The Role of Clause Activization and Passivization in Business E-mail Writing

This research paper explores the role of clause activation and passivization in business email writing. The functional sentence perspective (FSP) analyzes the sentence from the viewpoint of the communicative dynamism of clauses. This study examines how the use of activated and passivized clauses can influence the communicative purpose of a business email. The data was collected from a group of undergraduate students from different departments in Hong Kong. An inter-departmental email and a proposal email were drafted and both shared the same topic, which is about introducing the students to a new course. By adopting a multiple case study approach, each step in the process of the students composing an email was observed. The findings revealed that activated clauses are particularly useful in emphasizing the actions performed by the hypothetical reader. On the other hand, the use of passivization increases the informativeness about the actions supplied by the reader, and subtly guides the reader’s attention. The research design, the methodology, are sufficiently detailed to be convincing. The conclusion generally summarizes the method. It may be that re-statement of the purpose and the research question would have been useful. Overall, the project is impressive. It is interesting that students could apply the process theory to teach the strategies for different result in a business communication course. The paper enlightens me on more important rhetorical organization of business email with visual consequences than what and how grammar holds in a message. Also, the course tries to lay the foundations for a more research-oriented writing. Through the optimization of using different clauses for different communicative purpose, a more effective business email writing can be realized. This would be a lot helpful for me next time when I have to write a mission report or even for this course.