言语行为理论视角下中英文求职信对比分析_英语论文

A Contrastive Analysis of Chinese and English Cover Letters from the Perspective of Speech Act Theory

摘要

随着国际贸易的不断发展和跨文化交际的日益密切，越来越多的外国公司进入中国市场同时越来越多的中国求职者也进入外国公司发展，而求职信则是中国求职者能否进入外企的敲门砖。由此可见，对于中国求职者而言，如果他们希望获得进入外企工作的机会，一份地道的英文求职信则显得尤为重要。同时，求职信中常出现三大言语行为，因此从言语行为理论视角对比分析中英文求职信变得及其必要。

本文分为三部分：第一部分介绍了求职信的定义和特征，如以读者为中心和用词简明等。第二部分概述了由奥斯汀提出的言语行为理论的定义和三大言语行为，即言内行为、言外行为和言后行为。第三部分在言语行为理论的基础上分析了这两种求职信的三大主要部分——称谓、请求和自我介绍，并通过案例分析发现其在社会地位、表达方式、自我介绍等方面存在差异。作者希望本文能够帮助中国求职者写出优秀的英文求职信从而提高他们求职成功的机率并以此培养他们的跨文化意识。

关键词: 求职信；言语行为理论；称谓；请求；自我介绍

Abstract 

With the rapid development of international trade and the close connection of intercultural communication, more and more foreign companies are settling in Chinese market and at the same time, a growing number of Chinese applicants are entering foreign companies, while the cover letter is the steeping-stone for them to enter. Thus it can be seen that an idiomatic English cover letter is important for a Chinese applicant to receive an offer from the foreign company. Furthermore, there are three kinds of speech acts often appearing in cover letters; therefore it becomes necessary to make a contrastive analysis of Chinese and English cover letters based on Speech Act Theory  

This thesis is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the definition and features of cover letters, such as developing the “You attitude”, using concise words and so on. The second part introduces the definition of Speech Act Theory which is come up by Austin and the three Speech Acts -- locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocurionary act. The third part analyses the three main contents, i.e. address form, request and self-introduction, of these two kinds of cover letters on the basis of Speech Act Theory. And through the analysis of some examples, it is found out that differences do exist in social status, expression patterns and self-introduction in the cover letters. The author hopes that Chinese applicants could write an excellent English cover letter thus increasing their opportunities of getting a decent job and cultivating their cross-cultural awareness. 

Key words: cover letter; Speech Act Theory; address form; request; self-introduction