The Moves of Indonesian Application Letters

Authors

  • Sri Hapsari Wijayanti Atma Jaya Catholic University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v11i1.1726

Keywords:

application letters, Indonesian application letters, genres, written communication

Abstract

Job application letter is one of many types of written communication. Every context has its own way to write application letter. This article aimed to know the pattern of moves of solicited and unsolicited job application letters, as well as to identify the structure patterns of moves and language used in Indonesian application letters generally. The corpus were 62 application letters. The data were analyzed by using quantitative and qualitative descriptive methods. The research finds that the Indonesian application letters consist of nine obligatory moves: opening salutation, offering candidature, introducing candidature, promoting candidature, enclosing documents, willingness to action, stressing the facts, thanking, and closing salutation. The movement structure has similarity with the application letter from other countries as previous studies. The difference lies in the label of used terms. The implicitness and inability to express self-quality could be referred to the Indonesian culture known as modesty and inhibition in telling about oneself.

Dimensions

Plum Analytics

Author Biography

Sri Hapsari Wijayanti, Atma Jaya Catholic University

Economy and Business Faculty

References

Al-Ali, M. N. (2006). Genre-Pragmatic Strategies in English

Letter-of-Application Writing of Jordanian Arabic-English Bilinguals. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9(1), 119–139.

Bhatia, V. J. (1993). Language Use in Proffessional Setting.

London: Longman.

Bhatia, V. K. (n.d.). Interdiscursivity in Critical Genre Analysis. Retrieved February 24, 2015, from http:linguagem.unisul.br/paginas/ensino/pos/linguagem/eventus/cd/English/361.pdf

Cook, G. (2011). Discourse Analysis. New York: Routledge.

Gillaerts, P. (2003). A Text Linguistic and Genological Approach to the Letter of Application. Journal of Linguistics, 31, 105-117.

Guffey, M. E., & Du-Babcock, B. (2008). Essentials of Business Communication. Singapore: Thomson.

Henry, A., & Roseberry, R. L. (2001). A Narrow-Angled Corpus Analysis of Moves and Strategies of the Genre: ‘Letter of Application. English for Specific Purposes, 20, 153-167.

Khan, A., & Tin, T. B. (2012). Generic Pattern in Application

Letters: The Context of Pakistan. RELC Journal, 43(3), 393-410.

Nkemleke, D. (2004). Job Application and Student’s Complaint Letters in Cameroon. World Englishes, 23(4), 601-611.

Purwanto, J. (2011). Komunikasi Bisnis. Jakarta: Erlangga.

Sadeghi, V., & Samuel, M. (2013). Genre Analysis of the

Letters of Appeal. Discourse Studies, 15(2), 229-245.

Soroko, E. (2012). The Presentation of Self in Letters of Application: A Mixed-Method Approach. Journal of Employement Counseling, 49, 4–17.

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis English in Academic

and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Downloads

Published

2017-05-31
Abstract 1356  .
PDF downloaded 732  .