How best to teach and compose negative messages is a topic that continues to challenge and spark debate among business communication educators and researchers. Even where business communications textbooks emphasize the importance of context and audience analysis to determine whether to adopt a direct or indirect arrangement when expressing bad news, many still favour an indirect approach. In reviewing 50 years of negative news research, this article highlights the major concerns that continue to influence the debate as educators challenge and question existing models for addressing this rhetorically complex message genre.
Margaret Paston's influential role in managing the Paston family's affairs in her capacity as a wife, mother, and widow has been well documented. Garnering less attention, however, has been Margaret's role as the 'maistresse' of her household and the influence she exercised in governing the estate servants with whom she collaboratively managed the Paston family's estate business. Examining the highly politic speech activity of request enacted in the petitionary letters servants addressed to Margaret offers a rare opportunity to examine the rhetorical impact of these letters in the dialogic shaping and expression of Margaret's honour or 'worshep', a critical aspect of her social self and influence in the course of estate management.
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