Abstract: With the development of cross-border e-commerce providers and the strong support of government policy "Internet +", more and more people are involved in the cross-border e-commerce. If the sellers want to be the winners in the cross-border e-commerce, they have to control the quality, develop new ideas. Meanwhile, it’s also very important to keep good communication with buyers, so the electronic business English writing skills are essential. In this paper, according to the writer’s actual operation experience, for the sale of transactions in different business context and the communication with the buyers and the sellers, some suggestions have been put forward based on politeness principles, which are to improve order conversion rates and turnover rates, resolve order disputes and business risks.

Key words: business correspondence; politeness principles; examples; strategies

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction-1

2 Literature Review and Theoretical Basis-2

2.1 A Brief Review of Business Correspondence-2

2.1.1 The Definition of Business Correspondence-3

2.1.2 Classification of English business correspondence-4

2.2 Politeness Principles-5

2.2.1 A Brief Review of Politeness Principles-5

2.2.2 Leech’s Politeness Principle-6

2.2.3 Face-saving View and Politeness Language-7

2.2.4 Significance of Politeness Language in Business Correspondence-8

3 Presentation of Politeness Language in Business Correspondence of Aliexpress Hair Acessory Trade-9

3.1 Positive Politeness Language-9

3.1.1 Approbation-10

3.1.2 Agreement-10

3.2 Politeness’s Negative Representation in Business Correspondence-11

3.2.1 Respect-11

3.2.2 Apology-12

4 The Strategies of Politeness Principles in Business Correspondence-13

4.1 The Strategies at the Lexical Level-13

4.1.1 Using Positive Words-13

4.1.2 Using Specific and Concrete Words-14

4.1.3 Using the Modal Verb-15

4.1.4 Using You-attitude-15

4.2 The strategies at the syntactic level-16

4.2.1 Using Passive Tense-16

4.2.2 Using Subjunctive Mood-17

4.2.3 Using Short Sentence-17

5 Conclusion-18

References-20