Figure 4. The students' preferences (%)
establishing public image persuasiveness
m I
B 2 □ 3 □ 4 attracting interestFigure 5. The managers' preferences (%)
establishing attracting persuasiveness public image interest
NOTE: In the above two figures, the columns numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 stand for the four grades of ascribed importance. The vertical axis shows the percentage of each group who chose each grade for the three communicative purposes.
Figure 4 and Figure 5 show that the students and managers shared similarities in grading ‘establishing public image’, 64% of students and 80% of managers giving it a grade of 2 (quite important). But they differed in their grading of ‘attracting interest’ and
‘persuasiveness’. Compared with the managers, more students preferred a high degree of ‘attracting attention’: 74%:22%; while more students preferred a lower degree of
‘persuasiveness’: 37%:8%.
Follow-up interviews were conducted and the results are discussed as follows. Although both students and managers shared some similarities in grading establishing a positive public image, these two groups have significantly different understandings of the other two purposes and in balancing the relationship among these purposes.
The students seemed only to understand cultural protocol when they graded ‘establishing a public image’ as an individual purpose. 64% of the students thought it was quite important. One student from this group thought that it could influence the reader’s decision to buy the product. However, in talking about the relationships among the three main purposes, the students with this point of view thought that there was no need to grade it as very important, and the writer’s effort should be directed towards ‘attracting the
reader’s interest’. The students seemed to take this as the major purpose. Most (74%) of the students thought that it was very important for the reader to be interested in the product before everything else. They said that they did not mind sacrificing ‘persuasiveness’ for
‘attracting interest’. Therefore, slightly more than a third of students (35%) ranked ‘persuasiveness’ highest, and more students (37%) thought that this aspect was not so important. Although the students have different opinions on ‘persuasiveness’, they generally agreed that the writer should not expect too much from the reader. To make the reader interested was enough in a sales letter. Although the students were familiar with the cultural protocol such as the appropriate level of a public image, they do not seem to have the overall world schemata to balance the relationships among these purposes.
The managers, in contrast, seemed to have a fuller understanding of the
communicative purposes and thus could balance the relationships among them. They thought that in product promotion, ‘establishing a public image’ could be seen only as a subordinate purpose, while the major purpose was to persuade the reader to buy the product. ‘Attracting
interest’ could be seen as an initial-step to help realise ‘persuasiveness’. M ost of the managers (80%) thought that ‘establishing a public image’ was important in that it could help promote the product in the long term. In addition, they could use their knowledge of such promotion to point out a conflict, as when one manager said, “There was no need to be too much concerned with the public image. For example, a writer should not try to be very polite or respectful in order to achieve this purpose. If you were, the reader might think that you were lowering yourself and begging the reader to buy the product”. Some managers argued that readers might even be suspicious that the quality of the product might not be very good, or that the writer was mainly concerned with a positive public image only to practise a hard-sell policy. In this respect, assigning too much importance to public image could weaken persuasiveness. On the other hand, if the writer failed to establish a public image, such as a polite image, the reader might be offended and thus would not finish reading the letter. As one manager commented, “Establishing a positive public image can be related to polite behaviour. Even if the reader does not buy the product, it will help
promotion in the long run.”
Here the managers’ views bring to light the conflict between ‘establishing public image’ and ‘persuasiveness’. Solving this conflict involves balancing the two purposes and determining the appropriate degree for each. However, no solution regarding this can be found in textbooks, because they do not discuss potential conflict in communicative
purposes. In reality, this is a very common problem. A writer will constantly face this kind of conflict and need to balance the degrees of various purposes.
More than half (58%) of the managers ranked ‘attracting interest’ as grade 2, and thought that it was not as important as ‘persuasiveness’, which more than half (64%) ranked the highest. They thought that the writer should try to convince the reader with facts about the quality of the product. They expressed the opinion that they did not like unsupported advertising language to be used in sales letters. One manager said whenever you declared that the product was good, you should have evidence to substantiate this.
An interesting question is why so many students favoured ‘attracting interest’ at the expense of ‘persuasiveness’. The explanation may lie in the recipe approach they have picked up from textbooks and their lack of knowledge about the communicative purposes. The textbooks, instead of presenting a clear description of the major purposes of sales
letters, only list the tasks the writer has to accomplish. The students who are the learners of these rules seem never to query them, but simply accept them. The managers, on the other hand, seem to understand the communicative purposes better. They would not sacrifice
‘persuasiveness’ for ‘attracting interest’. They said, “If you say something that is not true, the readers will find out very soon when they buy your products, and stop cooperating with you. You will not only lose your customers but also your name in business circles.” From this, we can see the relationship between well-defined world schemata and understanding of the communicative purposes as indicated in the managers’ views.
5.2 The usage of formulaic components
This section will focus on discussing questionnaire results and interviews on the lower levels of text of moves, steps and linguistic forms. The purpose is to find whether the gap in the native speakers’ understanding of communicative purposes will lead to different views on these lower levels. However, this section does not intend to provide a complete account of possible differences; instead, only formulaic moves will be discussed as an example.
The first questionnaire item focuses on the native speakers’ preferences for headings, salutations, greetings and well-wishes. The results are shown in Table 5.