PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
The event that Vietnam joined WTO this year is so meaningful. Vietnam had
been waiting for this for a long time before it was officially a member of this
organization. This event will help our country to develop more quickly and it helps
Vietnam to catch up with the speed of economic development of other countries. It
also eases the international business transactions, which are becoming more important
than ever before. International business transactions are an effective way of
communication as they enable the communication of every country in the world. The
international business communication is very important. Lockers (1992:14) states:
“Good communication is worth every minute it takes and every penny it costs”.
Business communication can be taken in the form of face-to-face meetings or of
written communication known as business correspondence. Business correspondence
takes a very large share in business communication as business associates who desire
transactions quickly are in different distance places and are unable to frequently travel
a long way for every single business discussion.
Every businessman would like their business to run smoothly without any
troubles as company closed down, orders are refused or complaints are made.
However, it is too perfect business. In business transactions, it is common for
businessmen to write business letters that convey bad news. Bad news certainly
displeases readers and may cause destruction in relationship between business
partners. Therefore, knowing how to write a good letter conveying bad news is
essential for the survival of a business.
With the hope of finding out how English writers write bad-news letters, the
writer does hope that her findings will be very useful for everyone who cares about
bad-new business English letters.
2. Aims of the study
The study aims at
- Studying the ways to convey bad news in English business correspondence;
- Finding out some strategies in conveying bad news in English business
correspondence;

messages sent. However, during everyday business transactions, bad-news messages
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are always available in the three kinds of letter. What is more, time and reference
constraints are also the barrier for the extension in the scope of the study. For the
reasons above, the writer only focuses on the above-mentioned matters in her
research.
5. Design of the study
Part A is an introduction presenting the rationale of the study, the aims, the scope, the
method and the design of the study.
Part B consists of 3 chapters:
Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background of this work. Firstly, the notion
of, and the background of speech acts are provided. The emphasis will be on
dimensions and types of speech acts, face and politeness and the act of breaking bad
news.
Chapter 2 is the study which deals with how to convey bad news in English
business correspondence. Some strategies are employed in direct and indirect
approaches and some findings are given out.
Chapter 3 provides implications to write bad-news letters.
Part C is the conclusion, the summaries of the whole thesis.
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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1.Speech Acts and the act of breaking bad news
Speech Act theory was originally initiated by the Oxford philosopher, J. L.
Austin in 1930s and was expounded in a series of lectures which he gave at Hardvard
in 1955. In his book How to do things with words, Austin argues that when we use
languages, we are performing certain acts. Traditionally, philosophers have to
distinguish between actions and speaking; on the basis that speaking about something
is quite different from doing it. For example, a woman says, “ It is very hot in here”.
She doesn’t want to inform that it is hot but want the listener to open the window or

displeased, surprised, or pleased. For example: In uttering an act of breaking bad
news, the speaker thinks that the hearer may feel annoyed or displeased when being
informed the news.
Speech acts tend to concentrate largely on illocutions, locutions and perlocutions
coming before and after the illocutionary act, although important, are of less central
interest. When Austin first began his study of speech acts, he attempted first of all to
distinguish between a class of utterances which he called “performative” and those
which he termed “constatives”. Performatives are a special group of utterances of the
saying of which actually perform the action named by the verb.
For example:
- act of marriage: I hereby claim that you are husband and wife
- act of naming a ship: I name this ship the Saucy Sue.
- act of closing a meeting: I declare this meeting closed
- act of wager: I bet you a winner
- act of apology: I apologize
- act of informing: I hereby inform you that
etc
However, the act of breaking bad new tends to highly threaten the hearer’s face
and thus it is less likely to appear in performatives to avoid an FTA in uttering the
sentence.
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1.1.2. Types of speech acts
Speech acts can be classified according to how they affect the social interaction
between the speakers and the hearers. The most basic categorization (Searle, 1969)
consists of five different types of speech acts:
1. Declaratives : are those kinds of speech acts that change the world in their
utterance. For example, the priest claims: “I hereby claim that you are husband and
wife”. This claim will change the state of the two single people to married ones.
2. Representatives : are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker
believes to be the case. A representative can be either true or false as the speaker

more than what s/he says (Searle 1980, p.8), for example speakers perform one
illocutionary act implicitly by way of performing illocutionary act explicitly. For
example, instead of telling a student that s/he is late for the lecture, the teacher may
ask a question “What is the time now?”. That is the indirect act and the direct act is to
ask what time is.
Concerning why indirectness is used, Yule (1996, p.56) writes “indirect speech
acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than direct speech act”.
1.1.3. Breaking bad news
Life is not always comfortable and enjoyable and it can be disappointing at
times. Problems like systems break down, mistakes are made, deadlines go unmet,
complaints and credit are turned down, orders are refused are not rare. In this case, the
speaker has to inform these problems – known as breaking bad news to the hearer. It
is not always easy to be the deliverer of ‘bad news’ to your colleagues, your
customers, or to anyone else for that matter. The act of breaking bad news is known as
a speech act as it informs bad news to hearers, i.e., it is the act of informing.
For example: when the writer says: “we can not offer credit facilities of any
kind at present owing to inflation”. In saying this sentence, the writer believes that
s/he cannot offer credit facilities.
Searle (1976, p.44) argues that each type of illocutionary act requires certain
conditions for the successful and felicitous performance of that act and these he calls
felicity conditions. Searle identifies four different kinds of felicity conditions:
propositional content conditions or rules, preparatory conditions or rules, sincerity
conditions or rule and essential conditions. These conditions relate, on the other hand,
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to the belief and attitudes of the speaker and the hearer, and, on the other hand, to the
belief and attitudes of linguistic device for communication.
The act of breaking bad news should meet the requirement of Searle’s felicity
conditions, if the speaker wants to have a successful and felicitous performance. For
me, the act of breaking bad news should satisfy the four conditions belows:
1. General condition: it focuses on the background knowledge of the Speaker

maintain their face. It’s their face-work
Hudson defined that face-work is “the way in which a person maintains his
face”, which is carried out by presenting a consistent image to other people, so that
one can gain or lose face by “improving or spoiling” this image. Hudson stated that
through what one says or how to say it, the speaker presents a personal image for
others to evaluate.
If a speaker says something that represents a threat to another individual’s
expectations regarding self-image, it is described as a face-threatening act (FTA)
Alternatively, given a possibility that some actions might be as a threat to
another’s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat. This is
called a face saving act (FSA)
Besides, it should be noted that some certain speech acts flatter face such as
compliment, thanks or offer. This is called a face-flattering act (FFA).
Both an FTA or FFA might be the cause of the risk of losing face. To avoid
this risk, either an FSA should be used or greater attention should be paid to the
different use of routine and speech acts in different cultural communities.
Deriving from the theory of Goffman, Brown and Levinson (1987:61ff) we can
have two related aspects of face.
+ Negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, right to non-
distraction – i.e., to freedom of action and freedom of imposition.
+ Positive face: the positive consistent self-image or “personality” (crucially
including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by
interaction.
Face-work, therefore, proves to play an important part in making a
conversation work either negatively or positively. When the face is kept, the
relationship is maintained without much difficulty.
When we write business letters, conveying bad news can potentially cause the
loss of the reader’s face. Therefore, breaking bad news can be considered as an FTA.
It risk to threaten news receiver’s face. Also, when we turn down a complaint, a credit
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bother you but ” The tendency to use negative politeness forms, emphasizing
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Hearer’s right to freedom seen as deference strategy. However, it should be noted that
neither negative nor positive politeness is thoroughly good or bad. This depends much
on culture, i.e. this culture is more or less in favor of the former or the latter viewpoint
of politeness as people in that country consider it to be good or bad to show concern
for or interest in each other’s business.
1.2.3. Strategies
When organizing a letter, the writer needs to choose one appropriate approach.
Below are two basic approaches (described by Bowee et all: 2001:74)
1.2.3.1 Direct approach (Straight forward)
Writers state the main ideas first and then the evidence follows. This strategy is
really useful when the receivers will be pleased, eager, interested or even neutral
when reading the letter.
The direct approach can save time for both the writer and the reader. It consists
of the three following steps
Step 1: The opening: Begin with the objective. Either a specific question or a
general request for information can be employed to state the information. Early
presentation of the objective will catch the reader’s attention better.
Step 2: The body: Give the details. If the reader needs information to answer
the question, the writer needs to include all explanation needed. When more than one
question are included in the message, they should be numbered and listed logically
with the first important question appearing first, followed by questions of descending
importance.
Step 3: The closing: Writers restate the information and ask the reader to
respond by a specific time. They also need to express their goodwill and appreciation.
The direct approach is perfect for a letter of request or a letter of conveying bad
news, as it is very clear and easy to read and draw out what is informed. It is also
timesaving as the information is presented in such a way that is very brief and
obvious. The reader likes this approach more because it is easy to get into the point.

1.3.1. Criteria of business correspondence
In written communication, how something is said is almost as important as
what is said. Nevertheless, many writers tend to focus only on the ‘what’ of their
documents. In fact, how something is said contributes much to the success of the
business. When the recipient understands the message, and more importantly, accepts
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the message, especially in conveying bad-news message, the letter is considered
effective. The below seven “Cs” describe the effectiveness of the letter.
1. Clarity: Clarity depends on the use of words. In general, the writer should
use simple everyday language and avoid technical terms when appropriate to make
sure the reader understands the message. Clarity also means organizing the letter so
that each paragraph deals with one main idea, and presenting the ideas in a logical
order.
2. Conciseness: Conciseness means saying all that need to be said and no
more. A concise letter should eliminate all unnecessary words. In business, few
people have time to read irrelevant details. For this reason, it seems that short letters
are remembered better than long one.
3. Completeness It is important that all the information needed must be
included in the letter so that the reader has enough information to evaluate the
message and act on it.
4. Correctness: Data, statements mentioned must be accurate. Correctness also
refers to the explicit identification of assumption and opinion. There should be no
error in punctuation, grammar, word order, structure, spelling and document format.
5. Courtesy: This means that we should be polite in expressing opinion and
ideas. We should respect readers. If not, the readers should be hurt. A courteous
message takes the reader’s feelings and point of view into consideration and offers
help where necessary.
6. Confidence A confident message shows the writer as a decisive, positive
businessperson. It also shows that the writer assumes the reader is decisive, positive –
a person capable of overcoming obstacles. A confident message eliminates the

receiver and the business. Bad communication will have exactly the opposite effect.
People will be confused by the message and less likely to do what the business wants.
That is why good communication is so essential. It is not only what you say (or write),
but how you say it is important. Your message should be easy to understand and take
account of the receivers' own attitudes and feelings
Most enterprises do their business really successfully as they know how to
communicate with their clients. They communicate in face-to-face discussions, in
informal groups, in meetings. They may also make phone calls. They write e-mails,
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memos and report. However, one of the most popular and efficient ways to send their
ideas to their clients is through business letters.
It is no doubt that business letters is more formal than any other ways of
communication. Moreover, they are more convenient for the reader to store the date
and complex information and the information is processed in a more accurate way.
They also enable the writer the present their idea in the most effective way, especially
in a very sensitive situation such as conveying bad news. As a result, the news
informed is better understood.
In short, business letters is a principal means of correspondence with three
major purposes: to transmit a message, to persuade the reader to act and create
goodwill.
1.3.3 Different kinds of bad news in business correspondence
Business correspondence is various in kinds. When we order the goods, you
write letter of order or when you apply a job, you write a letter of application.
Similarly, we have letters of offering a job, letter of complaint or sales letter…
Ideally, everything runs smoothly in the operation of an organization – no mistakes,
no problems, no defects and no misunderstanding. However, even in the best-
managed organizations, dissatisfactions are bound to occur. When a product or service
does not meet customer’s expectation, the customers are disappointed and usually
complaint. These letters complain about wrong merchandise, slow service, invoice, or
statement that contain errors, or even discourteous treatment at the hands of

may lose their face when their request is not answered. Let’s have a look at the two
following examples:
Eg1. We have closely compared the articles you returned with our sample and can
see no difference between them. Therefore, in this case we are not willing either to
substitute the articles or to offer a credit.
Eg2. Our factory has now inspected the unit you returned last week, and they inform
us that the circuits were overloaded. We can repair the machine, but it will be
necessary to charge you as in correct use of the unit is not covered by our guarantee.
The examples show that letters of refusing a complaint threaten the reader’s
face as it is worth considering how to write in a way that it saves the reader face. (See
chapter 2 for details)
.
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1.3.3.2. Letters of turning down a credit
In everyday business transactions, it is not always so perfect that the supplier
delivers the merchandise and the buyer will make a payment immediately either in
cash, by credit card or by cheque. It is frequently that the buyer will pay the supplier
sometimes later, maybe thirty, sixty or ninety days after the delivery. In this case, the
buyer has a credit.
The purpose of a letter of credit is to ask for a loan or an extension for a
payment from the supplier. In many cases, the supplier will accept the credit.
However, in many other cases, the supplier will have to turn down a credit. They have
to write a letter turning down a credit and surely this letter will convey bad news to
buyer.
In addition, an international trading transaction begins when a buyer and a
seller sign a contract that records all the elements of the transaction. The buyer and the
seller may have contacted each other through the bank. In this case, a letter of credit
issued by the bank can be extremely useful. However, the bank does not always issue
a letter of credit as it may have the ‘credit risk’. In this case, the bank denies a credit
and send a letter back explaining the situation. There may be various reasons for this.

be glad if they receive many orders.
Nevertheless, it is not rare when a company refuses an order. There will be a
number of reasons for the refusal of the order. The well-known reasons may be that
the firm stops producing the merchandise, the delivery is delayed or the goods ordered
is in scarcity No matter the reason, the supplier ought to write a letter refusing the
order. Like this:
Eg1.I am writing to tell you that unfortunately there will be a three-week delay in
delivery. This is due to a fire at our Greenford works, which destroyed most of the
machinery. Your order has been transferred to our Slough factory and will be
processed there as soon as possible. I apologize for this delay, which is due to
circumstances beyond our control.
Eg2. We regret to inform you that there will be a delay in getting your consignment to
you. This is due to the cut in supplies from Gara, where, as you may aware, civil war
broke out last week. We have contacted a possible supplier in Lagos and he will let us
know if he can help us. If you wish to cancel your order, please let us know as soon as
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possible. However, I think you will find most manufacturers are experiencing the
same difficulties at present.
The letters of refusing an order, therefore, will convey bad news. The act of
refusing an order is called an FTA. If the refusal letters are not paid enough attention,
they may cause destruction in the business relationship. That is the reason why this
study is carried out to find how the English business writers present bad-news
messages in turning down an order (For illustration, see Chapter 2). The belows are
examples extracted from the letters collected in the study:
Eg1. We are sorry to say that we are completely out of stock of this item and it will be
six weeks before we get our next delivery, but please contact us then.
Eg2. We no longer manufacturer this product as demand over the past few years has
declined.
Eg3. Thank you for your order for heavy-duty industrial overalls. Unfortunately we
have run out of the strengthened demin style you asked for. As you particularly

in letters of conveying bad news. The data collected point out that only 4 letters
(6.7%) (1 letter of refusing a complaint, 1 letter of turning down a credit and 2 letters
of refusing an order) use direct approach when presenting bad news. Let’s consider
the following table:
Direct
approach
Indirect
approach
Total
Refusing a complaint 1 (4%) 24 (96%) 25 (100%)
Turning down a credit 1 (5%) 19 (95%) 20(100%)
Refusing an order 2 (13.3%) 13 (86.7%) 15(100%)
Table 1: The use of direct approach and indirect approach in conveying bad news
in English business correspondence
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As we can see, a great number of the letters studied is presented in an indirect
way which is 13 out of 15 letters of refusing an order (86.7%), 19 out of 20 letters of
turning down a credit (95%) and 24 out of 25 letters of refusing a complaint (96%).
Letters of conveying bad news as mentioned in 1.2.2 is an FTA and if writers
don’t take enough care about them, they will threaten readers’ face. And they will not
be welcomed or even they will be resisted by the readers; table 1 clearly shows that
indirect approach is highly used in English business correspondence.
The percentage collected also proves that native English writers do not dare to
state the bad news too directly. The reason may be that they do not want to lose the
business affairs with their clients and they seem very careful when stating the bad-
news messages. This helps the writer to come to a conclusion that direct approach is
not a good choice for writing bad-news letters.

2.2.2 Organization of a letter of conveying bad news
As presented in 2.1 (see table 1 for clarity), if bad news is stated right away in

Finally, the writers try to end a bad-news letter with a positive tone. In fact,
they don’t restate or apologize for the bad news given. They normally give an
alternative if possible as a subordinate solution.
I believe that their way of writing letters conveying bad news can help to avoid
negative feeling of the reader and also create goodwill in business correspondence,
especially in business letters of conveying bad news. It helps to maintain faces of
readers and makes the bad-news letters more relaxing and more understandable.
2.2.3. Goodwill in business correspondence
Goodwill plays an important role in writing effective business letters. It is
important to present an idea and then leave the readers with a good impression of the
writer and his or her company. Building a good will and maintain it, is an important
job of a business letter writer as it shows what kind of company it is through the
correspondence they get.
Wolf & Kuiper (1984:21) gives a definition of good will.
“Business goodwill is appreciation which a firm or a person acquires beyond
the value of what is sold. Effective communicators recognize goodwill as an attitude
and as a commodity. Almost every business communication opportunity can be used
to establish or to reinforce goodwill”.
Lesikar (1991:68) considers goodwill as: the effect most of us want in our
relations with people. The things we do and say to create goodwill are the things we
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enjoy doing and saying. They are the friendly, courteous things that make relations
between people enjoyable. Most of us want to do and say them even if they are not
profitable”.
Stewart (1984:321) states that good will is the quality it (a letter) possesses
will cause you to react either favorably or unfavorably. One of the main objectives of
all business letters is to prompt the recipient to react favorably.
It is difficult to gain a goodwill from readers and it is even much more difficult
to get that in letters of conveying bad news. Thus, writers of these letters have to be
very careful to inform unhappy news to their clients. Goodwill, if successfully used

The data from table 3 show that native writers of English business
correspondence tend not to use you-attitude in conveying bad news in business
correspondence. They use the attitude that lacks you-attitude, which accounts for 72%
for refusing a complaint, 70% of turning down a credit and 87% of rejecting an order.
This is clearly proved that in letters of conveying bad news, the writers try to avoid
the use of you and your because they don’t want to make the readers to feel that the
are in the middle of the bad situation. The data also gives me a thinking that writers of
letters that refuse an order feel the guiltiest when they have to refuse an order. Some
of them may be confident enough to use you-attitude when they refuse a complaint or
turn down credit.
In these letters of conveying bad news, the expressions used, as “we are sorry
about the inconvenience ” “we can not order you the item No.CU1154/d ”, “ it is
impossible to allow a further 90 days credit” are frequently used.
To sum up, whether the person who receives the letter will understand it and
be willing to cooperate will depend on how well the writer is able to anticipate his or
her expectations, attitudes, and needs. The use of you-attitude makes the reader feel
that they are in the center of the business relation. However, in conveying bad news, if
you-attitude is used, the reader may have the feeling that they are responsible for
everything, or writers do not want to do business with them any more or want to
blame them for the bad situations. As a result, the reader may be hurt and this leads to
a failure to do other business affairs in the future.
2.2.3.2. Positive emphasis
Positive emphasis is defined by Locker (1992:101) as follows:
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Positive emphasis means focusing on the positive rather than the negative aspects of
a situation.
Thus, it can be known as the ways to emphasize the positive information while
avoid or de-emphasize the negative information. Lesikar (1991:172) explains this
quality in other words: “Play up the brighter parts of your message, and play down
the gloomy parts”.