English and Vietnamese business complaint
letters - a comparative study from systemic
functional perspectives
Lại Thị Thanh Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: M.A. Nguyễn Huyền Minh
Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract. This thesis is an attempt to deal with business complaint letters as one of the
most popular kinds of business correspondence. The research is concerned with the four aspects
of Systemic Functional Grammar namely transitivity, mood, theme and cohesion reflected in
both English and Vietnamese letters. In the study, an analysis is made on fifteen business
complaint letters written in English language and fifteen others written in Vietnamese by
Vietnamese people. From the analysis, similarities and differences are identified and explained in
the light of Systemic Functional Theories. Basing on the findings, the thesis provides some
suggestions for writing and teaching writing effective business complaint letters in English to
Vietnamese learners and teachers.
Keywords. Tiếng Anh; Ngữ pháp chức năng; Tiếng Việt; Kinh doanh; Thư

Content
1. General introduction and rationale of the study
It is generally accepted that in the last few decades of the 20
th
century, there has been a

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 business complaint
letters from Systemic Functional Perspectives. Based on this, similarities and differences
between English letters and Vietnamese ones will be identified. After that, some suggestions will
be drawn out to improve the studying and teaching writing business complaint letters in English.
2. Aims of the study
The object of the study focuses on only one kind of business letters, namely, the letters of
business complaint in both English and Vietnamese. Due to the constraints in time and limited
knowledge in Business English, this thesis will not deal with all aspects of complaint letters but
concentrate on analyzing transitivity pattern, mood, thematic pattern, and cohesion of letters in
the light of Systemic Functional Grammar. The study aims at:
- Presenting and describing transitivity pattern, mood pattern, thematic pattern and
cohesion in both English and Vietnamese business complaint letters;
- Identifying the similarities and differences in both English and Vietnamese business
complaint letters in terms of transitivity pattern, mood pattern, thematic pattern and
cohesion;
3. Scope of the study
Business letters are the primary and useful tools of exchanging ideas, facts,
recommendations, proposals and so on within a business or between a business and other
businesses and individuals, which give chances to businesses to operate efficiently and
productively. Effective letter writing involves the use of grammar and vocabulary, discourse
cohesive devices and the communicative strategies. As mentioned above, due to the constrain in
time and knowledge and the limitation of a minor thesis, the research cannot explore all the

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, some theories of
discourse including the concept of discourse, functions of language, and discourse context. Next,
in terms of Systemic Functional Grammar, some concepts such as transitivity, mood, theme-
rheme, and cohesion consisting of reference, substitution, ellipsis, lexical cohesion, and
conjunctive cohesion are presented. Finally, the definition, purpose, three contextual parameters
and structure of business complaint letters are also discussed in the chapter.
Chapter Two attempts to analyze business complaint letters in both English and
Vietnamese in the light of Systemic Functional Grammar. In this chapter, the four chosen terms
of transitivity, mood, theme-rheme and cohesion which consists of reference, substitution,
ellipsis, lexical cohesion and conjunctive cohesion are carefully analyzed to help figure out the
differences and similarities of business complaint letters in the two languages in the next chapter.
Chapter Three is concerned with the discussion of the similarities and differences between
English and Vietnamese business complaint letters in terms of transitivity, mood, theme-rheme
and cohesion.
The last part is set up to summarize the whole research. Some useful implications for
studying and teaching writing effective business complaint letters are also drawn out in this
chapter. References
English source
1. Bertha J.Naterop, Erich Weis & Eva Haberfellner, (1977), Business letters for all, OUP.
2. Bloor, T. & M. Bloor, (1995), The Functional analysis of English, Arnold.
3. Cook, G. (1989), Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4. Eggins, S., (1994), An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics, London/New York:
Continuum.
5. G. Brown and G. Yule, (1983), Discourse analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3. Hạo, Cao Xuân, (chủ biên), (1999), Ngữ pháp Chức Năng Tiếng Việt, Quyển 1: Câu trong
Tiếng Việt, NXBGD.
4. Triết, Lê Minh & Thanh, Lê Ngọc, (2004), Hướng dẫn viết thư Tiếng Anh trong Khoa học
và Kinh doanh, NXB Cà Mau.
5. Vân, Hoàng Văn , (1998), “Những ứng dụng cơ bản của Ngôn ngữ Chức năng Hệ thống”,
Tạp chí Khoa học ĐHQG Hà Nội, KHXH, Tập XIV, Số (5), trang 22-24
6. Vân, Hoàng Văn , (2002), Ngữ pháp kinh nghiệm của cú Tiếng Việt mô tả theo quan điểm
Chức năng Hệ thống, Hanoi: KHXH.
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