No register! Using punctuation, modality and phraseology to

teach email

Alistair McNairEnglish Language Tutor

• Student emails

• Is teaching of email important?

• What makes email difficult to write?

• Context of study

• Systemic functional grammar

• Analysis of email length, openings, closings, punctuation, modality, phrases

• How can we teach email?

• Conclusions

Outline

I'm so sorry. I forgot check the mail again. I wii come to see you next week.

Hello sir.You dont stay in Sheffield at this moment?I would like to see you..because i have something want to discuss

HII am so sorry about missing you an appiontment.because I have to go to manchester with my friends.

Student emails

• Most work places and education environments use email.

• Email helps learners interact with other people and build relationships using a variety of function e.g. requests; advice; demands

• Impressions of student ability can be based on writing in emails

• Email could provide a means of improving proofreading skills

Is teaching email important?

• Email is ‘a strange blend of writing and talking’ (Naughton 2002: 143).

• Louhiala-Salminen concurs: ‘the conventions of business letters are well-established, those of fax, and in particular email, are not as stabilized. Therefore one finds more variation in the language used in faxes and emails.’ (1999 cited in Koester 2004: 34)

What makes email difficult for students to write (and difficult for teachers to teach)?

• Danet (2002) raises the issue of ‘style leakage’ (ibid.: 24), that is writers write email in the style they have first or most frequently encountered e.g. academics write email in a more business-like fashion, and the students in a more conversational style.

• ‘public or business email practice was drifting towards [a] more “oral” style…than traditional letter-writing’ (ibid.: 11)

What makes email difficult for students to write (and difficult for teachers to teach)?

• Baron (2001) might agree with Danet’s argument, but explains it from a longitudinal perspective, and sees the informality of email, in her opinion, as a result of the loss of ‘public face’ (ibid.: 8): ‘OK NAOMI…if you know something…tell me’

• Baron points out that this candour may be lessening as email ‘increasingly emulates pen-and-paper formats’ and people realize that ‘real people are reading their messages’ (ibid.).

What makes email difficult for students to write (and difficult for teachers to teach)?

•‘there is no real accepted style for writing emails’,

•‘No difference between letters and emails.’

•‘English language course books provide good examples of emails’

•Emails in course books are ‘too generalized.’

Teacher opinions

Hiya - he's the one we don't have the certificate for, unfortunately! C…….'s chasing but we're unlikely to have it very soon unless T……….. gets back or we get through to the (currently ringing off) IELTS test centre. Sorry!P…….

Hallo,Found this and will add to shared drive. Anything else needed? Presumably a guide as to how to make an appeal or regulations..etc..?!

A……….,Would it be possible to let students have copies of some of the student's posters as models? Or would we need to get permission?Regards,C………

Emails from a college

Market Leader

Pre-Intermediate

Market Leader

Intermediate

Market Leader

Upper Intermediate

Business Benchmark

Pre-Intermediate

Business Benchmark

Upper-Intermediate

Semi-

formal

Informal Semi-

formal

Informal Semi-

formal

Informal Formal Informal

Internal

Sender

Internal

Reply

Dear

Hi

Hello

Name only

Apostrophes

Exclamations

Abbreviations

Best wishes

Regards

Thanks

First name

Both names

Emails in Business English Course Books

Market Leader

Intermediate

2010

Language Leader

Intermediate

2010

Language Leader Upper

Intermediate

2010

First Certificate Expert

2010

Internal External Informal Formal Informal Formal Informal Formal

Dear

Hi

Name only

Apostrophes

Exclamations

Yours sincerely

Best wishes

Best

Love

Nothing

First name

Both names

Can

Will

Would

Two sample emails

TomJust to confirm that we will be able to attend the meeting next Friday. I’ll be with our Sales Director, Mary Fowler.Harry (Cotton et al, 2010, p.127)

Dear LouiseGot your email on Friday. Thank you for the invitation. Sorry, but I can’t make it as we have a teambuilding seminar that weekend. Please let Mark know about the new products. Please feel free to call/mail me again if you need any more help.Speak to you soonDenise (Cotton et al, 2010, p.67)

• There are too few emails in course books.

• Emails in course books are too simple or too similar to traditional letters compared with emails in the work environment.

• Once students go to work or university they may find how to write appropriate emails challenging.

• Students need to realise that emails are complex and need to be appropriate for the reader.

• By analysing systematically types of email, punctuation, phrases and modality learners can begin to see what language is expected in emails.

Thesis

Context of study

British Council Ukraine Large organisation with over 100 staff Established in 1990s 160 emails 2 senior teachers 3 teachers 2 information assistants (Ukrainian)

University of Brighton's International CollegeSmall school with around 14 staff Established since 2011185 emails3 managers3 teachers3 administrative staff

• Although there are over 300 emails, the study only examines emails of 16 people.

• Email style could have been affected by individual relationships, different nationalities and genders.

• Unequal balance between the different occupations.

• English not everybody’s first language

Limitations of study

Systemic functional grammar

• The textual (Mode) metafunction: ‘we organise our messages in ways that indicate how they fit in with other messages around them’ (Thomson 2004: 30).

• The interpersonal (Tenor) metafunction: ‘to interact with other people, to establish and maintain relations with them’ (ibid.: 30)

• The experiential (Field) metafunction: ‘talk about our experience of the world [and] to describe events and states and the entities involved in them’ (ibid.: 30).

•Mode: length, openings and closings

•Tenor: punctuation and modality

•Field: types of email and phraseology

Features of email examined in this study

Tenor: punctuation

Dear G…………..,

So far I have not used CEF for purposes of

assessment. I wasn’t sure if I absolutely had to or

not. However, I plan to do so with some groups,

particularly with my Advanced group who have

specified that they don’t want a test. Some (such as

my level 6 group) have said they want a test, so I

may have to do both.

Best regards,

B………….

• Gains: ‘in commercial use…e-mail messages are heavily employed to disseminate information (45%) and to make requests (32%)’ (ibid.), while 11% were directives.

• Gimenez (2000: 240): 51 out of 63 messages ‘were sent to either request or provide information.’

• In the British Council Ukraine 89.1% of all the emails were either informative, requestive or both.

Field: types of email

Field: types of email

Please find attached the supplementary questionnaire you requested. Could you please return it to me by next Wednesday?

Information Assistants

Teachers Managers

Could you please confirm

Could you please remind who of

Could you please meet tomorrow

Could you please let me know if

Could you please let us know

Regarding the flight to Rome, please do not book it for Monday

If it is possible, can we go by train?

Perhaps we should try train tickets?

I’m not sure if it’s too late, but I wouldn’t mind

Please order the key from FOSCan you pleas check if there isPlease print out this job offerCan you please translate this messagePlease reserve a place forPlease write your self-assessmentsPlease call the waiting list of young learners

Field: phrases (British Council Ukraine)

Administration Teachers Managers

Is this still on?Did sales ever chase this for us?Anything else needed?Can you advise on this?Can you make it look goodWhat do you think?

I wonder if you know off the top of your headWould you be able to confirm by the end of todayJust wondering if you had any materialsCan I book room 303 on Friday…please?

Can we have a word about her Could you also have a look atDid you do the ER trainingPlease could you complete the attachedWould you please drop me an email Did you get a name and if so could you

Field: phrases: (Brighton)

• Use your own emails to elicit features of email English, phrases and punctuation.

• Students compare your or colleagues’ emails with emails in course books.

• Encourage learners to use email as part of their learning process e.g. sending homework by email; writing emails to each other.

• Respond to learners by email.

• Ask learners to look at sample learner email to elicit mistakes.

How can email be taught?

• Between 75% and 89% of emails are 4 lines long or shorter

• Openings and closings are much more varied than course books and previous research suggests.

• Most frequent types of email are informative and requestive or a mixture of both

• At the British Council Ukraine, each work position uses punctuation and modality very carefully, but differently, to maintain face: managers use can; information assistants use could

Summary of findings

• At University of Brighton’s International College, administration tend to ask short, direct questions

• Teachers use most complex, cautious language when asking questions in both schools

Summary of findings

Conclusions

• Emails in course books are much simpler than in practice

• Emails can be simplified by examining punctuation, modality and phraseology

• By providing learners with a context, they can begin to understand why emails are written as they are

Thank you for listening!

Any questions?

Baron, Naomi, S. (2000) Alphabet to email London: Routledge.Baron, Naomi, S. (2001) ‘Why email looks like speech: Proofreading, Pedagogy and Public Face’. Paper

presented at ‘Language, the Media, and International Communication’ St. Catherine’s College, Oxford.http://www.american.edu/tesol/2003%20Paper--Why%20Email%20Looks%20Like%20Speech.pdf (Last

accessed 2 March 2009)Bell, J., Gower, R. (2010) First Certificate Expert Harlow: Longman Brooke-Hart, Guy (2006) Business Benchmark Upper-Intermediate Bec Vantage Cambridge: CUP.69Cotton, D., Falvey, D. and Kent, S. (2001) Market Leader Upper Intermediate Harlow: Longman.Cotton, D., Falvey, D. and Kent, S. (2005) Market Leader Intermediate Business English Course Book Harlow: Longman.Cotton, D., Falvey, D. and Kent, S. (2007) Market Leader Pre-Intermediate Harlow: Longman. Cotton, D., Falvey, D. and Kent, S. (2010) Market Leader Intermediate 3rd Edition Harlow: Longman.Cotton, D., Falvey, D., Kent, S. (2010) Language Leader Intermediate Harlow: Longman Cotton, D., Falvey, D., Kent, S. (2010) Language Leader Upper Intermediate Harlow: LongmanDanet, Brenda (2002) ‘The Language of Email’. Paper given at European Union Summer School, University of Rome, June 2002, Lecture II.http://www.europhd.psi.uniroma1.it/html/_onda02/04/ss8/pdf_files/lectures/Danet_emai l.pdf (Last accessed 2 March 2009).Dubicka, Iwonna and O’Keeffe, Margaret (2006a) Market Leader Advanced Business English Course Book Harlow: Longman. Dubicka, Iwonna and O’Keeffe, Margaret (2006b) Market Leader Advanced Business English Teacher’s Resource Book Harlow: Longman. Gains, Jonathan (1999) ‘Electronic Mail – A New Style of Communication or Just a New Medium?: An Investigation into the text features of E-mail’. In English for Specific Purposes 1999 Vol.18 No.1 81-101.

References

Gimenez, Julio, C. (2000) ‘Business e-mail communication: some emerging tendencies in register’. In English for Specific Purposes 19 (2000) 237-251. Koester, Almut (2004) The Language of Work Abingdon: Routledge. Louhiala-Salminen, L. (1999) ‘From business correspondence to message exchange: what is left?’ In Hewings, M and Nickerson, C (Eds) Business English: Research into Practice Harlow: Longman 100-114. Naughton, John (2002) A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet London: Phoenix. Thompson, Geoff (2004) Introducing Functional Grammar London: Arnold. Whitby, Norman (2006) Business Benchmark Pre-Intermediate – Intermediate Cambridge: CUP.

References