THE MANAGEMENT OF CONFLICT IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION: THE PRAGMATIC OF CERTAIN SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES

Abstract

In this paper i examine correlations between meanings of a number of english syntactic structures and their usages as mitigation markers in workplace discourse. These are the whimperatives (the (bare) imperative, can/could you and will/would you patterns) and the non-factive and modal constructions (I think, P and the must/would frames). Basing my research on genuine linguistic examples, and working within the theoretic frameworks of natural semantic Metalanguage and Politeness Theory, i show how the particular configurations of illocutionary components in the semantic formulae for the given patterns may account for the motivation in their systematic use as mitigation markers in business communication.