Corpus Stylistics & Business Ethics: “Do The Executives Really Mean What They Say?

Abstract

Nowadays, when everything ‘seems’ to be all about business; the word ‘business’ itself has inevitably connoted with unpleasant terms like ‘competition’ and ‘politics’. Together with that arise the issues of ‘trust’ and ‘ethics’. Can we believe what we see or hear? This paper looks into the style and analysis of business correspondence, particularly resignation letters. When a high-ranking executives leaves a company, the two standard phrases used as a face-saving measure for an executive or company in trouble are: “spending more time with family”; and “pursuing other interests” (Hefner, 2006). However, the recent resignation announcement of Google’s CFO, Patrick Pichette, has brought about a phenomenon in business world since it was regarded as “most unconventional leaving notice”. By using the real letters, authentic materials, which are designed for native speakers, will then become prominent in learning and teaching of writing skill, while at the same time integrate reading practice as well through the use of up-to-date happenings rather that textbooks conventionally.