471467
2012
DIS0010.1177/1461445612471467Discourse StudiesSadeghi and Samuel
Article
Genre analysis of the
letters of appeal
Discourse Studies
15(2) 229­–245
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1461445612471467
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Vahid Sadeghi and Moses Samuel
University of Malaya, Malaysia
Abstract
This study uses the genre analysis methodology used in the English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
school, relying mostly on Bhatia’s (1993, 2004) and Swales (1990) models of genre analysis. Two
hundred letters of appeal written by postgraduate students whose native language was other than
English in a public university in Malaysia were included in the study. The sample included letters
written by a variety of students from different language backgrounds. The criterion for selecting
the corpus was the communicative purpose (Askehave and Swales, 2001) of the letters: stating
a request. The study analyzed the genre of the letters of appeal to identify the structural or
rhetorical moves that existed in the genre.
Keywords
English for Specific Purposes, genre analysis, letters of appeal, rhetorical moves,
structural moves
Introduction
Genre analysis in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) was initiated by John Swales in
1981. In his seminal work, Swales (1981) studied and analyzed a number of different
article introductions from different disciplines, and identified certain identical moves
(cognitive structuring of the text) in the structure of all those articles’ introductions
although they were written by experts from various fields of study. In doing so, he tried
to investigate ways through which expert writers in each field wrote the genres that
were used among the members of their discourse community. Since then, this tradition
has been applied by many other scholars in studying and researching other academic
and professional genres (Bazerman, 1985; Bhatia, 1993, 2004; Dudley-Evans, 1986;
Smith, 1984; Swales, 1990, 2004; Upton, 2002; Upton and Cohen, 2009; Zhu, 2000) to
Corresponding author:
Vahid Sadeghi, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Email: vahid.els@gmail.com
230
Discourse Studies 15(2)
uncover the generic features of these texts and the conventions through which they have
been constructed by their expert users.
Among the multitude of genres that have so far been investigated in the literature
of ESP genre analysis, however, the genre of formal ‘letters of appeal’ seems to
have remained under-researched. This article tries to investigate the genre of the
formal letters of appeal by applying ESP genre analysis methodology in the analysis
of 200 letters of appeal written by international students in a public university in
Malaysia.
There have been various studies on letters (Bhatia, 1993; Upton, 2002; Upton and
Cohen, 2009), but the kind of letters that postgraduate students in this particular setting
(or even in other academic or professional settings) deal with are different in some ways:
1.
2.
3.
4.
In this setting, writers and readers might have oral discussions before or after the
submission of the letter while in the case of the other letters (which have been
previously investigated in the literature) there might never be any contact at all.
The conventions and circumstances in this academic setting are much more
specific and localized (being confined and particular to this specific university)
compared to the ones written to a more general and rather larger readership.
In this context there is a status difference: a student writes to a dean, who is supposed to be the authority and in a higher position, making it critical for the writer,
while in the case of the other letters, a business company is writing to another one
of almost the same status or to some prospective customers, with no one having
authority or power over the other.
The ‘communicative purposes’ (Swales, 1990) – the reason why the letters are
written – are also different: a promotion or sales letter is written to inform and get
probable feedback and start and/or maintain future business or cooperation; but a
letter of appeal is written to request something or to describe a case or situation
and is expecting a clear, quick and agreeable reply.
As can be seen, this genre – formal letter of appeal – has specific differences with the
ones that have so far been investigated under the professional or fundraising genres, and
as far as the available literature shows this kind of genre is under-researched. Genre
analysis studies in general have at times neglected the human and living parts of the
genre. Interviewing the readers of this genre, those to whom the letters are addressed,
would be a benefit in understanding what is going on in the process of negotiation
through the genre. Thus, this study seeks to determine the structural/rhetorical moves
that exist in the genre of the letters of appeal.
Upton (2002) analyzed the genre of direct mail letters (DML), the most common
type of genre used by charity organizations to raise funds for humanitarian purposes.
Since this genre has got persuasive communicative purposes, it is very similar to promotional genres such as sales promotion letters. Being highly conventionalized and
bound by constraints (Bhatia, 1993), analyses would yield a lot of commonalities in
terms of the rhetorical move structure across a number of genres. Following Bhatia
(1998), Upton (2002) identified seven rhetorical moves in the 242 direct mail letters
that he analyzed:
Sadeghi and Samuel
231
I)
Get attention
–may include pleasantries
–includes comments before initial greeting
II) Introduce the cause and/or establish credentials of organization
– general problem/need indicated
– specific problem/need highlighted
– successes of past organization efforts highlighted
– goals of future organization efforts outlined
III) Solicit response
a) Financial
– stating benefit of support to the need/problem
– asking for pledge/donation
– reminding of past support to encourage future
b) Other
– contact organization to volunteer/ask questions/give comments
IV) Offer incentives
V) Reference insert
VI) Express gratitude
– past financial or other support
– current/future financial or other support
VII) Conclude with pleasantries
He also investigated the structural elements of the letters:
A)
B)
C)
D)
E)
F)
G)
Date line
Address information
Salutation
Complementary close
Signature
Signature footer
Footnote information
In a more recent study, Upton and Cohen (2009) used the corpus linguistics methodology
to analyze ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ birthmother letter genre in terms of the rhetorical
moves structure. Their study was mainly based on Biber et al. (2007), who had introduced
a seven-step methodology to using corpus-based linguistics in genre analysis studies.
Birthmother letters are the genre by which prospective adoptive parents express
their intentions for adoption to those expectant mothers who are considering adoption
plans for their unborn babies (Upton and Cohen, 2009). In this study, the researchers
investigated the rhetorical organization of the successful letters and the unsuccessful
ones.
Research methodology
Bhatia (1993, 2004) was probably the first scholar who concretely outlined the stages
involved in practical genre analysis:
232
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Discourse Studies 15(2)
Placing the given genre-text in a situational context
Surveying existing literature
Refining situational/contextual analysis
Selecting corpus
Textual, intertextual and interdiscursive perspective
Ethnographic analysis
Studying institutional context (Bhatia, 2004).
In the light of what was mentioned above, the researchers investigated the context
where the genre was used. We spent some time in the offices where these letters were
submitted and decided upon. Some initial interviews were conducted with both readers and writers and, since both researchers were from the same institution, we were
familiar with the situational conventions and also the various cultural variations
involved. Accordingly, we collected a corpus of 1161 letters based on their communicative purpose, which was making an appeal. Two hundred letters were selected based
on a stratified random selection. They were analyzed by two independent raters with
an inter-rater reliability of 83%. The letters were analyzed in terms of their structural
and rhetorical move structure. The criterion for assigning moves was functional;
hence, they were recognized based on the sub-communicative purposes they served in
realizing the overall communicative purpose of the genre as a whole. Writers and
readers of the genre were also occasionally contacted and consulted in various phases
of the analysis to obtain more valid results. Word counts, identification of obligatory
and optional moves and some lexico-grammatical features were also done by the
researchers.
Findings
In most of the previous studies of the genre analysis of letters (Bhatia, 1993, 1997, 1998;
Zhu, 2000), the elements of the letter (Upton, 2002) such as date line, address information and signature have not been included and consequently not studied. However, as
Upton (2002) mentions, ‘as practitioners view these structural elements as an important
part of the direct mail letter, and they are intended to have an impact on the reader, they
seemed worth examining’ (p. 72). Besides, these are inevitably part of the structure of the
genre and need to be included when the genre is analyzed.
Twenty-three structural moves were identified in the letters of appeal written by the
subjects in the study. However, 11 out of these 23 moves were found in less than 10%
of the genre examples. A list of the structural moves and the frequency of their existence in the data are given in Table 1. It should be noted that the order by which they
are presented in the list does not necessarily represent the order by which they appeared
in the genres, and the reason is that some of the structural moves which were recognized did not always appear in a fixed and predictable position across the 200 genre
exemplars.
As can be seen, 15 out of the 23 moves that we identified occurred in less than half of
the genre exemplars; in fact, some of them appeared very infrequently at rates of below
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Sadeghi and Samuel
Table 1. List of structural moves and their frequency of occurrence.
Structural moves
Frequency of occurrence
Percentage of occurrence
Name
Signature
Particulars
Complementary closing
Salutation
Date
Subject
Recipient address
Through
Self-address
Recipient
Greeting (opening/closing)
Carbon copy
Religious opening
Sender
Attention
Addressee
Postscript
Place
Topic
Reference
Number of pages
Signatory title
199
179
163
161
160
150
150
124
86
68
54
31
15
10
8
6
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
99.5
89.5
81.5
80.5
80
75
75
62
43
34
27
15.5
7.5
5
4
3
1.5
1
1
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
15 or 10%. Not appearing at high frequencies does not necessarily mean the move was
not necessary or not typical of the formal letters (as in the cases of ‘Recipient’ or ‘Carbon
copy’). In line with what we understood from the instruction books on letter writing (for
example, Collins UK, 2001; Selsdon, 2004) and also what we found out about the institutional conventions in the university, it can be concluded that an acceptable and appropriate formal letter of appeal in this specific context would have the following structural
moves in pretty much the following order:
Structural move A: Date
Structural move B: Recipient address/recipient
Structural move C: Through
Structural move D: Subject
Structural move E: Salutation
Structural move F: Complementary closing
Structural move G: Signature
Structural move H: Name and particulars
Structural move I : Carbon copy
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Discourse Studies 15(2)
Rhetorical moves
The rhetorical moves were in fact the rhetorical constituents of the body or text of the
letter. Since in the literature there has not been, to our knowledge, a study of the rhetorical move structure of letters of appeal, we were not able to compare and contrast the
findings of our analysis with those of others; what we present here are the moves that
were identified in the letters of appeal written by the international students in the
university.
Generally, five rhetorical moves were identified in the genre of letters of appeal (the
frequency of the occurrence for each move is given in parentheses in Table 2). However,
not all the above-mentioned moves always appeared in a fixed predictable order; this is
in fact a characteristic of persuasive or appealing genres (Bhatia, 1998; Biber et al., 2007).
In the following sections each move will be discussed and explained in sufficient detail.
Lead in
‘Lead in’ was a very common way of starting the letter. In fact, it could be regarded as a
niche for the writer to hang on to for the rest of the text and, as the name indicates, a lead
Table 2. The rhetorical moves and the frequency of their occurrence.
Rhetorical moves
Frequency of occurrence
Percentage of occurrence
Lead in
i) Offering respect
ii) Self introducing
iii) Glorification/appreciation
iv) Referring to subject
v) Background information
vi) Stating a purpose
Request
Justification
i) Reason
ii) Further information
iii) Enclosing documents
iv) Referring to an external source
Solicitation
i) Repeating the request
ii) Soliciting a favorable reply
iii) Making a promise
iv) Making a confession
v) Interrogating
vi) Inviting further communication
Ending with pleasantries
i) Appreciating a favorable reply
ii) Appreciation
iii) Apology
185
4
113
13
50
142
14
195
146
146
79
41
10
128
19
77
23
8
1
5
120
95
116
18
92.5
2
56.5
6.5
25
71
7
97.5
73
73
39.5
20.5
5
64
9.5
38.5
11.5
4
0.5
2.5
60
47.5
58
9
Sadeghi and Samuel
235
to the main request of the letter. However, it was realized as six different steps within the
letters and appeared in more than 90% of the genre exemplars. It should be also noted
that the seven steps did not occur exclusively; that means in the same letter, writers could
have written two or more of the steps in the ‘Lead in’ move to begin their letters.
‘Offering respect’ was the least common way of starting the Lead in, which occurred
in only four cases; however, if they existed, they appeared at the very onset of the text,
which means the letters started with them. Interestingly, three out of the four ‘Offering
respect’ steps, which were all With due respect followed by a comma, were followed by
‘Self introduction’:
With due respect, I am a postgraduate student from faculty of engineering.
With due respect, I’m [name of the writer], an overseas student from [country of the writer], …
‘Glorification’ and ‘Appreciation’ were the other steps that were used as a Lead in to
the letter. These two steps are very much similar to Bhatia’s (1989) ‘adversary glorification, where the organization is magnificently appreciated’. The subjective tone and humble appraisal seem to have been used to flatter the reader in order to facilitate the appeal
or request:
I am so pleased to start my education as [a] Ph.D. student in UM.
I would be very grateful, if you could kindly consider my humble request, because I understand,
you are only person who can help me.
First and foremost and with great felicity, may I take this opportunity to express my heartfelt
appreciation and gratitude to you and the entire University of […] administration for the
excellent and conductive learning atmosphere and facilities offered by the University especially
to international students.
‘Self introducing’ was the next step, which would include information pertaining to
the student’s name, passport number, country of origin, field of study, department and
faculty:
I am [name of the writer]. My passport number is: […]. I am studying in computer science and
information technology faculty.
My name is [name of the writer], I am the postgraduate student in masters with matric No. . . .
I, the undersigned, [name of the writer], matric no. . . . Since June 2007, am studying on a
Master Degree Programme. . . .
‘Self introducing’ was in some cases merged with other steps; most often it appeared
together with ‘Background information’ or ‘Referring to the subject’ and ‘Background
information’ or ‘Referring to the subject’ and ‘request’:
I [name of the writer, holder of passport number. . .) have the offer letter for MASTER OF
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION from UM for 2007–2008 intake.
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Discourse Studies 15(2)
I, [name of the writer (passport number)] have applied and received the offer letter from the
Cultural Center for the Master of Arts (Music) Programme.
With reference to the above, I [name of the writer] failed to pay my semester fees for semester
3 2007.
With reference to the subject matter above, I [name of the writer] wish to appeal to be allowed
to register for the first semester of 2007/2008.
‘Referring to subject’ was the other realization of the Lead in move. It would turn the
reader’s attention to the subject of the letter for a second time. Only in six cases did the
‘Referring to the subject’ occur as an independent move:
Kindly refer to the above captioned matter.
I refer to the above (matter).
In all the other examples of its occurrence, it was merged with other steps. It could
have been merged with ‘Self introducing’, as in:
With reference to the above, my name is [name of the writer] and I am Master of Software
Engineering (MSE) student of the Faculty of . . . ’
or with ‘Background information’ either preceded by ‘Self introducing’ or not:
With regards to the above matter, I [name of the writer], I/D . . . currently pursuing my Masters
in Management, is unable to make my 2nd semester payment on time . . .
‘Stating a purpose’ was another way of starting the letter. This would convey the reason why the letter had been written. However, only 7% of the genre exemplars in this
study had this step in the initial move of the letter. In the following, a few examples are
given to clarify the step:
Regarding to Ips financial unit, I am writing a letter to explain the reason for delay in paying
the fees, semester II (2007–2008).
I am writing to get your permission for getting back the original documents of my wife.
The most common step in the Lead in move was to give some ‘Background information’. Sometimes this information was a problem that the students had encountered:
I would like to inform you that I have encountered two problems in IPS as follows: . . .
More frequently, ‘Background information’ gave information about the writer’s
situation and what had led him/her to write an appeal:
When I applied for the university I submitted my TOEFL results (583 paper base) with my
application forms but in my offer letter I am asked to attend the English course in lieu of TOEFL.
Sadeghi and Samuel
237
Currently, I am pursuing a Doctorate in Faculty of Computer Science and Information
Technology, University of […] My research area include* web data integration system. I am in
fifth semester and I will complete my PhD thesis by end of 2008. I applied for the fellowship.
I was accepted in first interview but unfortunately my application was refused by IPS.
Predictably, as the interview results revealed, the better and clearer the ‘Background
information’ was provided and written, the easier it was for the readers to proceed with
the letter and understand the case. So, it may be concluded that for the ‘Lead in’ move
the best steps to be included are ‘Stating a purpose’, ‘Stating a problem’, or ‘Giving
background information’, which all clarify the situation by explaining the circumstances
and providing what is essential for the reader to understand the case and make decisions.
‘Referring to subject’ is in a way the shortcut to the request by saving on the number of
written words in explaining the situation. It is only helpful when the ‘Subject’ itself is
clearly stated and the reader is sufficiently familiar with the subject and the requests
associated with it.
Request
‘Request’ in a letter of appeal would be probably regarded as a core move because the
whole letter has been written to make a request. All the letters that we investigated in this
study were making a request, although some did not have a separate move assigned as
‘Request’ move or, in other words, directly making a request.
‘Request’ was in infrequent cases the beginning move of the letter:
Please be kind enough to allow me to pay semester -1-07-08 fees on* January 2008.
I am* kindly request from Director: Graduate School of Business Assoc. Prof. Dr. [name of the
person] to postpone tuition fees payment of the three courses I have registered this semester 1
(2007–2008).
However, as mentioned, in very few cases did the ‘Request’ appear by itself at the
very onset of the text body of the letter; more common, yet not very frequent, was an
immersion of ‘Lead in’ steps such as ‘Refer to subject’ or ‘Introducing self’ with the
request at the beginning of the letter:
I, [name of the writer] would like to appeal to drop subject CFGB6/02- Corporate Finance.
With reference to the matter above, I would like to request for the approval for late fees payment.
However, in the majority of the letters the move ‘Request’ appeared at a later stage in
the letter; as illustrated in the move structure outline above, ‘Request’ usually followed
the ‘Lead in’. But it did not necessarily occur before the ‘Reason’; sometimes the reason
followed it and at times it preceded the request.
I would like to request for the approval for late fees payment.
I hereby seek your approval for the release of the said results.
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Discourse Studies 15(2)
I request your permission to be allowed* take my second semester examinations.
I would like to make arrangement to pay for registration fee . . .
It would be very convenient for me, if you allow me to pay the rest of the payment by the end of June.
I wish to appeal to your kind understanding to allow me to get the course fee back without . . .
I am writing soliciting your help and kind assistance in waiving my studentship fees for
semester II 2008/2009.
I therefore pray for your kind cooperation and recommendation and also hope that you would
be allowed me to take this opportunity.
Justification
Once the ‘Lead in’ was established and sufficient ‘Background information’ was given to
clarify the situation, writers proceeded with justifying their request, which was most
often realized by a reason. The reason for the request was most often either before or
after the request. Other than meaning and semantic values of the text pieces, transition
words were the other key to identifying the move reason:
As I have already educated in English Major for my B.A. degree, therefore I would like to ask
you considering* my earned qualifications in English as TOEFL.
Since technically I finished my research in the last semester and I am not using any equipment
or facility anymore, I would like to ask if there is anyway for me to* not to have to register or
to have my tuition fees reduce*.
As can be seen, the reasons in the above cases preceded the requests. In the following
examples reasons follow the requests:
I would like to make my tuition fees by installment. Because at this time I have some financial
problem.
Through this letter I would like to obtain exemption for ‘Academic writing in postgraduate
student’ course, I have passed full time English courses in British council Malaysia for eight
months from March 2007 to November 2007. . .
I would like to request an installment of fees for my post graduate studies. I have to register my
courses this semester. However, the total amount that I have to pay is out of my ability currently
for personal reasons.
In some cases the reasons appeared both after and before the request:
According to the fact that I am holding the academic IELTS band 5.5, I request to be exempted
from sitting for language requirement exam or any other English course, since I am confident
about the English language issue.
Conversely, in some cases the reason was preceded and followed by requests:
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Sadeghi and Samuel
Therefore I was planning to pay the fee for this semester by an 2 installment* since I was
expecting to get a loan from my country but unfortunately it is* rejected, and due to the financial
problem that I am facing at the moment, I would like to get permission to drop one of the
subjects which is Software Reusability (WXGC6302) without any charges.
Justification could also be stated by providing some ‘Further information’. It was the
information that was added to the already existing information provided by the writers to
the text once the essentials had been written; in fact, ‘Further information’ was very similar to ‘Background information’. But across the genre exemplars, ‘Further information’
was provided at a later stage in the letter to further justify the request. The following
example illustrates the point in a tangible way:
Self
Introducing
Background
Information
Request
Solicitinga
Favorable
Reply
Further
Information
I am [Name of the writer]. I spoke to you regarding about the tuition fees. Also
I sent my application to Dato …… for two weeks ago. Now it is still under
processing.
Last semester, I paid RM 6870.40. For this semester I have to pay RM 6912.4.
I want to speed up my studies. Inshaallah, I will finish as soon as possible. I am
full-time concentrating my studies. If I will pay as local standard, it is less
around RM 1600. So I want to pay RM 5300 in first. If my application will
successful, it is ok, I whole heartily expect that please let me pay RM 5300
first. My government does not support me. My uncle is sponsoring me to study
in UM.
Name: …..
Nameand
Particulars
Passport Number: ….
Matric: …..
It should be noted, however, that, as Bhatia (1993) mentions, the criteria for assigning
rhetorical values to text pieces is functional rather than structural or formal. ‘Further inforIt should
be however
that the
as Bhatia
(1993)
the writer
criteria has
for assigning
mation’ was
provided
here tonoted
justify
request
for mentions
which the
written rhetorical
the letter.
‘Enclosing documents’ was another strategy to justify a request. It was realized in
values to text pieces is functional rather than structural or formal. ‘Further Information’ was
three ways in the letters. It was in some letters merged into the text, as in ‘kindly please
provided here to justify the request for which the writer has written the letter.
see attachment’.
In the majority of cases, it was stated in a separate sentence as in:
Please, find attached a copy of the invitation letter sent [to] me from the organizers of the
conference.
22
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Discourse Studies 15(2)
Although the ‘Enclosing documents’ would indirectly indicate and prove what the
writer had claimed or wished to claim, however, in a few letters the writers had used
them to directly emphasize the liability of their claims:
I have also attached copies of my attendance in the course to prove that I did not miss any
classes.
We attached together with this letter, two letters from the Embassy of Russian Federation in
Malaysia, and from the Libyan Embassy in Kuala Lumpur- Malaysia to support and recognize
our degree as authentic and issued by the government of the former USSR.
In other genre exemplars, the ‘Enclosing documents’ appeared as notes below the text
of the letter and before the ‘Complementary closing’ (‘Online registration slip attached’), or at
the very bottom of the letter under the heading ‘Attachment’.
By applying this strategy, the writer refers the reader to an external source other than
the letter or attachments enclosed with the letter for the purpose of justification.
Referring readers to the sources can be for verification purposes, where the reader can
check something stated by the writer in external sources, as in:
Meanwhile I have authored and translated over dozens of books in English which are being sold
at www.amazon.com. Please see some copies of my books. Also you can see some of my works
in my personal website at www[…]com.
Or it can indirectly show that the writer has already contacted the other authorities whose
views would be a decision-making factor in the case and whose consent has been achieved:
As spoken to Prof. Madya Dr. [name of the deputy dean], I wish to seek approval to. . .
Solicitation
The strategies taken in solicitation were ways of emphasizing the request, repeating it and
pressuring the reader or in fact the decision-maker to give an agreeable reply to the request.
This was done in various ways, namely: repeating the request, soliciting a favorable reply,
making a promise, making a confession, interrogating or inviting further communication.
In ‘Repeating the request’, the writers had already made the appeal earlier in the text
but the request was repeated at a later stage in the text, usually after some other moves:
. . . I wish to appeal for reconsideration of the decision of my fellowship for the following
reasons : . . . [Reasons provided].
For the above reasons, I humbly request you to please consider or revise your decision relevant
to my fellowship as I am self financing this PhD studies.
Unlike promotional business or fundraising letters, where the writer is not sure
whether he will get any reply from the reader, the writers in this case know for sure that
there will be a reply. However, they all look forward to a favorable reply. So in the genre
of the letter of appeal, instead of ‘soliciting reply’ the writers ‘solicit a favorable reply’.
Sadeghi and Samuel
241
‘Soliciting a favorable reply’ was the most common way of solicitation used by the writers to oblige the reader to make an agreeable decision. ‘Soliciting a favorable reply’ in
fact inculcates that the reader should give a favorable reply or, in other words, imply that
the writer is looking forward to a positive response:
I do hope my request will be considered and no penalty will be imposed for late payment of
fees.
I look forward to a positive outcome.
I sincerely hope you will grant my request a favorable consideration.
I count on your usual cooperation and necessary assistance, and hope my application would be
given your kind consideration.
‘Making a promise’ was the other strategy for solicitation used by the writers in this
kind of genre. Assuring the reader that what had happened was an exceptional case and
would not happen again was a way in which some writers opted to increase the chances
of getting a favorable reply (the promises are underlined):
hope to be able to make payment of the full sum by the end of July. I need hardly* point out that
these circumstances are exceptional, and trust you will understand my present situation.
I sincerely would like to apologize for my negligence and would remind myself to follow rules,
procedures and regulations in the near future.
The other strategy employed by the writers was ‘Making a confession’. Confessing to
something would mean that the person already knows that he has done something unacceptable (but most probably for a reason); however, he has had the courage to confess to
that, and by the confession he would expect to be forgiven and granted a positive
response. In the following there are some examples of this step:
I am aware of the cut off* date being 18 January 2008 but due to my other financial commitments
I could not meet the payment dateline*.
I am writing to you to appeal, to allow me to register for semester 2 of year one albeit* I am late
for it. It was an oversight.
I am deeply regretting myself for what I did, it was so embarrassing. I learnt my lesson, and I
know that I should face the punishment and consequences.
The other step which was applied in solicitation was use of what was termed
‘Interrogating’ in the letter. However, although it was identified in only one case, it is
nevertheless relevant to this discussion. The writer had questioned the reader as to why
he had not been offered a scholarship that he thought he deserved due to some of his
credentials, and appealed to be given the opportunity:
. . . Then, I applied for fellowship and participated in interview. Now, when I came for result, I
saw that I have been rejected while other PhD students are accepted even new students.
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May I know, why? What is my guilt? My high mark or my thesis which is more than 40
pages[?], now my need is since I have no support, or . . . please help me to solve this issue.
In a few solicitation moves we identified a strategy that was called ‘Inviting further
communication’, in which the writers would invite the readers to refer back to them if
they needed further information, clarification, verification or other things. This is typical
with solicited or unsolicited letters of reference or promotional business where the writer
is not sure whether or to what extent the information he has provided is sufficient.
However, an appeal letter is supposed to be objectively self-contained and informative
enough to make it possible for the reader to decide, and if the decision-maker requires
further information he or she would get back to the writer accordingly. The examples of
the moves in the genre exemplars in our study were as follows:
I have attached my CV, if you would like any further information I would, of course, be very
happy to supply it.
In case your office needs to contact me, you may reach me at this email address […]@gmail.com.
Ending with pleasantries
The last rhetorical move in the genre of letters of appeal in this study was ‘Ending with
pleasantries’. This move contains all, two, or one of the steps: ‘Appreciating a favorable
reply’, ‘Appreciation’, and ‘Apology’. One may argue that appreciating a favorable reply
and appreciation are the same, but across many genres they co-exist in the same move
and thus the analysts differentiate them from one another:
I appreciate your kind consideration and approval of my above appeal. Thank you.
In appreciating a favorable reply the writers, as in ‘Soliciting a favorable reply’,
implicitly inculcate that they are expecting a positive response and would appreciate that
if they are helped or agreed with:
Your kind* and understanding would be highly appreciated.
I would like to thank you in advance for the kind consideration. [Note the use of article the]
Thus, your consideration of acceptance to my admission for this semester and cancellation of
the late payment is very much appreciated.
The other step in the ‘Ending pleasantly’ move was appreciation, which would simply
thank the reader for reading the letter and considering the request; this is what Bhatia
(1993) and Upton (2002) call ‘Ending politely’. ‘Thank you’, ‘Thank you for your consideration/cooperation/attention’, ‘Thank you in advance’, and similar phrases were the
common steps to offer and express the writers’ gratitude towards the readers, and additionally a pleasant and polite way of closing the letter.
And finally, ‘Making an apology’ was the third step to make a pleasant ending. The
apology could have been given separately as in:
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Any inconvenience caused is truly regretted.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Regretfully, I would like to apologize for my negligence in making the payment.
Or it could have been merged with the other steps, like appreciation or appreciating a
favorable reply:
Your kind consideration is highly appreciated and apology for any inconvenience caused.
With this, I apologize for the inconvenience caused and your kindness is very much appreciated.
Lexico-grammatical features
The average word count of a letter of appeal across our genre exemplars was 118 words. The
moves lead-in, request and justification had an average word count of 49, 18 and 25 respectively, making them the largest moves across the genre. Besides their relatively large word
counts, the rhetorical values of the three mentioned moves make them obligatory moves in
the genre. The first one sets the scene, the second puts forward the request and the third justifies it. Traditionally in administrative writing, ending politely has been frequently viewed
and considered as strongly recommended, while solicitation is definitely an optional move.
The most common verb tenses used in the genres included in the sample were simple
past, simple present and present perfect, respectively, which frequently appeared in the
lead-in and justification moves. As for the request move, the less common structure was
the use of imperatives: ‘Please help me’, and the more frequently used ones were questions: ‘Could you kindly…’ and ‘I + would like+…’. Other structures for making
requests, such as ‘I was wondering’, ‘It would be appreciated if’, and the like, did not
appear among the genres we investigated. Use of adjectives and adverbs (‘kind’, ‘kindly’,
‘humble’), however, abounded across the genre exemplars; this was probably applied to
make the request sound humble and polite. It may be argued that the writers, not being
necessarily professionally able to use structures to sound polite or objective in making
requests, reverted to words in order to compensate for that – a fact that could be justified
by lack of certain common structures for making requests, lack of passive voice structures, and the abundance of humble and pleasing adjectives and adverbs.
In fact, some interviews with the readers emphasized that the letters sounded very
subjective and personal besides being ‘instructive’ and imperative. This complaint
could be explained in the light of what was mentioned above in cases where lack of
certain request-making structures and the passive voice makes the letter sound personal
rather than objective, and at times even imperative, an inefficiency that could not be
compensated for by use of nice adjectives and adverbs.
Conclusion
As shown in this article, the rhetorical part of the letters of appeal consists of ‘Lead in’,
‘Request’, ‘Justification’, ‘Solicitation, and ‘Ending with pleasantries’. It should,
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however, be remembered that not all these moves occur frequently across the genre
exemplars and also that in some moves, such as Lead in, various steps might exist for
creating the moves.
As far as the various rhetorical moves are concerned, it could be concluded that ‘Lead
in’, ‘Request’, and ‘Reason’ are the most important moves in the letters and hence
‘Obligatory’ in the genre of the letters of appeal. This could be further endorsed by considering the frequency of their appearance across the genre exemplars: 92%, 97.5% and
73% respectively. However, the others are optional, though one would not usually end a
formal letter without offering some respect or pleasantries to the readers. So in a sense,
although ‘Ending with pleasantries’ is an optional move, it is most often recommended
by letter-writing conventions.
Genre, as perceived by Swales, Bhatia and others in the ESP school of genre analysis,
is a highly structured construct, and its specific features are a reflection of the nature of
genre in question rather than the characteristics of the writers. The findings of this
research also confirm such a claim by showing the existence of certain moves that exist
across the number of genres written by different groups of writers. In fact, the findings
are in line with those of Bhatia (1993), Flowerdew and Dudley-Evans (2002), Upton
(2002), and Upton and Cohen (2009), where the genres have specific moves as means of
achieving a communicative purpose. Here, although the writers are neither native speakers of English nor necessarily all very proficient and professional writers of letters, the
genre itself is composed of moves which are shared by a majority of the genres, though
they could have been verbalized differently. The fluid nature of the genre and the flexible
positions of the moves confirm the previous findings on the persuasive discourse. All in
all, this study investigated a genre that was not, to our knowledge, previously analyzed
in this tradition, while it had certain commonalities and differences with the others.
It should also be noted that the multi-perspective account of genre analysis (Bhatia,
2004) would necessitate the consideration of a few facts in analyses of such kind. First,
there are discussions before and after submissions of the letters that would influence the
ways letters are written. Second, the writers not being native speakers or proficient users do
not have appropriately pragmatic and discoursal control over the text, or they would simply
sacrifice them for achieving personal goals which need to be obtained very fast (sometimes
they need to write letters in a matter of a few minutes and all they think about is the request
and not the proper way of conveying it). Lastly, though genres are highly structural and
conventional constructs, the way each move is realized is rather flexible. That is probably
why the moves identified here were realized in various steps and did not necessarily follow
a fixed set of strategies. However, they existed in almost all of the genre exemplars and they
left various, or at times surprisingly contrasting, effects on the readers.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
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Author biographies
Vahid Sadeghi is a PhD graduate in TESL from the University of Malaya, Malaysia. He has been
teaching English as a second and foreign language in Malaysia and Iran. He is currently teaching
English for specific purposes in universities in Iran. His areas of interest include ESP, Genre
Analysis and Teacher Education.
Moses Samuel is a professor of Education at the Department of Language and Literacy Education
in the University of Malaya, Malaysia. His areas of interest include Curriculum and Pedagogy
(TESL, Teaching of Writing), Applied Linguistics (TESOL Teacher Education), Applied
Linguistics (Sociolinguistics, Language Planning and Policy) and Literacy (Literacy Development,
Multiliteracies).