VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
* **

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
* **



Hanoi ,2014

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT
I certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled “A contrastive
analysis of English and Vietnamese resignation letters in terms of discourse structure”
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Hanoi - 2014
Nguyen Thuy Duong

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ABSTRACT A resignation letter is one kind of business letters, which holds an important role in
helping the employee to maintain a positive relationship with his/ her old boss, and paves the
way for him or her to move on. However, this kind of letters does not receive much attention
from the researchers in English and Vietnamese. Therefore, so as 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 thesis studies discourse structures of 20
resignation letters (10 in English and 10 in Vietnamese); then compares and contrasts them.
The major methods used in this thesis are „move analysis‟ approach, comparison and contrast
methods. The result of the study shows that the structures of English and Vietnamese
resignation letters are basically similar. They only have some differences in the length of the
letters and the kinds of moves. From the result of the analysis, the characteristics of
resignation letters both in English and Vietnamese can be clarified. Then, the knowledge of
discourse structure of English and Vietnamese resignation letter can be applied in writing an
effective and persuasive letter of resignation.

3. Scope of the Study ………………………………………………
1
4. Research Question……………………………………………………………………
2
5. Methodology of the Study…………………………………………
2
6. Organization of the Thesis ……………………………………………………………
2
Part B: Development…………………………………………………………………….
3
Chapter 1 – Literature Review and Theoretical Background…………………
3
1. Literature Review………………………………………………………………
3
2. Theoretical Background…………………………………………………………
3
2.1. General Description of Discourse & Discourse Analysis………
3
2.1.1. Definition of Discourse…………………………………………………………….
3
2.1.2. Discourse and Text…………………………………………………………………
4
2.1.3. Discourse Analysis…………………………………………………………………
4
2.1.4. Discourse Structure… ……………………………………………………………
5
2.2. Genre Analysis and Approach to Genre……………………………………………
5
2.2.1. Genre………….……… ….………………………………………………………
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1.2. The „Move Analysis‟ of English Resignation Letters………………………………
1.2.1. The Analytical Framework………………………………………………………
1.2.2. General Analysis of Move Types in English Resignation Letters…………………
1.2.3. Detail Analysis of Move Types in English Resignation Letters…………………
1.2.3.1. Move 1 – Opening……………………………………………………
1.2.3.2. Move 2 – Addressing…………………………………………………………….
1.2.3.3. Move 3 – Stating Resignation & Informing the Last Day of Work……………
1.2.3.4. Move 4 – Giving the Reason of Resignation Positively…………………………
1.2.3.5. Move 5 – Expressing the Willingness to Help with the Transition……………
1.2.3.6. Move 6 – Requesting Interest from the Old Company…………………………
1.2.3.7. Move 7 – Showing Gratitude & Wishing Success……………………………….
1.2.3.8. Move 8 – Ending…………………………………………………………………
2. Discourse Structure Analysis of Vietnamese Resignation Letters……………………
2.1. The Surface Features of Vietnamese Resignation Letters…………………………
2.1.1. Length of Discourse………………………………… ……………………………
2.1.2. Part…………………………….………………………… ……………………….
2.1.3. Sentence…………………………………………… …… ………
2.1.4. Vocabulary…………………………………………………………………………
2.2. The „Move Analysis‟ of Vietnamese Resignation Letters…………………………

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2.2.3.10. Move 10‟ – Ending……………………………………………………………
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Chapter 4: Comparing and Contrasting discourse structure of English and
Vietnamese resignation letters………………………………………………………….

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1. The Surface Features of English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters………………
1.1. Length of Discourse………………………………… ……………………………
1.2. Paragraph, Sentence, Vocabulary…….………………………… ………………….
2. The „Move Analysis‟ of English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters………………
2.1. The Analytical Framework…………………………………………………………
2.2. General Analysis of Move Types in English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters…
2.3. Detail Analysis of Move Types in English and Vietnamese Resignation Letters…
2.3.1. Opening……………………………………………………………………………
2.3.2. Addressing…………………………………………………………………………
2.3.3. Stating Resignation and Informing the Last Day of Work………………………
2.3.4. Giving the Reason of Resignation…………………………………………………
2.3.5. Expressing the Willingness to Help with the Transition…………………………

References………………………………………………………………………………
Appendix I. Move Analysis of English Resignation Letters ……………………….
Appendix II. Move Analysis of Vietnamese Resignation Letters …………………

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I
VI


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.
2. Aims of the Study:
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.
3. 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. 2
4. Research Question:


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PART B – DEVELOPMENT:

Chapter 1 – Literature Review and Theoretical Background

1. 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.
2. Theoretical Background
2.1. General Description of Discourse and Discourse Analysis:
2.1.1. Definition of Discourse:
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,

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

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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.
2.1.4. Discourse Structure:
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

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
There are two approaches in corpus-based discourse analysis. The first is top-down,
and the second is bottom-up. Under the top-down approach, the analysis starts with the
identification of communicative purposes of the genre which is done by expert informants.

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Next, these global purposes are compared against the texts in order to identify moves. On
the contrary, under the bottom-up approach, identifying surface linguistic features is the
starting point. Then, the salient linguistic features that frequently occur across texts are
explored to identify patterns. Based on these patterns, the researcher will identify rhetorical
move structures.
„Move analysis‟ is considered to be an illustration of top-down approach which is
used to analyze the discourse structure of texts in a specific genre level (Swales, 1981,
1990). The aim of „Move analysis‟ is to identify the moves, move sequences, and key
linguistic features of the texts in a specific genre. In order to have clear understanding about
„Move analysis‟, we need to clarify three important terms: „move‟, „text‟, and „genre‟.
There are many definitions of „move‟. According to Nwogu (1991: 114), move is
“…a text segment made up of a bundle of linguistic features which give the segment a
uniform orientation and signal the content of discourse in it” . Duszak (1994: 299) considers
move as “…a conventional strategy to carry out a discourse goal”. Holmes (1997: 325)
defines move as “…a segment of text that is shaped and constrained by a specific
communicative function”. Bhatia (1993: 30-31) supposes moves as “…cognitive structures

The fifth one is „concreteness‟. The letter must be specific, vivid and definite rather
than general and vague.
„Courtesy‟ is the sixth characteristic that should be included in the resignation letters.
It means the letter should express the respect and the concern for the reader. The language
discriminating on the basis of age, race, disability, gender, religion, ethnicity, and
nationality must not be used in this kind of letter.
The next characteristic is „coherence‟. All the words and sentences in the letter
should be arranged correctly to make the ideas flow smoothly and logically. The
„coherence‟ can be achieved by using some devices such as repeating the key words; or
using the synonyms, transitional phrases, and sentence patterns.
„Correctness‟ is the eighth one that should be taken into consideration. The writer
has to make sure that all the figures and facts are accurate; all the grammar, punctuation, and
spelling are flawless.
The next one is „credibility‟. This feature refers to the communicator‟s status
(whether as himself/ herself or as representative of the company). Being a message sender,
the writer must write the true and believable information. The letter must sound honest and
sincere.

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Last but not least, the letter must be „consistency‟ of tone and style. It means the
writer should use only one tone and one style from the beginning to the end of the letter.
2.3.3. Format of English Resignation Letters:
The website-http://jobsearch.about.com/od/sampleresignationletters/a/resignsamples.htm
is a reliable website which provides us a large amount of useful information related to a
variety of letters such as: job application letters, cover letters, recommendation letters, thank
you letters, resignation letters, etc. According to this website, a full English resignation
letter should have the following parts:
Header: both the date and the employer‟s contact information (name, title, company name,
address, phone number, and email) should be the first part of a resignation letter. If this is an
email rather than an actual letter, the employee‟s contact information should be put at the

New York, NY 10007

Dear Mr. Brown,

It is with deep regret that I give you my formal notice of resignation as a journalist at the Wall Street Journal Publisher.
My last working day will be March 16
th
.

I have accepted a position with another publisher that will further my growth and development in my career. I have
enjoyed working at the Wall Street Journal Publisher and will miss my colleagues here. However, this new position will
challenge my growth and further my career.

I appreciate the professional development and growth from the Wall Street Journal Publisher, and in particular from you.
Your mentoring support has encouraged me and I hope that we will continue our relationship as I move forward in my
career.

I wish you and the Wall Street Journal Publisher continued growth and success in the future.

Sincerely,
Julia Dennis
Julia Dennis
2.3.4. Format of Vietnamese Resignation Letters:
Vietnamese people do not usually write resignation letters when they give up their
jobs. That leads to the difficulty in finding the standard form of a Vietnamese resignation
letter. The process of searching the format of Vietnamese resignation letters in some
websites such as http://ayya.vn/mau-don-xin-nghi-viec-mau-don-xin-nghi-viec-viet-tay-
hay/, and http://luatminhgia.vn/Mau-don-xin-nghi-viec-newsview-237-701.aspx, or
http://www.hrlink.vn/diendan/index.php?showtopic=1797 shows that the format of
resignation letters in Vietnamese is influenced by the English ones.

***
ĐƠN XIN THÔI VIỆC
Kính gửi : Ban lãnh đạo Công ty Cổ phần Sơn Tổng hợp Hà Nội

Trưởng phòng Tổ chức – Hành chính – Nhân sự
Tên tôi là: Nguyễn Quang Huy
Bộ phận làm việc: Phòng Quản trị Đời sống

Tôi rất lấy làm tiếc vì sẽ không còn làm việc tại Công ty Cổ phần Sơn Tổng hợp Hà Nội trong thời gian sắp tới. Tôi
quyết định nhận vị trí công việc mới để tìm thêm cơ hội phát triển mới , phù hợp với chuyên môn và khả năng làm việc
của tôi .

Tôi thực sự lấy làm vinh dự lớn đƣợc làm việc tại đây trong suốt 5 năm qua. Trong quá trình làm việc tại đây, Công ty
đã cho tôi có đƣợc may mắn làm việc với những đồng nghiệp tốt cùng với một môi trƣờng làm việc tốt. Tôi xin chân
thành cảm ơn Công ty đã tin tƣởng tôi trong suốt thời gian vừa qua và chúc cho Công ty chúng ta sẽ đạt đƣợc những
thành công nhƣ mong muốn.

12

Vậy tôi làm đơn này xin đƣợc nghỉ việc từ ngày 8 tháng 6 năm 2010 . Tôi sẽ bàn giao công việc của mình một cách đầy
đủ và có trách nhiệm .

Rất mong đƣợc sự giúp đỡ của Ban lãnh đạo Công ty .
Tôi xin chân thành cảm ơn !

Chapter 2 – Methodology

1. 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.
2. 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:


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.
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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:
1.1.1. Length of discourse:
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