Investigating the Genre of a Business Fax: A Finnish Case Study

Abstract

The faxes sent and received during one week by a small Finnish company involved in international operations were analyzed to determine whether or not the business fax contains distinct features that warrant classifying it as a genre. Using a framework of critical discourse analysis, the study looked at a total of 69 faxes. The results suggest that the business fax is a distinct, dynamic genre that is constituted by and constitutive of the social practices within which it is situated. Five specific subgenres of the business fax — identified as specific information, specific requests, "for your information," first contact, and order — were also found. Some implications of English being used as the common language for faxes are also considered.Communicating in business has changed dramatically in the past two decades. The new communication media (computers, faxes, e-mail, voice mail) have affected the entire communication process: who communicates with whom, when, in what language, with what style, and through which channel. This is particularly true of international business where fax and e-mail reduce the impact of time zone differences, video conferences are organized instead of face-to-face meetings, and business people may take care of their daily correspondence while sitting at the airport by using a mobile phone and a laptop computer.The style and genres of written international business communication have been affected first by the computer revolution and word processing, then by the fax revolution. Within the next few years we may witness another revolution to come -that of electronic mail. While electronic mail is currently shaking the ground of communication practices in many corners of business communication, in international business communication it is not yet widespread enough to truly have the revolutionary impact that the present uses of faxes have had.The present paper examines the emerging style and genre of faxes in international business communication. In this arena the fax revolution is in full swing and has had a substantial impact.

“Hej Seppo, Could You pls Comment on This!”—Internal Email Communication in Lingua Franca English in a Multinational Company

“…This notion of one email genre entailed that the messages were viewed on a high level of abstraction or generality and that they would be comparable to the genre of the business fax or to that of the business letter (see Yates & Orlikowski 1992, Louhiala-Salminen 1997. As the present analysis was more detailed, it also revealed differences in the distribution of the framing moves (e.g.…”

“…In today's world, and especially in international business, communication for business purposes is increasingly carried on via email messages, the share of faxes is decreasing, and business letters are rare (see also . Louhiala-Salminen (1997 further suggests that the medium does not leave the message untouched; when the writer decides to write a fax and starts to write it on a fax form, he/she will be aware of the generic constraints and the unmarked conventions that the recipient expects him/her to follow. Drawing on this, it can be suggested that when the writer faces an email template on the computer screen, the generic constraints to be followed will be different than if he/she faced a letter template in Microsoft Word.…”

“…Akar & Louhiala-Salminen (1999: 222;also Louhiala-Salminen 1997: 324) found 17 moves, which were used to achieve the communicative purposes of the seven subgenres of the business fax genre in operation in a Finnish and a Turkish company involved in international business. 21 Thus, the fax genre in use was similar in the two companies based in different countries although the language of the messages was not the same: English was used in all 92 messages from the Turkish company but only 2 1 There are two more communicative purposes (Complaining and Confirming) in comparison to Louhiala-Salminen's (1997) findings; the reason for the discrepancy is explained by the different length of the collection period (five years for the Turkish company's messages and one week for those of the Finnish company).…”

Understanding sociocognitive space of written discourse: Implications for teaching business writing to Chinese students

“…3. I am aware of the discussion of stressing faxes as a genre (Louhiala-Salminen, 1997). However, these are not part of the concern of this paper which looks at text as part of written discourse but views it from the genre perspective.…”

“…First of all, genre is characterised by its purpose, form and content (Olikowski and Yates 1994), which are also the first type of genre knowledge and are often used as criteria for identifying business and professional genres such as faxes and emails (Louhiala-Salminen 1997;Gimenez 2004). These features are also seen as fundamental components of genre knowledge.…”