Xiaozhao Huang

            When disappointment and rejection are inevitable in a tight job market, most of the job applicants are routinely expected to receive a number of rejection letters which are used to deliver the unpleasant news.  Previous studies on rejection letters mainly concentrated either on the applicants’ reactions to how rejection letters were composed according to different contexts or on the rhetorical styles that authors chose to use (Brown 1993; Fielden & Dulek 1982; and Jablin & Krone 1984).  This study, however, focuses on how frequently an explicit rejection statement is used and in particular how the statement is constructed in terms of several politeness strategies (Brown & Levinson 1987, Hickey & Stewart 2005) in an attempt to identify if there is a link between the use of explicit rejection statement and the academic status of the higher-ed institutions.
            The findings based on the analysis of approximately 200 academic rejection letters from American higher-ed institutions of different academic status suggest that whether to include an explicit rejection statement or to apply politeness strategies to imply the rejection are not simply random, but evidently linked to the academic status of the higher-ed institution involved.
 

References
 

            Brown, P., and S. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. NY: Cambridge University Press.
            Brown, T. 1993. “Unkind Cuts: Rethinking the Rhetoric of Academic Job Rejection Letters.” College English, Vol. 55, No. 7, November 1994, 770-778.
            Fielden, J.S., and R. Dulek. 1982. “What Rejection Letters Say about Your Company.” Business Horizons, 25, 40-45.
            Jablin, F.M., and K. Krone. 1984. “Characteristics of Rejection Letters and Their Effects on Job Applicants.” Written Communication, Vol. 1, No. 4, October 1984, 387-406.
            Hickey, L., and M. Stewart, eds. 2005. Politeness in Europe. Buffalo: Multilingual Matters Ltd.