Linguistic realization of politeness in professional workplace email

China is Li Yi Zhi Bang, a great country whose nationals are characterized by a strong emphasis on being polite to others. Politeness can be realized through social etiquettes like giving way to others, holding open doors for others, and keeping quiet during a lecture. Apart from social etiquettes, politeness can also be realized through language. This lecture will first discuss linguistic realization of politeness, and then explore the realization in professional workplace email. The concepts of face and face work, and the politeness theory proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) will form the basis of our discussion. Authentic English request emails written by business personnel, computer programmers, and school teachers will be analyzed to demonstrate the way and the extent to which politeness is exhibited in professional workplace communication.