VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LẠI THỊ THANH ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTERS:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY FROM
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVES

(So sánh thư khiếu nại bằng Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt trong lĩnh vực
kinh doanh trên cơ sở lý thuyết ngữ pháp Chức năng Hệ thống)

M.A. MINOR THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60 22 15 FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60 22 15
SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN HUYỀN MINH, M.A. HÀ NỘI - 2010
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
List of tables iv
Table of contents v

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. General introduction and rationale of the Study 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 3
4. Method of the study 3
5. Design of the study 4

PART II: DEVEOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTERS
3.1. Similarities 34
3.2. Differences 35
PART III: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
1. Conclusion 38
2. Implications for writing business complaint letters 38
3. Implications for teaching writing business complaint letters 39
4. Suggestions for further studies 40
References 41
Appendices iv
LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Process types in English letters
Table 2.1: Mood system in English letters
Table 2.2: Modality in English letters
Table 3: Theme system in English letters
Table 4.1: Cohesion in English letters
Table 4.2: Lexical Cohesion in English letters
Table 5: Process types in Vietnamese letters
Table 6.1: Mood system in Vietnamese letters
Table 6.2: Modality in Vietnamese letters
Table 7: Theme system in Vietnamese letters
Table 8.1: Cohesion in Vietnamese letters
Table 8.2: Lexical Cohesion in Vietnamese letters
Table 9: English and Vietnamese complaint letters in comparison in terms of Cohesion
very useful descriptive and interpretive framework for viewing language as a strategic,
meaning-making resource‟. Hallidayan linguists used the functional model of grammar to
interpret how people use language and how language is structured for use. This theory, in
fact, has been proved as a great model of language for analysts when analyzing texts
especially at discourse level.
In Vietnam, there have been a great number of studies in the area of discourse
analysis these days. However, the number of those works based on Systemic Functional
Perspectives does not seem to reflect the potential variety. Especially in the last few
decades, Vietnam has been seen its expanding relationship with many other nations in
economics, scientific and technical fields; English language as an international language,
therefore, has been widely used in every field, especially in business communication in
general and business transaction in particular. The issues of business communication as
well as business transaction thus should be unsurprisingly a rich source for linguists in
analyzing discourse. An inspirational source that helps me to prompt the choice of the
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analysis of business correspondence is the fact that this kind of letter is truly suitable and
essential in Vietnamese background recently.
It cannot be denied that business correspondence plays an important role in business
communication. Besides, it is a fact that defects seem to be unavoidable in carrying out
business transactions; even for the best-managed organizations this seems to be in the same
case. Letters of complaint, therefore, can be made and understood as customers‟ inevitable
reaction. In Vietnam, customers have gradually had the tendency to write complaint letters;
however, this has not become their habit and a number of customers, in fact, still hesitate to
do this although they know they have the right to do. In addition, knowing how to write an
effective business complaint letter is really a challenge for many people. My own
observation shows that even the students of business have limited knowledge and
experience in writing complaint letters not only in English but also in Vietnamese.
In the hope of working out some solutions to help Vietnamese people as well as
Vietnamese students, to some extent, overcome their difficulties in writing business
complaint letters, the study is an attempt to analyze some basic discourse features of

which I presume to be sufficient data. These data are collected from textbooks, internet, and
authentic English and Vietnamese business complaint letters written by businesses and
customers as well as other business associates.
4. Method of the study
The study is confined to the description, analysis and comparison in terms of
transitivity, mood, thematic pattern and cohesion. In order to achieve the goal, the approach
is inductive, which is based on the data as well as authentic business complaint letters.
Firstly, a large number of business complaint letters will be carefully selected from
textbooks, internet and authentic sources. Because of the fact that there seems to be
no fixed format for this kind of correspondence, the letters were randomly chosen as
data, providing they are of business complaints. In addition, the authenticity is
highly appreciated by the authors; most of the letters are, therefore, mainly chosen
from authentic sources as mentioned above.
Secondly, a certain number of the selected letters will be described and analyzed in
terms of transitivity, mood, thematic pattern and cohesion.
Thirdly, the data obtained will be analyzed and compared in order to find out the
similarities and differences in both English and Vietnamese business complaints.
Finally, the research results will be discussed to figure out some suggested ideas to
help Vietnamese people write effective business complaints in English.
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Besides, discourse analysis in the light of Systemic Functional Grammar helps to
establish the framework of the theoretical background.
5. Design of the study
This study is comprised of three parts:
Part One of this study is an introduction presenting some background information
and the rationale of the study. The aims, the scope and method of the study are also dealt
with in this chapter.
Part Two consist of three chapters.
Chapter One is aimed to present the theoretical background of the work. Some
essential concepts closely related to the study are carefully discussed one by one. Firstly,

definition, purpose, three contextual parameters and structure of business complaints are
also presented in this chapter.
1.2. Theories of discourse
1.2.1. The concept of discourse
Linguistics history has seen many different approaches in which language is
studied. There was a time when language was viewed as a biologically determined
phenomenon and its social aspect was neglected. Linguists then tried to examine the
essential linguistic units of words and individual sentences in terms of grammatical rules.
Sentences thus were devoted to be studied out of their social context. However, people have
come to realize that using language to communicate successfully with other people should
be more important than only producing grammatically correct sentences. It is not always
the case that grammatically correct sentences are meaningful and incomplete sentences are
uninterpretable. The fact seems to be different. People do not always produce complete
sentences, yet they still gain success in social communication and vice versa. This proves
that language must be learnt and comprehended in its social context that leads to a modern
approach of language in which the concept of discourse is examined.
In spite of the fact that the term of discourse has been widely used in a variety of
linguists‟ studies, the precise definition of discourse remains an elusive one. Yet, it may be
basically defined as the language in use for communication. While Cook (1989) and some
other linguists try to make a distinction between discourse and text, the others, however,
prefer using the term interchangeably.
According to Cook (1989), while a text can be defined as “a stretch of language
interpreted formally, without context” (Cook 1989: 158 cited in Van, Hoang Van 2006: 14),
discourse can be known as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and
purposive” (Cook 1989: 156 cited in Van, Hoang Van 2006: 14). M.A.K Halliday, as a
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proponent of the idea of interchanging the term discourse and text, claimed that a text is a
chunk of language that is actually spoken or written for the purpose of communication by
real people in actual circumstances (Bloor, 1995). From Halliday‟s perspective, discourse
can be understood as a unit of meaning and it is functional. „It is functional in the sense that

The function of interpersonal serves to “establish and maintain social relation: for the
expression of social roles created by language itself” (Van, Hoang Van, 2006). In this way,
sentences are created basing on the systems of mood to carry the cognitive and logical
content of proportions and display the speaker‟s relationship with others to the recipients.
The roles created by language then may be questioner, informer, commander and so on.
The textual function focuses on “providing links with language itself and with the
features of the situation in which it is used” (Van, Hoang Van, 2006). Basing on thematic
system, this function enables speakers or writers to create linguistically linked texts or
connected passages of discourse that is situationally relevant.
In brief, in accordance with Halliday, the function of language is divided into
ideational, interpersonal and textual, of which the linguistic realization are gradually
examined in the thesis.
1.2.3. Discourse context
As a matter of fact, context is a very important concept in discourse analysis. In
Systemic Functional Linguistics, there is a close relationship between language and its
social context. This relationship is a dynamic, two-way relationship: language construes
and is construed by its social context (Halliday & Martin, 1993) In more details, the
language that is likely to be used can be predicted by the context and vice versa the context
in which an interaction is situated can be inferred from the language that is used. Context as
a non-linguistic element refers to the situation which gives rise to the discourse, and within
which the discourse is embedded. (Nunan, 1993)
Context in Systemic Functional Linguistics is derived from Malinowski‟s context of
situation and context of culture. Halliday and his followers divide the elements of
situational contexts into three aspects such as field, tenor and mode.
* Field of discourse refers to “what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which
the language figures as some essential component?” (Halliday 1985: 12). Eggins (1994: 52)
also said that field indicates “what the language is being used to talk about”. It includes the
subject matter of the text, the people and things involved, the nature of activities, the
qualities or attributes of the involved entities and the activity circumstances.
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claimed that the form of grammar is closely related to the meanings encoded. The model of
Functional grammar; consequently, was taken as a tool to analyze the language in this way.
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The term of functional is explained by Halliday in his Introduction to Functional
Grammar (1994) that „this grammar is based on the functional conceptual framework rather
than a formal one‟. In more details, the grammar in his view is functional in three closely
related senses: in its interpretation of texts, of the system and of the elements of linguistic
structures. Language is functional in the sense that language is used by people to satisfy
human needs and to achieve social goals. Thus, Systemic Functional Grammar is
semantically oriented. It is concerned with language in use: How do people use language to
make meanings, and how is language structured to make meanings? (Eggins: 1994).
In short, what makes functional grammar different from other models of grammar is
that its theory is built on the principle viewing language as a means to carry out human
communication. It sets its own roles of analyzing, describing and explaining the rules that
govern language use on two closely related aspects of form and meaning by observing
language in communication. (Hao, Cao Xuan, 1999). The basic unit of Systemic Functional
Grammar is the clause equivalent to the traditional „simple sentence‟. All of the three
functions of language in accordance with Halliday are reflected in the structure of the
clause. In the following sections, three types of meaning of the clause and their realizations
in the lexicogrammar of English will be examined: The experiential meaning and its
realizations through the system of transitivity (process types), the interpersonal meaning
and its realization in the mood and modality system and the textual meaning and its
realization in the theme system. Furthermore, the issue of cohesion is also dealt with as
another preliminary theory for the later data analysis.
1.3.1. Transitivity
The transitivity system, which is very central to the ideational function of language,
accounts for choices made in relation to the clause element. At the layer of transitivity
system, the clause is analyzed for its potential to represent both the outer and the inner
worlds of human beings, which is what the ideational metafunction does. Contextually,
transitivity system is the field of discourse, which relates to what goes on in the social

to her
Actor
Process: Material
Goal
Receiver
(Van, Hoang Van 2006: 48)
“Mental process is the process of sensing such as thinking, loving, wanting, hoping”
(Van, Hoang Van 2006: 49). It is divided by Halliday into three classes: cognitive
(thinking. knowing, understanding etc.). affective (liking, fearing etc.) and perceptive
(seeing, hearing etc.). Mental process involves two participants: Sensor (one who thinks,
feels, senses and wants), and Phenomenon (one that is thought of, felt, sensed and wanted).
E.g.,I (Sensor) believe (process: Mental) you (Phenomenon)
It (Phenomenon) hurts (process: Mental) my ears (Sensor) (Halliday 1994:118)
Relational process is the process of being, having and being at, which is typically
realized by the verb be or some of the so-called copular verbs; e.g., become, appear, seem
etc. This process comes under three subtypes: (i) the intensive; (ii) the circumstantial and
(iii) the possessive. Relational process consists of two modes: attributive and identifying.
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An attributive relational process has two participants: the Carrier and the Attribute
(showing the quality or the class the Carrier belongs to). For example,
He
is
good-looking
She
is
a teacher
Carrier
Process: Relational
Attribute
In the mode of identifying, relational process has two equating participants; one

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1) She (Sayer) spoke (process: Verbal) English (Target) to me (Recipient)
2) The manager (Sayer) will outline (process: Verbal) his plan of campaign (Verbiage)
Existential process is the process of existing, indicating that there is or there was
something. This process typically employs the verb be or synonyms such as exist, arise,
occur. In this type of process, there is one participant, the Existent and one or two
circumstantial elements; for example, there is (process: Existential) a man (Existent) at the
door (Circumstance).
1.3.2. Mood
Mood is the exchange system realized by the choice between declarative,
interrogative and imperative clause types. Each type of mood is basically associated with an
illocutionary act. When we want to exchange information, we can make a choice of
indicative mood rather than imperative, which is used to express directives such as
commands or requests. In order to question, we generally choose interrogative mood rather
than declarative which is used to express statements. In short, mood is divided into two
types, namely indicative involving declarative and interrogative and imperative which are
available to perform different tasks in social communication.
According to Halliday, in order to interpret clauses in their function as an exchange,
the clause is divided into two parts: the Mood and the Residue. The former consists of the
Subject and Finite, the order of which determines the selection of mood in the clause. The
later, the Residue, as the remainder of the clause includes functional elements of
Predicator, Complement and Adjunct. The following is an example:
She
is
doing
her homework
in the room
Subject
Finite
Predicator

with an experiential element of the clause, which can be Actor, Goal or Circumstance. An
interpersonal theme is any combination of a modal theme consisting of a modal adjunct,
vocative element (any item used to address) and a mood-making element (a finite verbal
operator, or WH-interrogative or imperative Let‟s.). A textual theme represents meaning
that is relevant to the context or co-text. It may have any combination of three textual
elements: a continuative element (yes, no, well etc.), a structural element (and, but etc.) and
a conjunctive element (also, therefore, etc.).
The following is an example of Theme-Rheme structure:
oh
soldier, soldier,
won‟t
you
marry me
continuative
vocative
finite
subject
Rheme
textual
interpersonal
topical (experiential)
Theme
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Concerning the system of markedness, themes are divided into two types, namely
unmarked and marked themes. Unmarked theme is generally understood as „usual and most
typical‟ while marked considered „untypical or unusual‟. In relation to the system of mood,
a theme is called unmarked when it conflates with the Mood structure constituent that
typically occurs in the first position in the clause. For example, in declarative clauses, an
unmarked theme is a constituent that conflates with the Subject, while a marked theme is
the one functioning as some element of the Residue such as Complement, Adjunct, or

In English, three items that have the property of reference are personals (indicated
through personal and possessive pronouns, possessive adjectives), demonstratives
(expressed through this, that, these, those, here or there) and comparatives (through
adjectives or adverbs such as same, identical, similar, equally, more etc.)
Ellipsis, as another form of anaphoric cohesion in the text, is used in the sense that
something is omitted in a structure but the missing part can always be retrieved from
another structure within a sentence (non-cohesive) or beyond a sentence (cohesive). This
kind of cohesion can be divided into nominal (omission of the head of nominal groups),
verbal (omission of Residue), and clausal ellipsis (omission of a clause or a part of a
clause).
According to Halliday (1994), Ellipsis and substitution are variants of the same
type of cohesive relation: ellipsis is the omission of one item and substitution is the
replacement of one item by another. There are some grammatical environments in which
only ellipsis is possible, some in which only substitution is possible and some, such as I
preferred the other (one), which allow for either. Like ellipsis, substitution has three types:
nominal (the substitution of the Head of a nominal group usually realized by one, ones and
same), verbal (the substitution of the Head of a verbal group usually realized by do) and
clausal substitution (what is presupposed is not an element within the clause but an entire
clause, usually realized in two words: so and not).
Lexical cohesion is another kind of cohesive relation in which the cohesive effect is
obtained by the selection of vocabulary. In more details, when two words in a discourse are
semantically related, cohesion will occur undoubtedly. According to Halliday and Hasan
(1976), lexical cohesion is divided into two types of reiteration in which two lexical items
are related by having a common referent and collocation, which is achieved through the
association of items that regularly co-occur). The former involves repetition, synonym,
antonym, super-ordinate meronymy and general word. The latter consists of three types:
resultative (the relation of one item leading to the outcome of another item: kill –die, rain-
wet etc.), modificational (the relation holding between an item and one of its inherent
qualities: run-fast, clear-voice etc.) and contextual (expectation can be made between the
process and the participant: house-build, doctor-examine etc.)

simple phone call or email messages sometimes do not help to get results; therefore, the
writer should know how to create an effective complaint letter. In order to do this, it is a
„must‟ to identify a definite purpose to write letters and outcome that writers want to
achieve, and indicate those ideas clearly in the letter of complaint.

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1.4.2. Three contextual parameters of business complaint letters
Field: The field of a business complaint letter is nothing than the field of business
communication. This kind of letter is about the writer or customer‟ complaints about their
dissatisfactions caused by business errors.
Tenor: In the letter of complaint, the writer or customer is trying to inform of
business errors and expecting immediate adjustment from the involved corporation or a
solution from a higher authority, the language; therefore; needs to be clear and convincing.
In addition, the letter needs to sound formal because the relationship between the writer and
reader is actually between a customer as an individual or corporation and a corporation or a
higher authority whose responsibility is to solve the problem.
Mode: The mode of business complaint letters we are studying is in the form of
written discourse.
Field, tenor and mode are seen as determining the features of the ideational,
interpersonal and textual component of discourse respectively. How these three contextual
parameters decide upon the three components of complaint letters, which are realized
through the system of transitivity, theme and mood, will be discussed in the next chapter.
1.4.3. The structure of a business complaint discourse – comparison between English
and Vietnamese letters
A business complaint letter, like other types of letters, consists of a number of
optional and compulsory parts. Analyzing the format of business complaint letters in two
different kinds of English and Vietnamese reveals some similarities and differences as
noted below:
Formality
Business complaint in English

individual) noted on the left below
writer‟s address and maybe above or
below dateline.
The name of the addressee as an
organization or a part of an organization
is normally shown in the salutation:
“Kính gửi”; If the addressee and the
respondent refer to different people, the
name and address of the respondent is
then usually mentioned in the first part of
the letter.
Subject line
It is an optional part and often started with
an abbreviation “Ref:…” (usually below
the dateline)
It is optional and often cited below the
title.
Salutation
It is often started with “Dear sir”, “Dear
Madam”, “Dear sir or Madam” or Dear
followed by the readers‟ name or title.
It is started with “Kính gửi:…” followed
by the targeted reader‟s name.
Body
The body often consists of three or four
paragraphs where the writer gives the
reason for writing, necessary information
about the complaint and what the writer
expect as a result of the complaint.
The body often consists of three or four

grammar has been applied and reflected in business complaint letters, we have usually had
two broad questions engraved in our mind during the analyzing process:
In what aspects are the English and Vietnamese business complaint letters alike and
in what aspects are they different?
Do the similarities and differences reflect any of their relations to the three
parameters of field, tenor, and mode? And how are they related to each other?
2.2. Analysis of English Business Complaint Letters
2.2.1. Transitivity
Our exploration of the fifteen business complaint letters shows that the processes
used by English people in this kind of letter are typically of four types: material, relational,
mental and verbal. The results are summarized in the following table:
Table 1: Process types in English letters

Process types
Quantity
(in number)
Rate of
occurrence
Material process
97/ 235
40.8 %
Mental process
38/ 235
16.2 %
Relational process
56/ 235
24.3 %
Verbal process
38/235
16.2%

time I attended the exhibition all the leaflets had been taken. (Complaint 12)
2) I was informed that I would be issued a new account detail book at the earliest,
latest by the 8th of May. (Complaint 4)
Occupying 24.3% of the total occurrence, relational processes rank second in the
scale of frequency. It should be noted here that this paper took into consideration all the
three different types of relational process, namely intensive, possessive and circumstance.
Our analysis showed that in this kind of letters, the writers had a preference for intensive
type which occupies 69.6% with the pattern of “x is a”. This preference can be due to its
use in the notion of being including the expression of an entity having some quality
ascribed to it or something having an identity assigned to it, which can be considered
appropriate and typical notions in this kind of letter. The second choice for relational