Degree Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
2005
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
English
First Advisor
David Roberts
Abstract
Despite the prevalence of a belief in the importance of preparing students for work in a global economy, very little research into Spanish-language written communication practices exists. In this study, I formed hypotheses regarding Mexican business e-mails based on congruencies in the findings of previous Spanish-language writing research and US-English e-mail writing research and then tested these hypotheses against a corpus of 107 Mexican business e-mails. I employed both a qualitative rhetorical analysis and a quantitative feature presence/absence analysis. Of the eight hypothesis statements describing Mexican business e-mails, only two were affirmed. The hypothesis statements describing these workplace e-mail messages and the findings of this study are; (1) they are organized in a non-linear fashion---disaffirmed, (2) they are highly specific with a high level of detail---disaffirmed, (3) they are indirect in approaching the main topic---disaffirmed, (4) they contain "ornate and flowery" language---disaffirmed, (5) they address personal issues before work-related issues---disaffirmed, (6) they do not contain salutations---disaffirmed, (7) they do not contain signatures-affirmed and, (8) they are not written in all upper case letters---affirmed. The findings suggest a need for genre-specific research to take the place of research on under-defined documents and research that has perhaps been over-generalized.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31274/rtd-180813-15385
Publisher
Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/
Copyright Owner
Therese M. Judge
Copyright Date
2005
Language
en
Proquest ID
AAI3200433
File Format
application/pdf
File Size
110 pages
Recommended Citation
Judge, Therese M., "Spanish business writing genre research: electronic mail memoranda " (2005). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 1746.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/1746
Included in
Liberal Studies Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons