Written Communication across Cultures

A sociocognitive perspective on business genres

Yunxia Zhu

| University of Queensland, Australia

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027253842 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027294104 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

Winner of ABC's award for Distinguished Publication for 2006

This book explores effective written communication across cultures both theoretically and practically. Specifically it conceptualizes cross-cultural genre study and compares English and Chinese business writing collected from Australia, New Zealand and China. It is also one of those inspired by contrastive rhetoric but has contributed innovatively and uniquely by incorporating research findings from genre analysis, in particular, the sociocognitive genre perspective into this cross-cultural study.

On the one hand, the endeavor represents an in-depth theoretical exploration by considering not only discourse community and cognitive structuring, but also the deep semantics of genre and intertextuality, while broadening genre study by integrating insights from cross-cultural communication as well as the Chinese perspectives. On the other hand, the book also addresses pragmatic issues. As a particular feature, it solicits professional members’ intercultural viewpoints; thus confirming the shared social "stock of knowledge" employed in the culturally defined writing conventions.

Last but not least, this book explores the implications for genre education and training, and develops an appropriate model for cross-cultural genre learning, which encourages learning through legitimate peripheral participation and intercultural learning in business organizations.

[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 141] 2005. xviii, 216 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.141

Table of Contents

List of figures | p. xi

List of tables | p. xiii

Notation conventions | p. xv

Preface | pp. xvii–xviii

1. Introduction and outline | pp. 1–7

2. Communication across cultures | pp. 9–25

3. Conceptual framework: A dual perspective | pp. 27–60

4. Research design | pp. 61–69

5. Comparing English and Chinese sales letters | pp. 71–99

6. Comparing English and Chinese sales invitations | pp. 101–122

7. Comparing English and Chinese business faxes | pp. 123–154

8. Cross-Cultural genre teaching: Actions and implications | pp. 155–176

9. Summaries and conclusions | pp. 177–188

Appendices | pp. 203–208

Name index | pp. 209–211

Subject Index | pp. 213–215

“Zhu Yunxia's book is a high-level scholarly work, which is a must for every reader who is interested in the research of Chinese business communication and intercultural issues.”

Daniel Z. Kadar, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, on Linguist List, Vol. 17.1510 (2006)

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