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Yuan-shan Chen · Der-Hwa Victoria Rau Gerald Rau Editors Email Discourse Among Chinese Using English as a Lingua Franca Email Discourse Among Chinese Using English as a Lingua Franca Yuan-shan Chen Der-Hwa Victoria Rau (cid:129) Gerald Rau Editors Email Discourse Among Chinese Using English as a Lingua Franca 123 Editors Yuan-shan Chen Gerald Rau Department ofApplied English Chiayi National Chin-Yi University of Technology Taiwan Taichung Taiwan Der-Hwa Victoria Rau Institute of Linguistics National Chung ChengUniversity Chiayi Taiwan ISBN978-981-287-887-8 ISBN978-981-287-888-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-981-287-888-5 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015949461 SpringerSingaporeHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon ©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaSingapore2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinor foranyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Printedonacid-freepaper SpringerScience+BusinessMediaSingaporePteLtd.ispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia (www.springer.com) Acknowledgments Producing a book is always a team effort. We are grateful for the tremendous support we have received from the many contributors. Their dedication, patience, andunderstandingduringtheproductionofthisbookhavebeenhighlyappreciated. Wealsowishtothankthereviewersforprovidingtheirvaluablecomments,which haveimmeasurablystrengthenedtheindividualchapters,andthusthewholebook. Our appreciation also goes to our assistants, Mr. Hsuan-Yu Tai and Ms. Tzu-Wei Hsiang, for their work in helping with the preparation of the manuscript. Special thanks also go to the Ministry of Science and Technology (formerly National Science Council) in Taiwan for their financial support (grant numbers: NSC-101-2628-H-167-001, MOST 103-2410-H-167-009). Finally, we want to express our appreciation to the staff at Springer Publishing for giving us the opportunity to publish this volume and for their support throughout. Yuan-shan Chen Der-Hwa Victoria Rau Gerald Rau v Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Yuan-shan Chen, Der-Hwa Victoria Rau and Gerald Rau Part I Emails from Students to Professors 2 Negotiating Personal Relationship Through Email Terms of Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Der-Hwa Victoria Rau and Gerald Rau 3 Discourse Organization and Features of Email Writing Among EFL Students in Taiwan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Li-Jung Huang 4 Do Chinese Students Waffle in Their Apologies?: An Exploration into EFL Learners’ Emails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Miao-Hsia Chang, Jean Curran, Yueh-Kuei Hsu and Chih-Chun Hsu 5 Politeness and Effectiveness of English Email Requests: Taiwanese Professors’ Perspectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Wan-jing Li and Yuan-shan Chen Part II Emails from Students to the International Academic Community 6 Emailing Requests to International Researchers: The Construction of Identity by Chinese EFL Graduate Students. . . . . 115 Xinren Chen 7 Intercultural Taoci Email: New Wine in an Old Bottle . . . . . . . . . 135 Lin Xiao and Yihong Gao vii viii Contents 8 Strategies Used in Chinese University Students’ ELF Emails to Remedy or Prevent Problems in Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Wei Ren Part III Emails from Peer to Peer 9 Openings and Closings in Intercultural Email Communication: A Case Study of Taiwanese, Japanese, and Italian Students . . . . . 185 Hsin-chou Huang 10 Apologies in Emails: Interactions Between Chinese EFL Learners and Their Foreign Peers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Jianda Liu and Wei Ren Part IV Emails in the Workplace 11 Status-Congruence in Request E-Mail Discourse of Professional Secretaries in a University of Taiwan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Pi-Hsia Lü 12 A Study on Symbolic Competence and Face in ELF Email Communication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Hsuan-Yu Tai 13 Top Secret: Hacking and Fraud Detection in Business Emails of a Taiwanese Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Tzu-Wei Hsiang Contributors Miao-Hsia Chang Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan Hsuan-YuTai InstituteofLinguistics,NationalChungChengUniversity,Chiayi, Taiwan Xinren Chen Department of English, School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China Yuan-shanChen DepartmentofAppliedEnglish,NationalChin-YiUniversityof Technology, Taichung, Taiwan JeanCurran DepartmentofEnglish,NationalTaiwanNormalUniversity,Taipei, Taiwan Yihong Gao Research Institute of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Peking University, Beijing, China Tzu-Wei Hsiang Institute of Linguistics, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan Chih-Chun Hsu Center for Teaching and Learning Development, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan Yueh-Kuei Hsu Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan Hsin-chou Huang Institute of Applied English, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan Li-Jung Huang Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics, Providence University, Taichung, Taiwan Wan-jing Li Institute of Linguistics, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan ix x Contributors JiandaLiu NationalKeyResearchCenterforLinguisticsandAppliedLinguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China Pi-Hsia Lü Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics, Providence University, Taichung, Taiwan Der-Hwa Victoria Rau Institute of Linguistics, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan Gerald Rau Chiayi, Taiwan Wei Ren National Key Research Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China Lin Xiao Research Institute of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Peking University, Beijing, China Chapter 1 Introduction Yuan-shan Chen, Der-Hwa Victoria Rau and Gerald Rau During the past few decades, English has become the dominant global lingua franca. In a broader sense, English as a lingua franca (ELF) includes not only speakers from the Expanding Circle (e.g., Taiwan, China), but also speakers from theInner (e.g., theU.S., Britain) andOuterCircles (e.g., India,Singapore). ELFis not the practice “of orientation to the norms of a particular group of English speakers, but of mutual negotiation involving efforts and adjustments from all parties” (Jenkins 2009, p. 201). Since the millennium, there has been a steady growth of empirical studies targeting English as a lingua franca in oral academic discourse, which have focused on the specific linguistic features and the commu- nicative strategies used to achieve mutual understanding. However, little attention hasbeenpaidtoEnglishinwrittentexts,agapidentifiedbyJenkinsetal.(2011)in their recent review of ELF research. This book thus aims to fill this gap by investigating Chinese speakers’ email discourseinanEnglish-as-a-lingua-francacontext.Thankstocomputertechnology, cyber communications have become more and more popular in the global village. Unlike formal academic writing, email discourse does not have well-established conventions, and email writers need to have high linguistic and pragmatic competence to compose appropriate emails. The chapters in this collection address a wide range of email discourse by Chinese speakersof English. To our knowledge, thisisthefirsteditedvolumedevotedsolelytoChinesespeakers’emaildiscoursein English. We target Chinese speakers of English because they constitute the largest populationfromtheExpandingCirclewhouseEnglishinalinguafrancacontext.It is our sincere hope that the studies reported in this volume will inspire others to further explore this issue. Y.Chen(&) DepartmentofAppliedEnglish,NationalChin-YiUniversityofTechnology,Taichung, Taiwan e-mail:[email protected] D.-H.V.Rau InstituteofLinguistics,NationalChungChengUniversity,Chiayi,Taiwan G.Rau Chiayi,Taiwan ©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaSingapore2016 1 Y.Chenetal.(eds.),EmailDiscourseAmongChineseUsing EnglishasaLinguaFranca,DOI10.1007/978-981-287-888-5_1

Description:

This edited volume makes a valuable contribution to the burgeoning research field of English as a lingua franca. In a pioneering step, the collection is exclusively devoted to the English email discourse of Chinese speakers. The studies address innovative topics related to various contexts and relat