Representation of Self among Chinese College Jobhunters.docx

Representation of Self among Chinese College Jobhunters.docx

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RepresentationofSelfamongChineseCollegeJobhunters

RepresentationofSelfamongChineseCollegeJob-hunters

　　Introduction:

　　Someoftheirresearches（Booher,1988;SmithandBernhardt,1996;Munter,2006）havebeenconcentratedonteachingstudentswritingskills.Ontheotherhand,someoftheirresearches（Lakoff,1975;Labov,1990;Coates,1998）havebeencarriedonaboutidentifyingandinstantiatingpossibledifferencesinlinguisticstylesbetweenmalesandfemales.However,littleworkhasbeenundertakenoninvestigatinggenderdifferencesreflectedinbusinessletterswriting,especiallyjob-applicationletter,byanalyzingthegenrecomponentsandpolitenessstrategies.Inthisproject,byprovidingacontentanalysisof20jobapplicationletterswrittenbyChinesecollegejobapplicants,ItrytoexplorethedifferencesbetweenChinesemaleandfemalecollegejobhunterspresentedintheirjobapplicationletters.

　　Literaturereview:

　　SmeltzerandWelbal（1986）werethefirsttoattempttoanswerthequestionofwhetherornotmalesandfemalesdifferintheirmanagerialwrittencommunicationstyle.Theyreviewedandevaluated16dimensions,theyfoundthatthereisnosignificantdifferencebetweenmalesandfemalesonthese16dimensions.However,theirresearchisalsoconstrainedwithmanylimitations;forinstance,theresearchersaskedninefemaleMBAstudentswhowerenotenrolledinthecourseinwhichthesampleswereselectedtojoinintheirresearchstudy.Therefore,thesampleswerenottotallyrandom-selected.

　　Therearemanydifferentwaystoanalyzewrittenstructures.However,Bhatia’sseven-movestructuralmodel（1993）isthemostpopularandwidelyusedone.Here,accordingtoNwogu（1997）,“move”meansa“textsegment”madeupofabundleoflinguisticfeaturesthatgivethesegmentauniformorientationandsignalthecontentofdiscourseinit.SoBhatia’sseven-movestructuralmodel（1993）isaveryimportantstartingpointtoanalyzethejobapplicationletter.

　　Meanwhile,Icannotcompletelyemploytheseven-movemodel（Bhatia,1993）intoanalyzingChinesecollegejobhunters’applicationletters.TakethemoveUsingPressureTacticsforexample,itisrarelyseeninChinesecollegejobhunters’jobapplicationletters;onthecontrary,Chineseemployersoftengiveprioritytotheapplicantswithpoliticalaffiliation,suchasCommunistPartyMember,whichneveroccurredinWesterners’jobapplicationletters.Therefore,Ihaveadapteditinto10specificmovesusuallyappearedinChinesecollegejobhunters’jobapplicationletterswitheachdefinitionasfollows:

　　AdaptedMoves

　　DefinitionandExample

　　1.Opening

　　DearSirorMadam;Towhomitmayconcern,

　　2.Sourceofinformation

　　IgettheinformationfromwebsiteofthePersonalSectionofyouruniversity.

　　3.Introducingcandidature

　　Iwishtomakeapplicationforlectureshipin…

　　4.Establishingcredentials

　　IwillgraduateinJulywithMAdegree.

　　5.Essentialdetailingofthecandidature

　　Ihavebeendoingpart-timejobasanEnglishteachersince2008.

　　6.Indicatingvalueofthecandidature

　　IamgoodatWORD,EXCEL,andIamfluentinEnglishandCantonese.

　　7.Offeringincentives

　　Iamalsoquitequalifiedtoteachavarietyofcoursesatundergraduatelevels,suchasgrammar,readingandlistening.

　　8.Enclosingdocuments

　　MycompletedCVisenclosed.

　　9.Solicitingresponse

　　Feelfreetocontactme,myphonenumberis…

　　10.Politeending

　　Lookingforwardtohearingfromyousoon.

　　Anothertheoreticalmodelusedinmyprojectismodelofpoliteness（BrownandLevinson,1987）.Itprovidesagoodframeworkforidentifyingthedifferentstrategiesmaleorfemalecollegejobhuntersprefertousewhentheyintendtocommunicateproperlyandefficientlyinwrittenforms.Allthetwentyapplicationlettersusedinmyprojectarewrittentexts.ThankstoGregMyers（1989）,heextendedthemodelproposedbyBrownandLevinsontothescopeofwrittentextthatcanbeunderstoodasaformofinteractionbetweenauthorandreaderinthiscertaincircumstance.

　　ResearchMethods:

　　1.Participants:

　　Amongtwentyletters,five（3males’and2females’letters）weretakenforanalysisfromapplicantfilesatEnglishProgram,GraduateSchoolatShenzhen,HarbinInstituteofTechnologythisyear,anyinformationgivenwouldbetotallyanonymous.Asfortheremainingfifteenpostgraduatejobapplicationletters（7frommalestudentsand8fromfemalestudents）,theyaregainedfromthefirstyearpostgraduateChinesestudents,majoringinScienceandEngineeringatHITSGSfromwhichtheywillgraduatewithMScdegreeinJune2011.

　　2.Approachofdatacollection:

　　Fivepostgraduates’jobapplicationletterswerechosenrandomlyintheapplicantfilesofYear2010.AlloftheapplicantswereseekingalectureshipinEnglishProgram,HITSGS.Inaddition,eachofthe15postgraduatejobhunterswasaskedtowriteajobapplicationletterasifheorshewereactuallyhuntingajob.Thesestudentsmoreorlesshavesomeknowledgeofbusinessletterwritingskills.Sothistimethereisnofixedmodelforthemtofollow.Theycomposeitonlyasthewaytheythinkthejobapplicationlettershouldbe.

　　DataAnalysis:

　　1.Analysisofmovestructure:

　　IfoundthattenmovesaregenerallyappliedinbothChinesemaleandfemalecollegejobhunters’applicationletters.Differentmovesarepreferredtousebymalecollegejobhuntersandfemalecollegejobhuntersrespectively.Thereisnosalientdifferenceinusingmoveoneandthree,becausethosearethebasicinformationapplicantsshouldprovide.Moreover,amongthejobapplicationletterswrittenbymalecollegejobhunters,theymainlyfocusonmovethree,eightandnineoften,however,femalejobapplicantsusemoremovesthanmalecounterparts.Figure1makesthepointgraphically.

　　Figure1:

Comparisonofthemovesinmaleandfemalecollegejobhunters’jobapplicationletters:

　　2.Analysisofpolitenessstrategies

　　Chinesepeoplehaveitsownconventiontoexpresstheirpoliteness,onlyafewpolitenessstrategiescanbeusedtoanalyzethegenderdifferencespresentedinjobapplicationletterswrittenbyChinesecollegejobhunters,takepositivepolitenessforexample,thereareshowinginterest,offeringacontributionorabenefit,showingdirectness,beingoptimisticandglorifyingtheaddressee.Asforthenegativestrategies,onlytwostrategiesareusedofteninjobapplicationletters:

givingdeferenceandself-degradation.

　　Bydoingstatisticalanalysis（Figure2）,IfindthatthereisnotmuchgenderdifferenceinShowingInterest,whichbothmaleandfemalestudentsalwaysuseasleading-insentence.However,someslightvariationsstillcouldbefound:

malecollegejobhuntersusemorebold-typedintensifier（e.g.verymuch）andlexicalterms（e.g.promisingorhonored）toexpresstheirpassiontowardsthefuturejob.Femalecollegejobhuntersonlyuseplacidwordstoexpresstheirinterestinthejobandtheymaythinkitisquiteabrupttostatestrongfeelingatthebeginning.

　　Inaddition,whenwearelookingatotherpositivestrategies,itcanbeeasilyfoundthatmalecollegejobhuntersusemorethanfemalecollegejobhuntersinwritingjobapplicationletters.Bycomparingthewaymaleandfemalecollegejobhuntersusetodescribetheirqualificationsandcontributions,malecollegejobhuntersseemstobeoverconfidentwithoutgivingpertinentinformationthanfemalecollegejobhunterswhenapplyingforajob,whichiseasytoboretheaddresseewithirrelevantinformationandunnecessarysuperlatives.Andthewordsmalecollegejobhunterschoosearedeliberateandpurpose-orientedandsoundmoreaggressivethanthosewordsusedbyfemalecollegejobhunters.AndthischaracteristicissalientlyincarnatedinShowingDirectnesspolitenessstrategy,whichisrarelyseeninfemales’jobapplicationletters.Moreover,whenconsideringBeingOptimisticpolitenessstrategy,malecollegejobhunters（80%）stilloutperformnearlytwiceasmuchasfemalecollegejobhunters（50%）.

　　GlorifyingtheAddresseeistheonlypolitenessstrategymodelthatisnotovertlystatedinBrownandLevinson’spolitenessmodel（1987）.However,Chinesecollegejobhuntersliketousethisstrategynotonlytoexpresstheirappreciation,butalsotrytogainmorefavorableimpressionfromtheperspectiveemployer.Likewise,maleapplicantsmakefulluseofthisstrategy（80%）twiceasmuchasfemaleapplicants（40%）.

　　BasedontheBrownandLevinson’smodel（1987）,itisquitelogicaltogettheconclusionthatjobhuntersshoulduseasmorenegativestrategiesaspossibletoshowtheirrespecttotheaddressee.Onthecontrary,theanalysisIexaminedshowsthatthereareonlytwonegativestrategiesusedbybothmaleandfemalecollegejobhunterscomparedwiththatofpositivestrategies.

　　Moreinterestingly,femalejobapplicantsuseoverwhelminglymorenegativestrategiesthanmaleapplicants.Takethefirstnegativestrategyforexample:

thecommonstructureusedbyfemalegraduatesis“Iwouldbegratefulifyougivemyapplicationletteracarefulconsideration.”or“Idoappreciateyourconsiderationofmyapplication.”Incontrast,onlymale4and7usethisformulaicstructureattheendoftheirapplicationletters.Moreover,onlyahandfuloffemalejobapplicantsuseself-degradationstrategy,whichishardlyseeninmales’.

　　Figure2:

Comparisonofpolitenessstrategiesinmaleandfemalecollegejobhunters’jobapplicationletters:

　　Discussion:

　　FindingsaboutgenderdifferencesembodiedinthejobapplicationletterswrittenbyChinesemaleandfemalecollegejobhuntersrevealmanyinterestingre