Abstract

As a frequently used speech act in our daily life, refusal has been one of the most popular topics in the research of language in the last two decades. The focus of these studies of refusal speech act lies in many aspects, for example, the impact of social factors on the utilization of refusal strategies, the contrastive analysis of refusal speech act across cultural communities.
With the rapid development of economic globalization, trades between countries have become more and more frequent. Foreign trade contains many aspects, among which business letters are one of the most important communicative method. The consultation of transaction is carried out through business letters in most cases. Therefore, an appropriate business letter plays a crucial role in establishing friendly business relationship. It is ordinary to express refusal to clients in real foreign business. A business refusal letter with proper strategy can help the writer persuade the receiver to accept the refusal pleasantly on the one hand; it is also beneficial to maintain sound business relationship for future cooperation on the other hand.
This thesis is to study the refusal strategies in Chinese and American business letters under the guideline of Speech Act Theory and Politeness Principle. The present thesis will help people to better employ refusal strategies in business communication. In the meantime, this study is also beneficial to the research of Chinese and American business letters.

Keywords:  refusal strategy  contrastive analysis  Politeness Principle  business letter

摘要

“拒绝”是人们在日常生活和工作中经常使用的一种言语行为。在过去的十几年里，各国语言学家一直将拒绝言语行为视为研究热点，这些研究集中在以下几个方面，例如社会因素对拒绝策略的选择与使用的影响，以及在跨文化语境中如何使用拒绝策略。
随着经济全球化的迅速发展，各国之间的贸易往来也越来越频繁。外贸业务涵盖了很多方面，其中商务信函是外贸业务中最重要和最主要的沟通方式之一，外贸业务各个环节涉及的磋商和沟通主要是通过函电来进行。因此，得体的函电撰写对进出口双方的友好关系的建立至关重要。在实际的外贸业务往来中，经常会对客户的某些要求做出拒绝。一封书写恰当的商务拒绝信可以帮助写信者在表达坏消息时安抚客户的心情，同时还能使双方在商务交易中保持良好的合作关系。
本文主要采用对比分析的方法，结合言语行为理论、礼貌原则和合作原则，对中美商务信函中的拒绝言语行为策略及其差异的原因分析进行对比研究。希望能帮助人们在商务交流中更好地实施拒绝类言语行为。

关键词：对比研究；拒绝策略；礼貌原则；商务信件