E-mail: uses, issues and problems in an institutional setting

2014

OJML

This study investigated politeness in workplace emails that were written in a Malaysian educational institute. It examined the use of politeness strategies in relation to the ethnicity of the communicators, power relations and social distance. Previous research on Malaysian workplace emails revealed that Malaysians usually use the direct imperative or declarative politeness strategies in emails. This study however, revealed that the Malaysian employees (i.e., Malay, Chinese Malaysians, Indian Malaysians) mainly used the indirect positive and negative politeness strategies. This is the case to establish rapport and connect with the recipient on the personal level. The study also revealed that social distance played a more significant role than power imbalance as Malaysians, in general, seemed more polite to distant colleagues than they were to close colleagues.

Section: Literature Reviewsupporting

confidence: 67%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politeness in Business Writing: The Effects of Ethnicity and Relating Factors on Email Communication

2014

OJML

“…Later on, Louhiala-Salminen (1999) found that business fax can stand as an umbrella for a number of business fax subgenres like inquiry and order. Mulholland (1999) shared Louhiala-Salminen"s (1995) view of recognizing genres. She referred to workplace emails as a single genre.…”

Section: Identifying Genrementioning

confidence: 85%

“…She referred to workplace emails as a single genre. Mulholland (1999) strived to find the regularities of workplace emails as a genre, and she did not refer to any subgenres. Mulholland's motive of doing the study was driven by her desire "to describe and account for e-mail as a distinct genre in the evolutionary stage in one particular institution and in one set of communications" (Mulholland, 1999, p. 81: original emphasis).…”

Section: Identifying Genrementioning

confidence: 99%

Language Use in Computer-Mediated Communication: An Investigation into the Genre of Workplace Emails

2015

IJELS

This study investigated the moves and communicative purposes used in 522 email messages that were exchanged in a Malaysian private educational institute. Using Swales's (1990) move approach, this study revealed that email writers used fourteen moves that are mainly six framing and eight content moves. Content moves included four main, one intertextual, one supporting and two follow-up moves. The four main content moves reflected the main communicative purposes of the emails that are discussing issues, enquiring about issues, couriering (delivering) documents and informing about organizational and academic issues. The four communicative purposes varied in their structural organization, number of recipients and reaction to receiving the email.

“…The literature shows that scholars had their attempts focused on the social implications of workplace electronic communication. Linguists, on the other hand, used a small number of email massages (see for instance Alatalo, 2002;Mulholland, 1999;Nickerson, 2000), collected unrepresentative sample of emails (e.g. Ng, 2003;Nickerson, 2000; and focused on native speakers of English (Mulholland, 1999;Markus, 1994;Waldvogel, 2005Waldvogel, , 2007 to generalize facts.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asynchronous Communication: Investigating the Influences of Relational Elements and Background on the Framing Structure of Emails

2015

ALLS

This study explored the influences of relational elements and the background of communicators on the framing structure of email messages that were exchanged in an educational Institute in Malaysia. The investigation revealed that social distance played a more significant role than power relations as Malaysian respondents are, generally, more polite to distant colleagues than they are to close colleagues regardless of their organizational position. It was also revealed that the ethnic background of email writers prompted the framing structure of the emails as the use of the pre-closing move and 'thank you' as a closing marker was generally a Malaysian practice. This study also revealed that the framing structure of the emails depended on the direction of the message as the majority of the emails that were sent to external contacts included an auto signature, whereas the internally exchanged email were mainly signed off using the first name of the sender alone. In addition, it was revealed that email writers in the educational Institute had a very high tendency to name their messages as almost 100 percent of the emails included the identifying topic move, which was generally clearly or broadly informative move.