EXAMINING DISCURSIVE STRATEGIES IN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE OF KAZAKHSTAN: KAZAKH, RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES

In the modern period in Kazakhstan, multilingualism becomes the
trend with the Kazakh as the only official language, Russian
widely used as a language of interethnic communication, and
English as a language of international business communication.
While the proficiency in these three languages (see Cultural
project “Trinity of Language” 2007) is considered to be as
integral component of personal and professional development of
a person and becomes one of the priorities of the state language
policy (i.e. Roadmap for the Development of Trilingual
Education for 2015-2020, etc.), more and more business
professionals in Kazakhstan are focused on more effective ways
of transferring business messages to their business partners taking
into account intercultural and pragmatic features in written
business communication.
In this regards, the aim of this paper is to identify and compare
the main communicative intentions of business professionals of
the modern Kazakhstani business community, as well as to
explore discursive strategies and their implementations on the
example of business correspondence texts compiled in Kazakh,
Russian and English. As the analysis showed, a special role in
strategic business planning is played by the strategy of the
influence of the addresser on the addressee / reader / business
partner / potential client.
The material of the research was authentic texts of modern
business correspondence in Kazakh, Russian and English,
selected by a continuous sampling method from correspondence
of international, national and foreign companies in Kazakhstan,
the National Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as
samples of business letters from Kazakhstan, Russian and other
foreign collections on business correspondence. Considering the
variety of existing business letters in Kazakh, Russian and
English communicative cultures, we limited ourselves to the
analysis of the most typical business correspondence texts in the
modern Kazakhstan business context, i.e., commercial offers,
business invitation letters, letters of inquiry, letters of
notification.
As the results show, the study of business correspondence texts in
Kazakh, Russian and English demonstrated that within the overall
impact strategy, three main areas are concentrated:
1) building relationships with a business partner; 2) the creation
of a positive image of the company, products, etc.; 3) motivation
to action. In the study, a summary of the research results on the
identified discursive strategies with a clarification of tactics,
techniques and means on the material of business correspondence
texts in the languages in question is presented.
One of the main conclusions of the study is that it is possible to
identify the main communicative intentions characteristic of a
particular business culture. A distinctive feature of the
communicative intentions of business communicators when
writing business correspondence is the specificity of building
business relations with business partners through business
correspondence. The main difference is in the preference of
business companies for the long-term or short-term establishment
of business contacts with their clients and partners. The texts of
the Kazakh-speaking and Russian-speaking (to a lesser extent)
business correspondence emphasize long-term partnerships aimed
at the future. The English-speaking business professionals, as one
of the most important communicative intentions in business
correspondence, note that they have obtained quick commercial
results, which does not imply the development of long-term
business relations.
Thus, the present-day expansion of international contacts places
special demands on the knowledge of cultural traditions of
business partners. This knowledge is especially important for
business professionals who compose business texts for their
foreign partners in the context of intercultural business
communication. The lack of the necessary background
knowledge of the business cultures involved and the incorrect
handling of discourse strategies when writing texts of business
correspondence can lead to a number of communicative and
pragmatic failures.
Keywords: communicative intentions; discursive strategies;
business correspondence; business discourse; business culture