Politeness at Work: Analysis of a Job Application Letter with Leech’s Principles of Politeness

Abstract

The job application letter is a sub-genre of business letter. It is a formal letter and is aimed to promote the applicant for a specific job application. This paper describes and analyses the discursive elements of a sample letter by using the principles of politeness proposed by Leech (1983, 2005). The findings display the interplay of Modesty and Approbation Maxims, while the Tact Maxim also plays a part in the interpretation of the letter.