Rationale
A Business Letter, the most popular and the most widely written type of letter, is used to serve as a means of communication written for various commercial purposes These purposes can be a business deal, complaint, warning, notice, invitation, declaration, information, apology and various other corporate matters There are many types of business letters such as Application Letter, Acceptance Letter, Demand Letter, Letter of Complaint, Resignation Letter, Sales Letters, etc Among these types of letters, the Letter of Resignation may receive the least notice because people often think that when they leave their jobs they have nothing to do with their old company and old employer However, a good resignation letter can help the employee maintain a positive relationship with his/ her old boss, and pave the way for him or her to move on In addition, the employee might need a reference from the previous employer These show that knowing how to write a good resignation letter is very important Nevertheless, it seems that no researchers concern this kind of letter in English and Vietnamese Hence, in order to help people have better understanding of resignation letters and see the similarities and differences in writing style of English and Vietnamese resignation letters, this study focuses on comparing and contrasting discourse structure of English and Vietnamese resignation letters
The aims of the study are:
To review the background knowledge of discourse analysis and resignation letters
To point out the similarities and differences between discourse structures of English and Vietnamese resignation letters
To give some suggestions for writing resignation letters in English and Vietnamese
Conducting this study, I do not have the ambition to cover everything about discourse analysis of English and Vietnamese resignation letters I only concentrate on analyzing English and Vietnamese resignation letters in terms of discourse structures
What are the similarities and differences between discourse structures of English and Vietnamese resignation letters?
„Move analysis‟ approach is applied in this research to analyze the discourse structure of resignation letters in English and Vietnamese Besides, in order to find out the similarities and differences between discourse structure of English and Vietnamese resignation letters, the author uses comparison and contrast method
6 Organization of the Thesis: the study is divided into five main parts as follows:
This part consists of rationale for choosing the topic, aims and scope of the study, research question, research methodology, and organization of the study
Part B – Development Chapter 1 – Literature Review and Theoretical Background
This chapter includes general description of discourse analysis, discourse structure,
„Move analysis‟, and general information about English and Vietnamese resignation letters
This chapter describes the participants and methods which are applied to collect and analyze the data
Chapter 3 – Analysis of Discourse Structure in English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters
In this chapter, the author analyzes discourse structures in English and Vietnamese resignation letters in detail
Chapter 4 – Comparing and Contrasting Discourse Structure of English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters
The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese resignation letters in terms of discourse structures are pointed out in this chapter
In this part, the author gives some recommendations for writing a good resignation letters, points out some limitations of the study, and gives suggestions for further study
Chapter 1 – Literature Review and Theoretical Background
Discourse analysis is usually known as the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is utilized Harris (1952), Austin (1962), Hymes
(1964), Searle (1969), Grice (1975), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Widdowson (1979), Brown and Yule (1983) are linguists who greatly contribute to the overall picture of discourse analysis because they have provided a fundamental theory of discourse analysis In Vietnam, there are many linguists having joined in the trend of researching on discourse analysis as well Among these linguists, Tran Ngoc Them is regarded as the first one studying this new field In terms of genre analysis, there are a number of researches on academic genres such as research article (Swales,1990), sales promotion letters, job applications (Bhatia, 1993), sociology articles (Brett,1994), dissertations (Hyland, 2003), or “Genre Analysis of Personal statements: analysis of Moves in Application Essays to Medical and Dental schools”, by Ding (2007), “Self-composed: Rhetoric in Psychology Personal Statements” by Brown (2004), and so on With regards to resignation letter, up to now, there has been no research
Therefore, it is necessary to have a research in terms of discourse structure of resignation letters in English and Vietnamese Hopefully, this study can bring some contributions to the theory and implications of teaching and learning writing skill, especially writing English and Vietnamese resignation letters
2 Theoretical Background 2.1 General Description of Discourse and Discourse Analysis:
According to Crystal (1992: 25), “discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such a sermon, argument, joke or a narrative” Cook (1989: 156) defines discourse as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive” Nunan (1993: 6) states that discourse
4 needs “to be defined in terms of meaning”, and “pieces of discourse are those that form a meaningful whole” Widdowson (1979: 98) states: “Discourse is a use of sentences to perform acts of communication which cohere into larger communicative units, ultimately establishing a rhetorical pattern which characterizes the pieces of language as a whole as a kind of communication.”
We can see that most of the definitions of discourse typically involve reference to concepts of language above or beyond the sentence, language as meaning in interaction, language in use, and language in situational and cultural context
There have been so many concepts around the two terms „Text‟ and „Discourse‟
Some linguists use them interchangeably Other linguists try to make a clear distinction between them For example, Widdowson (1984: 100) argues, “Discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic product is text” Brown & Yule (1983: 6) argue that text is the representation of discourse and the verbal record of a communicative act David Nunan (1993: 6) clarified the two terms as follow: text is used “to refer to any written record of a communicative event” while discourse refers “to the interpretation of the communicative event in context”
For the sake of simplicity, in this thesis the two terms are used interchangeably to refer to any stretch of language in use, which is in most cases longer than a single sentence
Discourse analysis, a new area of language investigation since the early decades of the 20th century, has become one of the significant foundations in applied linguistics
Famous scholars at different periods such as Halliday and Hasan (1976), Brown and Yule
(1983), Widdowson (1984), Cook (1998) have a variety of works which equip us with insights to investigate language in use In Vietnam, since Tran Ngoc Them introduced his pioneering work on discourse, there have been a lot of researchers studying this field, namely Diep Quang Ban (1999), Nguyen Hoa (2003), etc
In the introduction to The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Schiffrin et al (2001) group the definitions of „discourse analysis‟ into three general categories The first one is the study of language use; the second is the study of linguistic structure „beyond the sentence‟; and the third one is the study of social practices and ideological assumptions associated with language and/or communication
The first type concentrates on traditional linguistic constructs - phrase and clause structures The second one focuses on extended sequences of utterances or sentences, and on how to construct and organize those „texts‟ in systematic ways The third concentrates either on participants‟ actions in particular communication events or on the general characteristics of speech/discourse communities in relation to issues such as power and gender
We can say that discourse analysis gives us insight into various aspects of language in use such as: how discourse norms and their realization in language differ from culture to culture; how talk follows regular patterns in a wide range of different situations; or how texts are structured beyond sentence level
In the theory of discourse analysis, the concept of discourse structure has been studied and expanded by many different researchers Hatim and Mason (1990) discuss constituents of discourse in terms of element and sequence Elements and sequences of discourse with their certain rhetorical functions to the whole purpose of a discourse create a stable discourse organization The text structure is seen in the light of pragmatics by Ross (1975) He states that text structure is „expectation structures‟ While Halliday and Hasan (1976) define discourse structure as the organization of language above the sentence such as: the paragraph, episode, or topic unit
Scope of the Study
Conducting this study, I do not have the ambition to cover everything about discourse analysis of English and Vietnamese resignation letters I only concentrate on analyzing English and Vietnamese resignation letters in terms of discourse structures
Research Question
What are the similarities and differences between discourse structures of English and Vietnamese resignation letters?
Methodology of the Study
„Move analysis‟ approach is applied in this research to analyze the discourse structure of resignation letters in English and Vietnamese Besides, in order to find out the similarities and differences between discourse structure of English and Vietnamese resignation letters, the author uses comparison and contrast method.
Organization of the Thesis
This part consists of rationale for choosing the topic, aims and scope of the study, research question, research methodology, and organization of the study
Part B – Development Chapter 1 – Literature Review and Theoretical Background
This chapter includes general description of discourse analysis, discourse structure,
„Move analysis‟, and general information about English and Vietnamese resignation letters
This chapter describes the participants and methods which are applied to collect and analyze the data
Chapter 3 – Analysis of Discourse Structure in English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters
In this chapter, the author analyzes discourse structures in English and Vietnamese resignation letters in detail
Chapter 4 – Comparing and Contrasting Discourse Structure of English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters
The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese resignation letters in terms of discourse structures are pointed out in this chapter
In this part, the author gives some recommendations for writing a good resignation letters, points out some limitations of the study, and gives suggestions for further study
Literature Review and Theoretical Background
Literature Review
Discourse analysis is usually known as the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is utilized Harris (1952), Austin (1962), Hymes
(1964), Searle (1969), Grice (1975), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Widdowson (1979), Brown and Yule (1983) are linguists who greatly contribute to the overall picture of discourse analysis because they have provided a fundamental theory of discourse analysis In Vietnam, there are many linguists having joined in the trend of researching on discourse analysis as well Among these linguists, Tran Ngoc Them is regarded as the first one studying this new field In terms of genre analysis, there are a number of researches on academic genres such as research article (Swales,1990), sales promotion letters, job applications (Bhatia, 1993), sociology articles (Brett,1994), dissertations (Hyland, 2003), or “Genre Analysis of Personal statements: analysis of Moves in Application Essays to Medical and Dental schools”, by Ding (2007), “Self-composed: Rhetoric in Psychology Personal Statements” by Brown (2004), and so on With regards to resignation letter, up to now, there has been no research
Therefore, it is necessary to have a research in terms of discourse structure of resignation letters in English and Vietnamese Hopefully, this study can bring some contributions to the theory and implications of teaching and learning writing skill, especially writing English and Vietnamese resignation letters.
Theoretical Background
According to Crystal (1992: 25), “discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such a sermon, argument, joke or a narrative” Cook (1989: 156) defines discourse as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive” Nunan (1993: 6) states that discourse
4 needs “to be defined in terms of meaning”, and “pieces of discourse are those that form a meaningful whole” Widdowson (1979: 98) states: “Discourse is a use of sentences to perform acts of communication which cohere into larger communicative units, ultimately establishing a rhetorical pattern which characterizes the pieces of language as a whole as a kind of communication.”
We can see that most of the definitions of discourse typically involve reference to concepts of language above or beyond the sentence, language as meaning in interaction, language in use, and language in situational and cultural context
There have been so many concepts around the two terms „Text‟ and „Discourse‟
Some linguists use them interchangeably Other linguists try to make a clear distinction between them For example, Widdowson (1984: 100) argues, “Discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic product is text” Brown & Yule (1983: 6) argue that text is the representation of discourse and the verbal record of a communicative act David Nunan (1993: 6) clarified the two terms as follow: text is used “to refer to any written record of a communicative event” while discourse refers “to the interpretation of the communicative event in context”
For the sake of simplicity, in this thesis the two terms are used interchangeably to refer to any stretch of language in use, which is in most cases longer than a single sentence
Discourse analysis, a new area of language investigation since the early decades of the 20th century, has become one of the significant foundations in applied linguistics
Famous scholars at different periods such as Halliday and Hasan (1976), Brown and Yule
(1983), Widdowson (1984), Cook (1998) have a variety of works which equip us with insights to investigate language in use In Vietnam, since Tran Ngoc Them introduced his pioneering work on discourse, there have been a lot of researchers studying this field, namely Diep Quang Ban (1999), Nguyen Hoa (2003), etc
In the introduction to The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Schiffrin et al (2001) group the definitions of „discourse analysis‟ into three general categories The first one is the study of language use; the second is the study of linguistic structure „beyond the sentence‟; and the third one is the study of social practices and ideological assumptions associated with language and/or communication
The first type concentrates on traditional linguistic constructs - phrase and clause structures The second one focuses on extended sequences of utterances or sentences, and on how to construct and organize those „texts‟ in systematic ways The third concentrates either on participants‟ actions in particular communication events or on the general characteristics of speech/discourse communities in relation to issues such as power and gender
We can say that discourse analysis gives us insight into various aspects of language in use such as: how discourse norms and their realization in language differ from culture to culture; how talk follows regular patterns in a wide range of different situations; or how texts are structured beyond sentence level
In the theory of discourse analysis, the concept of discourse structure has been studied and expanded by many different researchers Hatim and Mason (1990) discuss constituents of discourse in terms of element and sequence Elements and sequences of discourse with their certain rhetorical functions to the whole purpose of a discourse create a stable discourse organization The text structure is seen in the light of pragmatics by Ross (1975) He states that text structure is „expectation structures‟ While Halliday and Hasan (1976) define discourse structure as the organization of language above the sentence such as: the paragraph, episode, or topic unit
Although each researcher has his/ her own view of discourse structure, they are essentially the same All of them suppose that discourse of all kinds has definite organizations, and the flexibility of structures varies from genre to genre They try to establish the relationship between discourse structure and the communicative purpose of the speakers or writers, in order that they find out the method to analyze discourse structure based on the relationship of the factors of discourse
2.2 Genre Analysis and Approach to Genre 2.2.1 Genre
A genre is a culturally and linguistically distinct form of discourse such as narrative, exposition, procedural discourse, etc Sharing communicative purposes has been the
6 principal criterion which characterizes a class of communicative events as a genre
According to Bazerman (1988: 62), "a genre is a socially recognized, repeated strategy for achieving similar goals in situations socially perceived as being similar" Exemplars of a particular genre share similarities in "structure, style, content and intended audience"
(Swales, 1990: 58) With the similar point of view, Bhatia (1993: 13) defines “a genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs.” He also stresses the important role of communicative purposes in genre identification: "Although there are a number of other factors, like content, form, intended audience, medium or channel, that influence the nature and construction of a genre, it is primarily characterized by the communicative purpose(s) that it is intended to fulfill"
Relating the above discussions to this study, a resignation letter can be seen as a genre which shares the common communicative purpose that is stating resignation; and its social function is informing and persuading the employer to let the employee resign from his/ her current position and at the same time helping the employee to remain the good relationship with the old company They are also the communicative purpose that forms the key criterion for identifying data in this study
Swales (1990) supposes that genre analysis is a means of studying spoken and written discourse for applied ends; it is an analysis of text to derive an indication in a rationale of why genre texts have acquired certain features Bhatia (1991) considers genre analysis as the analytical framework revealing the utilizable form-function correlations and contributing to the understanding of the cognitive structuring of information in specific areas of language use
Up to now, Genre analysis, especially which concentrates on moves, has become a commonly applied approach to discourse analysis
2.2.3 Approach to Genre: Move Analysis
Methodology
Description of Samples & Method of Data Collection
At first, it was difficult to collect this kind of letters, especially those in Vietnamese because Vietnamese people do not have the habit of giving resignation letters when they want to give up their jobs It took two months to collect over 100 resignation letters in English and Vietnamese from different companies and organizations in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Kien Giang, Thai Nguyen and so on
Most of these letters are searched on the internet and the rest is collected directly The writers of resignation letters in English are English speakers, and the authors of Vietnamese ones are Vietnamese people These letters include a variety of reasons to resign such as: resignation for further education, health condition, or pursuing a new career, moving to another place; and some letters do not give the reasons to resign
Out of the total of over 100 resignation letters collected, the corpus of this study consists of 20 resignation letters (ten in English and ten in Vietnamese), which were selected based on the status of the person who resigns from the office and the background that he or she gives the resignation letters The total words in 20 letters are 4294 in which English resignation letters consist of 1786 words and Vietnamese resignation letters have
2508 words The number of words in 10 English resignation letters ranges from 107 to 304
While the range of words in Vietnamese resignation letters are between 166 and 352 The average length of resignation letters in Vietnamese (250.8 words) is slightly longer than that of English ones (178.6 words)
The selected texts cover a wide range of staffs‟ jobs such as: editor, accounting clerk, secretary, receptionist, filing clerk, librarian, production supervisor, etc They represent a variety of author styles However, all these letters have a common characteristic that is the person who gives the resignation letter is an office staff and the reason why he/ she wants to resign is pursuing a new career.
Methods of Data Analysis
To analyze the corpus, the thesis follows seven major analytical steps which were developed by Biber et al (2007), as shown in this table:
Table 1: Seven analytical steps Requires step in the analysis Realization in this approach
Develop the analytical framework: determine set of possible functional types of discourse units, that is, the major communicative functions which discourse units can serve in corpus
2 Segmentation Segment each text into discourse units (apply the analytical framework from step 1)
3 Classification Identify the functional type of each discourse unit in each text of the corpus (apply the analytical framework from step 1)
4 Linguistic analysis of each unit
Analyze the lexical/ grammatical characteristics of each discourse unit in each text of the corpus
5 Linguistic description of discourse categories
Describe the typical linguistic characteristics of each functional category, based on analysis of all discourse units of a particular functional type in the corpus
6 Text structure analysis Analyze complete texts as sequences of discourse units shifting among the different functional types
7 Description of discourse organizational tendencies
Describe the general patterns of discourse organization across all texts in the corpus
Adapted from Biber et al (2007)
After applying seven analytical steps to analyze the corpus, the results are displayed via tables/graphs in percentage terms From that the frequency of each category is determined and the results are discussed and evaluated The analysis results of resignation letters in English and Vietnamese are synthesized and discussed in an attempt to find out salient discourse features of this genre Finally, discourse structure of resignation letters in English and those in Vietnamese are compared and contrasted to point out the similarities and differences between them
Chapter 3 – Analysis of discourse structure in English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters
1 Discourse Structure Analysis of English Resignation Letters:
1.1 The Surface Features of English Resignation Letters:
In general, resignation letters in English are rather simple and their length is short
They are presented in only one page All the ten letters which are used in this study totally have 1786 words The number of words in each letter is presented as follows:
Table 2: The number of words in the corpus of English resignation letters
The letter number The number of words
From the above table, we can see that letter no.3 has the fewest words, and letter no.9 has the most words The rest letters have over 100 words in average
As mentioned in the format of an English resignation letter, a full one should have five paragraphs in the body of the letter However, the survey shows that the number of paragraphs in these ten letters ranges from 3 to 6 paragraphs The letters - no.3, no.5, and no.7 have 3 paragraphs The letters - no.1, no.2, no.4 and no.6 have 4 paragraphs Two letters – no.8 and no.10 have 5 paragraphs each Only letter no.9 – the longest one has 6
16 paragraphs The number of sentences in each paragraph ranges from 1 to 6 sentences There are 12 paragraphs which have one sentence in each (29.3%) There are 19 paragraphs having
2 sentences in each, equal to 46.3% 8 paragraphs have 3 sentences in each one, which equals to 19.6 No paragraph has 4 sentences (0) There is one paragraph having 5 sentences (2.4%) and one paragraph having 6 sentences (2.4%) These figures indicate that most of the paragraphs contain 1 to 2 sentences and the number of paragraphs having more than 2 sentences takes a small percentage
The total number of sentences in the body of ten English resignation letters is 85, in which the longest sentence has 48 words, and the shortest one has 6 words Other sentences have the average length from over 10 to over 20 words
The study of ten English resignation letter indicates that using complex, compound, and extended simple sentences is the common trend That accounts for the number of sentences in each paragraph is rather few
Most of the sentences in these letters are written in active voice and begin with subject „I‟ because in writing, the English often goes straight to the problem and thinks of
„who‟ or „what‟ in advance
All the letters take ten key characteristics in writing resignation letters into consideration Therefore, words that are used in these letters are clear, simple, easy to understand, but still formal so that the letters can convey the message effectively and avoid confusing
Because the employees want their employers to accept their resignation letters without feeling unpleasant and uncomfortable, they often use some words such as „please‟,
„would like‟, or „regret‟ in the letters We can see the following examples:
Please accept this as my formal resignation letter from my position as accounting clerk to be effective from September
Please accept this as my formal resignation letter from my position as receptionist to be effective from February 6 th
I‟d like to help with the transition of my job and responsibilities to another employee (letter no.8)
It is with deep regret that I give you my formal notice of resignation as editor at the Wall Street Journal Publisher
With some regret, this letter is my resignation from my position as administrative assistant with Wallace Development Company Limited (letter no.9)
Please accept this letter as formal notice that I wish to resign from my position as a filing clerk, effective from the date above (letter no.10)
1.2 The ‘Move Analysis’ of English Resignation Letters 1.2.1 The Analytical Framework:
In order to analyze the corpus, the first step is to develop the analytical framework; that means the set of communicative and functional categories which can be represented in the texts of the genre must be determined To identify the move types for a genre, it is essential to understand the overall rhetorical purpose of the texts in the genre Then the function and local purpose of each text segment must be found out and evaluated The process of sorting out move types is rather difficult; therefore, multiple readings and reflections on the texts are needed
Based on the above format of an English resignation letter, there is a move which is used to request the letter of reference However, in the process of reading and categorize move types in 10 English resignation letters, this move type hasn‟t been found out Instead of that, a new move type emerges, that is requesting interest from the old company Hence, after reading, reflecting and evaluating the corpus many times and also basing on the format and communicative purposes of an English resignation letter, the analytical framework of English resignation letters is developed It includes the following moves and steps:
Step A: The date of writing resignation letter Step B: The employer‟s contact information Move 2: Addressing
Move 3: Stating resignation and informing the last day of work
Step A: Stating resignation Step B: Informing the last day of work Move 4: Giving the reason of resignation positively
Step A: Stating the resignation reason
Step B: Expressing interest in the old job Move 5: Expressing the willingness to help with the transition Move 6: Requesting interest from the old company
Move 7: Showing gratitude & wishing success
Step A: Appreciating the old job Step B: Thanking
Step C: Wishing success Move 8: Ending
Step A: Expressing sincerity Step B: Signing
1.2.2 General Analysis of Move Types in English Resignation Letters
The survey of 10 resignation letters shows the frequency of moves that appear in each letter as follows:
Table 3: The frequency of move types in the corpus of English resignation letters
Move number Letter number Move Percent
Move 1 no.1, no.2, no.3, no.4, no.5, no.6, no.7, no.8, no.9, no.10
Move 2 no.1, no.2, no.3, no.4, no.5, no.6, no.7, no.8, no.9, no.10
Move 3 no.1, no.2, no.3, no.4, no.5, no.6, no.7, no.8, no.9, no.10
Move 4 no.1, no.2, no.3, no.4, no.5, no.6, no.7, no.8, no.9, no.10
Move 5 no.4, no.6, no.8, no.9, no.10 50 %
Move 7 no.1, no.2, no.3, no.4, no.5, no.6, no.7, no.8, no.9, no.10
Move 8 no.1, no.2, no.3, no.4, no.5, no.6, no.7, no.8, no.9, no.10
The above table indicates that move 1, move 2, move 3, move 4, move 7, and move 8 appear in all the letters in this corpus; whereas, move 5 appears in 5 letters Move 6 only appears in letter number 10 That means 6 move types (1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8) are obligatory and 2 moves (5, 6) are optional in this corpus
The survey also shows that the order of moves is not necessarily similar to the move order in the analytical framework
Table 4: The order of moves in English resignation letters Letter number Order of the moves
No.4 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 7 – 5 – 8 No.5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 7 – 8 No.6 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 7 – 8 No.7 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 7 – 8 No.8 1 – 2 – 3 – 7 – 4 – 5 – 7 – 8 No.9 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 7 – 4 – 3 – 5 – 4 – 5 – 8 No.10 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 3 – 6 – 7 – 5 – 8
From the table we can see that move 1, move 2, and move 3 are located at the beginning of the letters; move 8 is at the end; other moves can exchange their orders with each other; especially, move 4 often goes with move 7 Moreover, some moves repeat For example, move 4 appears 2 times and move 7 appears 3 times in letter number 2; or in letter number 9, move 3 turns up 2 times, move 4 repeats 3 times and move 5 appears 2 times
This indicates that except for some certain move types, depending on the style of the writer, the sequence of some move types can be changed or repeated without affecting the content of the letters
In addition, moves and steps do not necessarily coincide with paragraphs - more than one move/step appears in the same paragraph and one move/step can appear in two different paragraphs
Table 5: The list of moves and steps in English resignation letters Part
Letter number no.1 no.2 no.3 no.4 no.5 no.6 no.7 no.8 no.9 no.10
(Except for the first and the last parts appearing in the letters, other parts are equivalent to paragraphs)
1.2.3 Detail Analysis of Move Types in English Resignation Letters 1.2.3.1 Move 1 – Opening
This move can be realized by means of the following two steps
Step A: The date of writing resignation letter Step B: The employer‟s contact information
All of the ten letters in the corpus have move 1 The position of this move is at the beginning of the letters Its steps follow the order – step A step B in which step A is used to state the date when the employee writes the resignation letter and step B contains the employer‟s contact information including name, title, company name, and address Some examples are shown as follow: letter no 1 letter no 2
Mr John Brown Manager the Wall Street Journal Publisher
22 Cortland Street New York, NY 10007
Mr Ricardo Hession Hospital Administrator Einstein Medical Center
5501 Old York Rd, Philadelphia, PA (215) 456-7890