Politeness in written business discourse: A textlinguistic perspective on requests

This article examines the principles and practices of politeness strategies in business communication. The sequential realization of selected face-redress strategies in and around requests is analyzed on the text level in business letters located in a discourse-dynamic perspective. The article demonstrates that the level, form and distribution of positive and negative politeness correlate with sender status and vary as a function of the dynamics of the course of business communication. The article advocates that monitoring politeness strategies on the text level gives valuable insight into the norms that govern British business communication.