Inviting the reader

Move 2, inviting the reader, can be seen as composed of one step, and is employed by all the twenty letters. The position of this move varies. It is placed either after the

introduction to the exhibition or after the description of it. This move is characterised by the use o f respectful and honorific linguistic forms. When an appropriate degree of respect is used, the invited will feel honoured. It is felt that the more respectful the invitation is, the more likely it will be accepted. Here the Chinese concept of ‘face’ comes into play. There is a common saying that ‘rii jin g w o yl chvi, wo jin g nil yl z h a n g ’ (If you respect me one inch, I will respect you ten times more). So sometimes, the feeling of being honoured by others may act as a reason for the reader to accept an invitation. Therefore the polite use of language is very important here, and is also consistent with forms used for the formulaic moves.

In this move, the writers often use verbs relating to ‘inviting’ especially the verb ‘y ä o q ln g ’ (invite), which can be used both as a verb and a noun. According to the M odem Chinese Dictionary (Shekeyuan, 1984:1340), the word ‘y ä o ’ (invite) alone can indicate the meaning of ‘inviting’. The word ‘q ln g ’, which also means ‘please’, is used here as a verb meaning ‘ask or request courteously’. These two characters have similar meanings. The combination of ‘y ä o ’ (invite) plus ‘q ln g ’ (ask politely) makes the act of inviting respectful and formal, and it is used to formally invite guests. However, the writer can make ‘y ä o q ln g ’ more polite or respectful by combining it with other modifiers. For example, ‘c h e n g y l’ meaning ‘sincere’ is often used to modify ‘y ä o q ln g ’ to indicate the writer’s sincerity:

c h en g y l yäoqlng gui göngsl p ä iy u än q iän w än g cän g u än . sincerely invite your (H) company send-people come visit We sincerely invite your company to come and visit.

There are three other compound verbs used which express a similar meaning to ‘ch en g y i y ä o q ln g ’ (invite): ‘te y ä o ’ or ‘tecl y ä o q ln g ’ (specially invite), T in q q ln q ’ (respectfully invite) and ‘qönqq ln q ’ (respectfully invite). As indicated by the underlined part, all three compound verbs are related to the verb ‘y a o q m g ’. The compound ‘te y ä o ’, composed of the modifier ‘te ’ (special) and ‘yäo(qlng)’ (invite), means ‘specially invite’ and indicates that the writer takes the invitation as something special. ‘J in g q in g ’ is composed of the modifier

‘j i n g ’ (respectfully), and ‘(y ä o )q ln g ’. The third compound verb ‘g ö n g q m g ’ is composed of the modifier ‘g o n g ’ (respectfully), and ‘(y ä o )q ln g ’, and has the similar level of respect to ‘jin g q in g ’. All this shows that these verbs relating to the act of invitation are related to respect to the reader, which matches the level of respect of the letter in general.

The above four forms of ‘inviting’ can be used interchangeably, as they all endeavour to show a high level of respect. All of them were found in the corpus: nine letters use

‘te y ä o ’ (specially invite), five letters use ‘jin g q in g ’ or ‘g ö n g q m g ’ (respectfully invite) and three letters use ‘c h en g y i y ä o q ln g ’ (sincerely invite).

Inviting can also be expressed by the verb ‘h u ä n y in g ’ (welcome). This word is less formal than ‘y ä o q ln g ’, but can be used to indicate the hospitality of the writer. The

association of the two concepts of ‘h u ä n y in g ’ (welcome) and ‘k e ’ (guest) or ‘p e n g ’ (friend) is expressed in the following example:

h u ä n y in g gew ei däo w en zu ö zuö ke, y o u peng zl y u ä n fan g welcome everyone come Wenzhou be guest have friend from far läi, bü yl luö hü?

come not also happy QM

(We) welcome everyone to come to Wenzhou to be our guests! How happy we will be if we have friends coming from far away!

In the above example, the second sentence is taken from the words of Confucius, and this has become a common saying in Chinese used to welcome a friend. This saying is written as a rhetorical question, as the classical question marker ‘h ü ’ indicates a question. As discussed

earlier in this chapter, ‘friendship’ in sales invitations has its own connotation. Here it is used to refer to the reader as a guest, rather than as a casual friend.

In the corpus, six letters (20%) use the form ‘h u ä n y m g ’ (welcome) in the letter. Among them, three use this form to reinforce the invitation, in addition to the other verbs relating to inviting.

The third type of verb used to indicate the speech act of invitation is ‘qm g c ä n jä ’ (please participate) and ‘w äng c ä n jä ’ (hope you will participate). These two expressions are used in one letter each (10% of the corpus). ‘Q m g c ä n jä ’ (please participate) is an imperative sentence plus the softener ‘q m g ’ (please). The softener ‘q m g ’ is often used as a request as discussed in the last chapter. It is also possible for an invitation to use this form. However, ‘q m g ’ indicates a lower level of respect compared with ‘y ä o q m g ’ (invite).

‘W äng c ä n jä ’ (hope you will participate) is a declarative sentence with the subject omitted. ‘W ang’ (hope) is also found to be used in sales letters to indicate a request (see Chapter 4), and has also been found by Kirkpatrick (1991) frequently to raise a request in Chinese request letters. As noted earlier, an invitation differs from a request, and especially Chinese invitations tend to use forms relating to high respect. ‘W äng’, therefore, as a form of request would indicate a lower level of respect than ‘y ä o q m g ’ (invite). W hen it comes to

invitations, this form does not sound appropriately respectful, and does not meet the level of respect an invitation usually requires. Neither ‘q m g ’ nor ‘w äng’ seem to indicate the

appropriate level of respect or hospitality. It is possible that because of this, these two expressions were not commonly used.

Another relevant point relating to this move is the phenomenon of inviting the reader more than once. One letter repeats the invitation as follows:

( l) jin g q ln g gui dänw ei jie s h i p ä iy u än c än jiä sh en g h u i.

respect-invite your (H) company then send-person participate grand-exhibition (We) respectfully invite your (H) company to attend this grand exhibition.

(2) jie c h e n g h u a n y in g guanglm . wholehearted welcome presence (H)

(We) wholeheartedly welcome (your) presence (H).

In the above example, the first invitation is expressed by the verbal phrase ‘jm g q in g ’ and the second by another verbal phrase ‘jie c h en g h u a n y in g ’. Notice both types of inviting tend to use honorific forms such as ‘g u i’ (your H) and ‘g u ä n g lin ’ (presence H) to match the respect and politeness of this genre.

Five letters (25%) invited the reader more than once, and this phenomenon is worthy of note as it is related to a typical cultural value. Although in form this repetition is a kind of redundancy, if it is put in the Chinese cultural context, it does not represent redundancy at all. In everyday conversation, people often repeat an invitation in order to express

hospitality. The more times the host repeats the invitation, the more hospitality and sincerity are exhibited. If the host invites the guest only once, the guest may think that the host is only following some kind of ritual and does not mean to invite. If the host insists on the invitation again and again, the addressee will take it as a sincere invitation and know that the host means what s/he is saying. Although the written form is different from oral invitations, repeated inviting appears to be influenced by this ritualistic practice. According to Chen (1991:106), repetition in invitations is sometimes necessary because it emphasises the invitation. He further explains that repeating the invitation again and again indicates the writer’s cordiality and sincerity towards the reader. The repetition of the invitation is, therefore, not redundant.

4.2.3 Establishing credentials

Move 3, establishing credentials, does not seem to be a frequent one, and only five letters (25%) in the corpus employed this move. The reason for its infrequent use may be that the focus of the introduction is not always related to one company’s products, but to the products at the exhibition from various companies. It is very hard to give credentials for all the producers of these products. In fact, all the letters that have this move are about exhibiting the products of one particular company. The position of this move seems to be rather fixed, with four instances placed after ‘introducing the exhibition’, and only one

placed before ‘providing registration details’. The linguistic forms of this move are quite similar to those used in sales letters. For example, one letter writes:

XXX jiq'i zh'izäo chäng shl q u än g u ö zu id ä de jiq'l

XXX machinery make company be all-country biggest GNE machinery zh lzäo ch än g zhl yl.

make company GNE one

XXX Machinery Co. is one of the biggest throughout the country.

The credentials in the above example are established by indicating the scale of the company in the forms of ‘zu id ä ... zhl y l’ (one of the biggest). These credentials can be seen as indicating high productivity as the company has such a large scale. This factor may attract the readers’ interest.