American, Turkish, Chinese and Georgian Cultural Differences and Peculiarities Depicted in Business English Correspondence (original) (raw)

Language as a unique means of communication of the humankind is created in order to convey meaning, express the reality and establish communication. However, language is culture dependent as culture is expressed by language and language reflects culture by linguistic units. Current development of humankind stemmed the importance of existence of common language because of globalization. Globalization is a process when people try to establish new contacts in order to develop, share and study new reality. The global communication is getting easier with the help of technological advancement. Technologies make communication faster and more accessible throughout the world, which is especially profitable for business people as it helps them to expand their business and find a partner or customers all over the world. The aim of the thesis is to find out the reasons of English used as lingua franca especially for business purposes, to reveal the most popular way of business communication, and to depict and measure effects of the national culture on global business correspondence. To achieve the aim of the thesis, people having target cultural background, the Americans, the Turkish, the Georgians and the Chinese are invited to fill in online or paper-based questionnaire which aims to find out cultural effect on business correspondence. The second part of the research is the examination of business letters to reveal culturally dependent connotation, style or meanings. The research revealed that business communication, along with the development of humanity changes. Communication is more digitalized when ever before. The most popular form of communication is written, as it enables business writer to communicate at their convenient time. Culture has an impact on effectiveness of business writing and culture can be read with in the lines. Business communicators prefer to use American way of writing as the impact of the USA on business is great and so is on business communication. Business Communicators apart from good command of English require to be aware of culture of their business addressees as writing is a process which not simultaneous. Writing enables business writer to think more during their written communication, writer usually choose to sound pleasant and it is sometimes hard to understand real implications of the letter. However, there are cultures, for example American one, which is direct, goal-oriented and flexible and their writing carries the same characteristics. Business correspondence of different nations based on American business writing patterns generally varies in accordance of the culture and American style of business writing is adjusted to the national cultural preferences.