Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS WRITING: RHETORICAL AND LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES
Abstract
In this dissertation, I study descriptively a corpus of business writing drawn from a major national corporation. My orientation in the study is toward teaching business writing. By seeking to explore the usefulness of examining writing produced by business people on the job, I hope to partially define the task of teaching business writing to college students. I analyze the discourse in four different ways--all inductive and all ways that to my knowledge have not been used previously in the study of business language. In chapter 1, I describe the status of research in the specialized field of business composition and the changing paradigm in the broader field of composition. In chapter 2, I explain my methodology and my hypotheses, which considered both rhetorical and linguistic perspectives. In chapter 3, I complete three types of analysis: modified Aristotelian; Frame Analysis, based on the work of Erving Goffman; and Speech Act analysis, based in the theory of John Searle. In chapter 4, I perform a series of syntactic analyses, including the measurement of such stylistic patterns as truncated passives, nominal modifiers, passive adjectives, and dependent sentences. In chapter 5, I report my findings, among which is the conclusion that some of the patterns that emerge in this study do not substantiate elements of conventional teaching. I found some interesting patterning of language form with rhetorical purposes and some patterning between language form and the writer's place in the office hierarchy. Finally, I make recommendations for additional research that seem to be clearly indicated by this study.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature
Recommended Citation
LESLIE, PATRICIA A. WORTMAN, "A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS WRITING: RHETORICAL AND LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES" (1982). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8227022.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8227022