Letters of rejection: The unwelcome news

Authors

  • Elena Bosch Abarca University of Valencia
  • Rosa Giménez Moreno University of Valencia

Abstract

The study examines the politeness phenomenon of ‘unwelcome news letters’. We try to formulate the ways in which writers express their needs to repair the possible damage caused to an applicant for having his/her job application rejected. Drawing on Brown and Levinson’s work (1978; 1987), thirty letters of rejection are examined – sixteen of them being analysed in detail – in terms of the addressors’ concerns to avoid face-threatening acts.

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Author Biographies

Elena Bosch Abarca, University of Valencia

Elena Bosch Abarca has been teaching EFL since the 1980s. In 1990 she became a Senior Lecturer at the University of Valencia (Spain) teaching mainly Business English. Her major areas of research lie in Text Linguistics and Business Communication.

Rosa Giménez Moreno, University of Valencia

Rosa Giménez Moreno is a lecturer in Professional Communication Studies at the University of Valencia (Spain). She does research mainly into discourse production in the area of English for Academic and Business Purposes.

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Published

2008-12-21

How to Cite

Bosch Abarca, E., & Giménez Moreno, R. (2008). Letters of rejection: The unwelcome news. The ESPecialist, 27(1). Retrieved from https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/esp/article/view/1628

Issue

Vol. 27 No. 1 (2006)

Section

Papers

License

The authors grant the journal all copyrights relating to the published works. The concepts issued in signed articles are the absolute and exclusive responsibility of their authors.