Stage 2 ESL Formal Letter of Complaint

What is a Letter of Complaint? A letter of complaint, or complaint letter, is normally written to deal with a problem or situation when other attempts (i.e. phone contacts, s, etc.) have failed to rectify the situation. The complaint letter formalises a problem or situation by putting it into writing and is usually the last resort to try to get a situation resolved A letter of complaint would normally be used when we are unhappy about something: 1. A product or something we have bought (faulty toaster) 2. A service we received or something we experienced (a waitress being rude) 3. Something we have read or been exposed to in the media (a biased or discriminatory article or advertisement)

What’s in the Letter? Your name and address The manager’s name, address and company The greeting A background to the problem

What’s in the Letter? Explain the facts of the problem Discuss a possible solution and explain the action you want taken Concluding (what you will do etc.)

What’s in the Letter? Yours faithfully (the sign off) Print your name and add your signature Include the date

Register Continuum It is a letter and its purpose is to inform a company/person/organisation that a problem exists; and to advise what action should be taken What language is being used to talk about the topic? Is it specialised/technical or is it every day language? The field determined whether or not specialised language is required and this will obviously depend on the intended audience. This is the role and the relationship between the person writing the letter and the person receiving the letter. Several factors are: -Status (boss and employee, consumer and business). The status can be either equal or unequal -Involvement with the person (ranging from high with friends and family to low with a client) -Contact (either frequent or occasional) This will influence the formality of the language This is the role and the relationship between the person writing the letter and the person receiving the letter. Several factors are: -Status (boss and employee, consumer and business). The status can be either equal or unequal -Involvement with the person (ranging from high with friends and family to low with a client) -Contact (either frequent or occasional) This will influence the formality of the language Is the text written or spoken? Or written to be spoken? The formality will largely depend on the mode of delivery.

Register Continuum What is it about Who is it written to and who has written it. What is their relationship? What is the mode? Written or spoken? In groups of two, carefully read the scenarios and decide where they would fit along the register continuum for field, tenor and mode. Provide reasons for your choices and be prepared to share with the class.

Language Features Text Organisation: - Rhetorical questions (Surely you could understand that……) - Conjunctions (firstly, next, finally, in addition) - Transition words (another reason, one of the main arguments) - Topic words (Antarctica, pollution) - Phrases and dependent clauses (as a result of the rain, despite his poor health, regardless of the fact that…)

Language Features Join clauses to expand on information: - Conjunctions (and, or, so, and then - because, if, since, when, so that, though) Nominalisations (Likelihood, growth, disappointment, frustration, capability, potential) Causal verbs nouns and phrases (led to, brought on, the result of, the cause of, because of the heat) Modality (possibly, certainly, necessarily, must, typical, always)

Example of an Annotated Letter I own a new Plymouth Neon. Actually, most of it is new. In five years, I’ve had to replace most of the car because of faulty parts and second-rate engineering and inferior workmanship. Am I exaggerating? I wish I were. The fact is that I’ve had several mechanics and dealers literally laugh at me for buying this Neon. “You should have bought Japanese!” they say. I don’t think that’s funny. Do you think its funny? I don’t think its funny. Mechanics are generally not funny people. In 1999 alone I spent over $2000 trying to fix stupid problems on this car, not including some expenses that you paid for! This led to a horrible year. Another reason for this complaint is the towing this year, which is an improvement over past years. However, I’m happy to report that I still have the original air bags in the dash and steering wheel! Since my car is in the shop much of the time, there’s less of a chance I’ll get into an accident. So, you’ve at least built a safe vehicle. Bravo! Rhetorical questions Transition Words Topic words Phrases and dependent clauses Joining conjunctions Nominalisations Causal nouns, verbs and phrases Modality Using the example letter, find two examples of each of the listed language features. Use a pen or pencil for this.