Abstract
In this article we analysed a corpus of letters of application that received an evaluation by the recruiters. We investigated whether there existed a correlation between the structural and linguistic characteristics of the letters and the positive or negative evaluation by the recruiting officers. For the rhetorical structure of the letters of application, we adopted the genre approach by Bhatia (1993); for the persuasiveness of the style we used the metadiscursivity classification of Louhiala-Salminen (1999). Both the move structure and the metadiscursivity seem to play an important role in the appreciation of the letters of application by the recruitment officers. There is a signifi cant correlation between the evaluation by the recruitment officers on the one hand and the rhetorical structure and the use of metadiscursive elements on the other hand.
Highlights
In this article we analysed a corpus of letters of application that received an evaluation by the recruiters
Positively evaluated letters are characterized in the following way: 1. The logical connectives and the organizers are in general more manifestly present in the positive letters; the temporal coherence may e.g. be dominant
I am fully aware of the fact that the given information may still be too limited in order to come to an actual ‘partnership’
Summary
1. The negatively and positively evaluated solicited letters show an important difference in the number of moves: on average 6.9 vs 8.2. Here there is a difference between the negative and the positive letters: more second moves lead to a more positive response. The opposite occurs: more paragraphs than moves; in one negative solicited letter, one particular move is scattered over several paragraphs. 5. It is remarkable that there are relatively more repetitions of moves in the positively evaluated letters than in those negatively evaluated. It is remarkable that there are relatively more repetitions of moves in the positively evaluated letters than in those negatively evaluated We assume that this means that, in the view of the recruiters, the letters should be rhetorically well-designed
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