earticle

영어

This study examines the principles and practices of politeness strategiesin email communications in Korean. Combining qualitative and quantitativemethod, the study analyzes forty four request made via email of two Koreanworkplaces: educational organizations and companies. The analysis appliesBrown and Levinson(1987) and Blum-Kulka (1989)'s politeness framework toinvestigate the linguistic and stylistic features of the emails in two institutionalsituations. The study found a general structure of request email and a rangeof various politeness strategies employed for the writing of the correspondence. Result reveals the general structure of email as 'Opening - RSM1 - RHA - RSM2 - Closing.' Also, it is found that far more requests are realized throughconventionally indirect strategies as well as negative politeness strategies thandirect and positive strategies. The study concludes that such a variety of politenessstrategies in writing relates strongly to Korean politeness values and business etiquette.