Politeness in e-mails

STUDENT: GRIGORESCU MIRUNA

MASTER LEPC AN1
 Contents

What does politeness means? Short definition.

E-mails
Emails, requests
The relationship between professor and student
Writing emails to the professor
How to write an e-mail
Conclusions
Bibliography
 What does politeness means?
Politeness is the practical
application of good manners or
etiquette. It is a culturally defined
phenomenon, and therefore what
is considered polite in one culture
can sometimes be quite rude or
simply eccentric in another
cultural context.
Politeness is a term used to
describe the ... rational, rule-
governed, pragmatic aspect
of speech that is rooted in the human
need to maintain relationships and
avoid conflicts
(Janney & Arndt, 2003).
E-mails

Email, which falls under the more

broad category of computer-mediated
communication is a relatively new and
unique form of communication.
Users also have the opportunity to
take more time in composing their
message, and to rethink it in its
entirety before sending it.
 Emails, requests
While students are sending email
requests for different services to their
professors, these services may not
always require the sole action of the
professor (the hearer perspective).
Requests for appointment assume a
"we" perspective: action is required
from both student and professor to
make the appointment happen, as the
professor makes time for the
appointment and the student needs to
go to the professors office.
Email requests for appointment could be
considered the most standard situation:
professors are expected to hold office
hours and meet with students. Email
requests for feedback might contain
standard and non-standard elements:
professors are expected to give
feedback on students work, but the "in-
progress" feedback facilitated through
email technology remains at present at
the discretion of individual professors
(Glater, 2006; Inside Higher Ed, 2006).
 The relationship between professor
and student
While some researchers (Duthler, 2006;
Herring, 2002) have claimed that email,
due to its asynchronicity and reduced
context clues and its resulting "elevated
control over message production and
delivery" (Duthler, 2006, para. 5) does
promote more polite language, the
present study implies, however, that
students can plan, compose, revise, and
edit toward an appropriate and polite
email message only if they have flexible
linguistic means at their disposal and
know which linguistic structures and
politeness devices to use.
Todays interaction between students and
professors occurs mostly in cyberspace and
it is worth asking what effect the email will
have in the long run, have on students
language use, or, how students face-to-face
language use in the academic domain might
affect their email use with their professors.
When students address their professor, via
email or face-to-face, they are addressing a
higher-up, and while some requests closely
resemble standard situations, others are
nonstandard situations with increased levels
of imposition which need to be
acknowledged.
Writing emails to
the professor
Emails from students to professors
might take on more speech-like, less
formal features, especially with length of
contact, such as when students have
been taking several classes with the
same professor.
 How to write an e-mail
Students read several email messages
and examine the layout of the
messages on paper and on the
screen.
Students dissect each email message
into its components and uncover the
standard elements (e.g., subject line,
salutation, mention of attachment,
request, expression of gratitude,
students name).
Students focus on the actual request
language and how it differs
depending on the degree of
imposition.
Finally, students practice writing email
requests for feedback, first in more
controlled fill-in-thespeech-act
activities on worksheets and
eventually on their own in the
computer lab, where they send actual
email messages to their professor.
 Conclusions
In order to understand more about
how politeness is used in emails, the
data quantified in this paper should
be tested against more naturalistic
data, meaning both naturally
occurring data (emails that have
actually been sent) and more
naturalistic situations (emailing
someone to ask for information or to
apologize).
Miscommunication can be at the heart
of so many conflicts. It is even more
likely to occur in new modes of
communication. Since so many people
are using email on a regular basis the
chances of miscommunication are
even greater. For this reason it is
important to continue to study all
forms of communication, especially
those that are as widely used and
new to the mainstream as email.
 Bibliography

Pariera, Katrina (2006) "The Use of Politeness Strategies in Email Discussions

About Taboo Topics," PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal: Vol. 2: Iss. 1,
Article 29.
Sigrun, Biesenbach-Lucas (2007) Language Learning & Technology,
Volume 11, Number 2, pp. 59-81.