A Pragmatic Study on Cooperative Principle in Business Correspondence (Theoretical Prepara— tions)

A Pragmatic Study on Cooperative Principle in Business Correspondence （Theoretical Prepara— tions）

作者：王辉

来源：《科教创新》2014年第01期

中图分类号：I206.7 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1007-0745（2014）01-0301-01 1. Business correspondence

Business correspondence may be defined as any letter written to conduct business. It mainly， in practical commercial communication， consists of letter of inquiries， letter of replies and quotations， letter of orders and acknowledgement， letter on insurance， packing， transportation， payment， and letter of complaints and adjustment. （Oosting， 1983：14） 2. Nine principles for good business correspondence writing （Fang， 2001：16-18） There are nine principles， each of which begins with the letter “C”， for reference to write a successful business letter. Once the correspondence fits the nine principles， the good result can be well estimated. They， never changing easily， are listed as follows：

Clearness in expression； Correctness in statement； Conciseness in construction； Completeness in data； Courtesy in wording； Concreteness in description； Cheerfulness in mode； Consideration； Character. 3. Cooperative principle

As the objective of pragmatic study is to explain how language is used to effect successful

communication， conversation as the most common and natural form of communication， has drawn the attenion of many scholars. （Dai， 2002： 92）

Paul Grice， a philosopher and logician， made an attempt to explain the course of natural conversation. \"Make your contribution such as it is required， at the stage at which it occurs， by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.\"（Grice， 1975：41）His idea is that in making conversation， the participants must first of all be willing to cooperate. This general principle is called the Cooperative Principle （CP）. It goes as follows： （Dai， 2002：92）

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Make your conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

From what mentioned above， we can draw a conclusion that the nine principles of writing a good correspondence generally coincides with the basic requirements of cooperative principle.

Business correspondence will become far more effective if the cooperative principle， as a whole， is flexibly applied by writers of business letters， depending on specific business occcasions. So it is very necessary for us to have a stduy on what pragmatic functions cooperative principle can have on business correspondence.

作者简介：王辉（1988.4） 女，上海对外经贸大学，硕士，研究方向：外国语言学及应用语言学。