEVER WASH PANS AGAIN! (1)
You can now do all your cooking in beautiful Ceramic Ware—cook and serve food in the same lovely dishes! Boil, fry, roast, bake—do it all in Ceramic Ware. Freeze food in the same dishes, if you wish. These beautiful utensils, made of the same amazing ceramic used in missile cones, can go from freezer to stove to table. You then slip them into the dishwasher or the sink with the other dishes. Never slave at scouring pans again. (2)
Handle these Ceramic cook-and-serve pieces. Test and try them yourself. You’ll be impressed by their practical and beautiful design, and more important of all the surprisingly reasonable prices. (3)
Come and see Ceramic Cookware Demonstrated
In Big Store’s Housewares Department
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
April 10th, 11th, and 12th (4)
Yours very truly (5)
3 Genre Analysis of the Sample Sales Promotion Letter
This sales promotional letter should serve a set ofcommunicative purposes with the persuasiveness as the main purpose. The writer holds the attention of the potential buyer even though the buyer has no immediate need for or no interest in the product. Besides, It is necessary to provide a vivid description of the product since the genre purpose of the letter is to move the potential customer to buy the Ceramic Ware. To achieve such purpose, the writer involves five steps in the construction of this sales promotional letter.
1) An effective attention-getting opening (sentence 1)
2) To introduce the Ceramic Ware by vivid and specific description of the product (sentence 2)
3) To offer incentives to encourage the buyer (sentence 3)
4) To use pressure strategy to move the reader to a specific action (sentence 4)
5) To end politely (sentence 5)
At the first step, the above letter is opened tactfully with several words written in capital and attracting title, which can capture the prospective customer’s attention, making them interested in the product. At the second step, the author introduces the basic information and detailed functions of Ceramic Ware, which makes customers getting familiar with the product. This step is crucial and the description of the value of the product is primarily done in terms of needs of the potential customer. The reader wants to know why he should buy this product and advantages of the product. At the next step, the writer offers an incentive. Since Ceramic Ware has practical and beautiful design, reasonable prices, this step persuade the prospective customer to consider seriously the product or service offered. The fourth step is the pressure strategy. Having presented the sales story and got readers interested, they must be moved to action. The tactics here often leave readers the impression that they should not lose this precious chance. The last step is to end politely. Generally speaking, most business letters assume a pleasant and polite tone so as to maintain a good relationship. The above five steps are essential in sales letters and contribute to the realization of these purposes.
4 Conclusion
In summary, the paper has done a genre analysis of sales promotion letter. By doing so, the study attempts to provide insights into ESP teaching, including implications for reading, writing and translating English sales promotion letters discourse. It is sincerely hoped that the present study may contribute to the elaboration of the current approach to the study of business genres.
References
[1]Bhatia, V.K. 1997. Applied Genre Analysis and ESP[A]. In T. Miller (ed). Functional Approach to Written Text: Classroom Applications.Washington D.C. United States Information Agency.
[2]韩金龙（2000）。体裁分析与体裁教学法。《外语界》，2。
论文作者:党静静
论文发表刊物:《语言文字学》2018年第9月
论文发表时间:2018/9/27
标签：西安论文; 体裁论文; 语言学论文; 商学院论文; 汉族论文; 外国语大学论文; 期刊论文; 《语言文字学》2018年第9月论文;