Style_in_letter

I. INTRODUCTION

The subject of my research is “Style in letters and its maintenance in translation”. I am interested in this topic as letters are often used to communicate to individuals outside an organization, especially in formal and semi-formal contexts. Letters are essential in all spheres of our life, such as: business, politics, economics, etc. In spite of the fact that modern technology is developing so quickly, people still prefer letter to electronic mail as letter is more formal and reliable tthan electronic mail, more precise and permanent than telephone or face-to-face communication.

Consequently, I decided that such work will help to develop not only my skills of writing, but my real life skills as well. For example, after my graduation from Vilnius Law and Business College I will have to apply for a job. So, by this time I will have learnt how to write a letter of application and CV. Furthermore, I will be able to write to the eeditor of a local newspaper or any authorities in case I am dissatisfied with anything in my life, for instance, with the fact of building a skyscraper just in front of my house. So, how can I do it? I hhave to study the style, language, structure and layout of letter, both in English and Lithuanian languages.

The aims and objectives of the work are the following ones:

• To analyze and to compare the English and Lithuanian styles and rules of letter writing;

• To become an independent learner;

• To improve my knowledge of English;

• To learn how to express my opinion and summarize my ideas;

• To be able to look up and find the information in different sources;

• To master my real skills.

II. THEORETICAL PART

1. TYPES OF LETTERS

There are various types of letters, such as:

a) letters of request; b) information letters; c) letters of advice; d) letters of suggestion/recommendations; e) letters of complaint; f) letters of apology; g) letters of application; h) letters to the editor/authority ((expressing an opinion and/or providing solutions/suggestions); i) transactional letters, etc.

A successful letter should consist of:

a) an appropriate greeting: e.g. Dear Ms. Crawley, Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Dear Sir/Madam, Dear Tony;

b) an introductory paragraph, which clearly states your reason for writing;

c) a main body in which you develop the subject, and deal with the additional objective(s) of the letter if necessary;

d) a conclusion in which you summarize the subject;

e) an appropriate ending: e.g. Yours Faithfully/Sincerely + full name, Best WWishes + first name.

2. STYLES OF LETTERS

Formal letters are normally sent to people in an official position or people you don’t know well (e.g. Director of Studies, Personnel Manager, etc.). They are written in a formal style with a polite, impersonal tone.

• You can write a formal letter to apply for a job/course, make a complaint, give/request official information, etc.

• A formal letter should consist of:

a) a formal greeting ( e.g. Dear Sir/Madam – when you do not know the person’s name; Dear Ms Green – when you know the person’s name);

b) an introduction in which you write your opening remarks and mention your reason(s) for writing ( e.g. I am writing to apply for the position of .);

c) a main body in which you write about the main subject(s) of the letter in detail, starting a new paragraph for each topic;

d) a conclusion in which you write your closing remarks

e.g. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible . ;

e) a formal ending (Yours Faithfully – when you do not know the person’s name; Yours Sincerely – when you know the person’s name; + your full name ).

Semi-formal letters are sent to people you do not know very wwell or when you want to be more polite and respectful (e.g. a pen friend’s parents, a person you do not know very well, a schoolteacher, etc). For this reason they are written in a more polite tone than informal letters. Some formal language can be used. Compare the following:

Informal: Thanks a lot for the invitation. I’d love to come to your party.

Formal: I would be delighted to attend your birthday celebration.

Semi-formal: Thank you for your kind invitation. I would love to join you on your birthday.

• A semi-formal letter should consist of:

a) a formal greeting: e.g. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Baker;

b) an introduction in which you write your opening remarks and clearly state the reason(s) for writing:

e.g. Thank you very much indeed for your kind offer . ;

c) a main body in which you write the main subject(s) of the letter in detail, Starting a new paragraph for each topic;

d) a conclusion in which you write your closing remarks: e.g. I am looking forward to seeing you next month . ;

e) a semi-formal ending ( Regards/ Best wishes, etc. and your full name).

Informal letters are sent to people you know well (e.g. friends, relatives, etc) about your recent news, ppersonal problems, information you need, etc. They are written in an informal style with a chatty, personal tone.

• An informal letter should consist of:

a) an informal greeting (Dear Ken/Aunt Joan/etc);

b) an introduction in which you write your opening remarks ( i.e. asking about your friend’s health, etc) and mention your reasons for writing:

e.g. Hi! How are you? I thought I’d write and let you know that.;

c) a main body in which you write the main subject(s) of the letter in detail, starting a new paragraph for each topic;

d) a conclusion in which you write your closing remarks:

e.g. That’s all my news for now. Write back soon .;

e) an informal ending (e.g. Lots of love/ Best wishes/etc + your first name).

Translating from English to Lithuanian and vice versa often causes a lot of problems, because the structure of these languages is rather different. In spite of this fact, in both these languages letters are written in a more or less similar way. As Lithuania does not have any particular way of writing the letters, the last ones are translated and written according to the English standard. To be more exact, according to the European Standard (since Lithuania is a

member of European Union, where English is the international language).

So, let us consider the differences and similarities of writing and translating formal, semi-formal and personal letters both in English and Lithuanian languages.

2.1 Structure of formal/semiformal letters

Sender’s address

Position: in the top right corner

The full address (number of the house, street, place, zip code, COUNTRY (in capital letters) while in Lithuania (street, number of the house, zip code, place, COUNTRY).

e.g.

17 Orchard Rise Street Taikos st. 5-82

London NW 12 2022 Vilnius

UK LT

Date

Position: on the right, oone line below the sender’s address.

In English there are several possible ways of date writing:

• Date, month, year (British):

a) 2nd February, 1994

b) 2 February, 1994

• Month, date, year (American):

a) February 2nd, 1994

b) February 2, 1994

However, in Great Britain the most common is the first one (i.e. 2nd February, 1994). It is also necessary to know that we should put a comma before the year, but not after it.

Some names of months can be abbreviated:

January-Jan. September-Sept.

February-Feb. October-Oct.

April-Apr. November-Nov.

August-Aug. December-Dec.

The names of such months as March, May, June, July cannot be shortened. TThe date can be also written by using numbers only. The most common are the following variants: 5-10-04 or 5/10/04.

However, 5/10/04 usually means 5 October 2004 in Britain and May 10, 2004 in America. To avoid any possibility to confuse yyour addressee, you should spell out the month or use its abbreviation.

There are 2 possible ways of date writing in Lithuanian:

a) it is written with Arabic numerals with gaps between year, month and day. The months and days (till 10) are always written using 2 numerals (i.e. insert “0” zero)

e.g. 1997 05 27; 2004 01 09

The date’s order in Lithuanian is following: year, month, day.

b) this way is called compound, because year and days are written in numbers with letters “m”-metai (year); “d”-diena (day). Months are written in words without any abbreviation.

e.g. 1997m. rugsėjo 6d. ; 2006m. sausio 1d.

It is forbidden to write “0” (zero) before numerals from 1 to 9, because these 2 ways cannot be mixed.

e.g. 1997m. rugsėjo 06d.

1999m. 08mėn. 003d. in this case “0” (zero) is unnecessary.

Recipient’s address

Position: it is written on the same line or one line below the date on the left side of the letter.

• The recipient’ full name

• The recipient’s job title, if appropriate

• The name of the company or institution, if appropriate

• The full address (number of the house, street, place, zip code, COUNTRY (in capital letters) while in Lithuania (street, number of house, zip code, place, COUNTRY).

e.g. John Blackwell

10 Green Street

London SW 10

UNITED KINGDOM

Recipient’s address in LLithuanian is written in the same way. The only difference is that the recipient’s full name is written in Dative case in Lithuanian, if the recipient of the letter is Lithuanian.

e.g. Petrui Vaitkui Lietuvių kalbos katedrai

Ekonomikos Institutas Vilniaus Universitetas

However, Nominative case is used while sending a letter to another country.

Salutation

Position: two-four lines below the recipient’s address.

Formal: If you do not know the name of the recipient of the letter, refer to the organization you are writing to (e.g. Dear Manager/Gerbiamas Direktoriau) or simply Dear Sir/Madam (Gerbiami ponai ir ponios).

Semi-formal: the salutation begins with “Dear/Gerbiamasis”, continues with the recipient’s title ( Ms., Miss, Mrs., Mr./pone, panele, pone) and the last name.

e.g. Dear Mr. Antanaitis Gerb. p. Antanaiti

In Lithuanian letters the abbreviation “p.” (ponas, ponia) usually used, so every recipient reads it according to his gender and marital status.

Ms, Miss or Mrs.?

Mrs. – to address married woman

Miss – to address unmarried woman (rarely used now)

Ms – to address woman of unknown marital status. It also used to address unmarried woman.

Punctuation after the salutation

In British English and Lithuanian, commas but not exclamation marks are used.

e.g. Dear Mr. Miller, / Gerb. p. Mileri,

Body

Position: one–two lines after the salutation.

In English and Lithuanian body pparagraph should be single spaced with a double space between paragraphs (indenting the first line of each paragraph is acceptable but is more informal than the non-indented style). Concise and direct purpose of the letter is stated in one or two paragraphs. Conclusion of the letter is a brief paragraph that both establishes goodwill and expresses what needs to be done next.

To pay respect to the person you are writing to, Lithuanians write the pronoun “ you/ Jūs” with the capital letter, while in English it is not common to do it, except very formal letters, for example, to the Queen, the President.

Closing Phrase

Position: two lines below the final body paragraph.

Formal: Writing the letter for the first time and not showing the recipient’s name, the complimentary closing should be the following:

Yours faithfully, Pagarbiai/Su pagarba/Jus gerbantis

(signature) (parašas)

Peter Jones Jonas Jonaitis

Semi-formal: to show respect for the recipient whose name you know, the complimentary closing should be the following:

Yours sincerely, Nuoširdžiai,

(signature) (parašas)

Maria Lopez Jonas Jonaitis

Writing to the recipient with whom you are on friendly terms you can write the following:

Love/Best regards/Best wishes/Yours,

Mike Smith

Su meile/Geriausi linkėjimai/Tavo/Jūsų,

Jonas Jonaitis

Writing a comma in Lithuanian and English endings depends on the existence of the comma in the salutation in this letter, i.e. if it iis used in the salutation, it should be also used in the ending.

2.2 Informal letters

The style and technique of the informal letters do not differ in English and Lithuanian.

Personal letters, also known as friendly letters, and social notes normally have five parts.

1) The heading. This includes the address, line by line, with the last line being the date. Skip a line after the heading. The heading is indented to the middle of the page. If using stationery, just add the date (see “Address and date” example above).

2) Greeting. The greeting always ends with a comma. The greeting may be formal, beginning with the word “dear” and using the person’s given name or relationship, or ...