Representation of Self among Chinese College Jobhunters.docx

1、Representation of Self among Chinese College JobhuntersRepresentation of Self among Chinese College Job-hunters Introduction: Some of their researches (Booher, 1988; Smith and Bernhardt, 1996; Munter, 2006) have been concentrated on teaching students writing skills. On the other hand, some of their

2、researches (Lakoff, 1975; Labov, 1990; Coates, 1998) have been carried on about identifying and instantiating possible differences in linguistic styles between males and females. However, little work has been undertaken on investigating gender differences reflected in business letters writing, espec

3、ially job-application letter, by analyzing the genre components and politeness strategies. In this project, by providing a content analysis of 20 job application letters written by Chinese college job applicants, I try to explore the differences between Chinese male and female college job hunters pr

4、esented in their job application letters. Literature review: Smeltzer and Welbal (1986) were the first to attempt to answer the question of whether or not males and females differ in their managerial written communication style. They reviewed and evaluated 16 dimensions, they found that there is no

5、significant difference between males and females on these 16 dimensions. However, their research is also constrained with many limitations; for instance, the researchers asked nine female MBA students who were not enrolled in the course in which the samples were selected to join in their research st

6、udy. Therefore, the samples were not totally random-selected. There are many different ways to analyze written structures. However, Bhatias seven-move structural model (1993) is the most popular and widely used one. Here, according to Nwogu (1997), “move” means a “text segment” made up of a bundle o

7、f linguistic features that give the segment a uniform orientation and signal the content of discourse in it. So Bhatias seven-move structural model (1993) is a very important starting point to analyze the job application letter. Meanwhile, I cannot completely employ the seven-move model (Bhatia, 199

8、3) into analyzing Chinese college job hunters application letters. Take the move Using Pressure Tactics for example, it is rarely seen in Chinese college job hunters job application letters; on the contrary, Chinese employers often give priority to the applicants with political affiliation, such as

9、Communist Party Member, which never occurred in Westerners job application letters. Therefore, I have adapted it into 10 specific moves usually appeared in Chinese college job hunters job application letters with each definition as follows: Adapted Moves Definition and Example 1. Opening Dear Sir or

10、 Madam; To whom it may concern, 2. Source of information I get the information from website of the Personal Section of your university. 3. Introducing candidature I wish to make application for lectureship in 4. Establishing credentials I will graduate in July with MA degree. 5. Essential detailing

11、of the candidature I have been doing part-time job as an English teacher since 2008. 6. Indicating value of the candidature I am good at WORD, EXCEL, and I am fluent in English and Cantonese. 7. Offering incentives I am also quite qualified to teach a variety of courses at undergraduate levels, such

12、 as grammar, reading and listening. 8. Enclosing documents My completed CV is enclosed. 9. Soliciting response Feel free to contact me, my phone number is 10. Polite ending Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Another theoretical model used in my project is model of politeness (Brown and Levins

13、on, 1987). It provides a good framework for identifying the different strategies male or female college job hunters prefer to use when they intend to communicate properly and efficiently in written forms. All the twenty application letters used in my project are written texts. Thanks to Greg Myers (

14、1989), he extended the model proposed by Brown and Levinson to the scope of written text that can be understood as a form of interaction between author and reader in this certain circumstance. Research Methods: 1. Participants: Among twenty letters, five (3 males and 2 females letters) were taken fo

15、r analysis from applicant files at English Program, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Harbin Institute of Technology this year, any information given would be totally anonymous. As for the remaining fifteen postgraduate job application letters (7 from male students and 8 from female students), they are g

16、ained from the first year postgraduate Chinese students, majoring in Science and Engineering at HITSGS from which they will graduate with MSc degree in June 2011. 2. Approach of data collection: Five postgraduates job application letters were chosen randomly in the applicant files of Year 2010. All

17、of the applicants were seeking a lectureship in English Program, HITSGS. In addition, each of the 15 postgraduate job hunters was asked to write a job application letter as if he or she were actually hunting a job. These students more or less have some knowledge of business letter writing skills. So

18、 this time there is no fixed model for them to follow. They compose it only as the way they think the job application letter should be. Data Analysis: 1. Analysis of move structure: I found that ten moves are generally applied in both Chinese male and female college job hunters application letters.

19、Different moves are preferred to use by male college job hunters and female college job hunters respectively. There is no salient difference in using move one and three, because those are the basic information applicants should provide. Moreover, among the job application letters written by male col

20、lege job hunters, they mainly focus on move three, eight and nine often, however, female job applicants use more moves than male counterparts. Figure 1 makes the point graphically. Figure 1: Comparison of the moves in male and female college job hunters job application letters: 2. Analysis of polite

21、ness strategies Chinese people have its own convention to express their politeness, only a few politeness strategies can be used to analyze the gender differences presented in job application letters written by Chinese college job hunters, take positive politeness for example, there are showing inte

22、rest, offering a contribution or a benefit, showing directness, being optimistic and glorifying the addressee. As for the negative strategies, only two strategies are used often in job application letters: giving deference and self- degradation. By doing statistical analysis (Figure 2), I find that

23、there is not much gender difference in Showing Interest, which both male and female students always use as leading-in sentence. However, some slight variations still could be found: male college job hunters use more bold-typed intensifier (e.g. very much) and lexical terms (e.g. promising or honored

24、) to express their passion towards the future job. Female college job hunters only use placid words to express their interest in the job and they may think it is quite abrupt to state strong feeling at the beginning. In addition, when we are looking at other positive strategies, it can be easily fou

25、nd that male college job hunters use more than female college job hunters in writing job application letters. By comparing the way male and female college job hunters use to describe their qualifications and contributions, male college job hunters seems to be overconfident without giving pertinent i

26、nformation than female college job hunters when applying for a job, which is easy to bore the addressee with irrelevant information and unnecessary superlatives. And the words male college job hunters choose are deliberate and purpose-oriented and sound more aggressive than those words used by femal

27、e college job hunters. And this characteristic is saliently incarnated in Showing Directness politeness strategy, which is rarely seen in females job application letters. Moreover, when considering Being Optimistic politeness strategy, male college job hunters (80%) still outperform nearly twice as

28、much as female college job hunters (50%). Glorifying the Addressee is the only politeness strategy model that is not overtly stated in Brown and Levinsons politeness model (1987). However, Chinese college job hunters like to use this strategy not only to express their appreciation, but also try to g

29、ain more favorable impression from the perspective employer. Likewise, male applicants make full use of this strategy (80%) twice as much as female applicants (40%). Based on the Brown and Levinsons model (1987), it is quite logical to get the conclusion that job hunters should use as more negative

30、strategies as possible to show their respect to the addressee. On the contrary, the analysis I examined shows that there are only two negative strategies used by both male and female college job hunters compared with that of positive strategies. More interestingly, female job applicants use overwhel

31、mingly more negative strategies than male applicants. Take the first negative strategy for example: the common structure used by female graduates is “I would be grateful if you give my application letter a careful consideration.” or “I do appreciate your consideration of my application.” In contrast

32、, only male 4 and 7 use this formulaic structure at the end of their application letters. Moreover, only a handful of female job applicants use self-degradation strategy, which is hardly seen in males. Figure 2: Comparison of politeness strategies in male and female college job hunters job application letters: Discussion: Findings about gender differences embodied in the job application letters written by Chinese male and female college job hunters reveal many interesting re