Move Analysis of Sri Lankan Legal Letters of Demand for Teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Abstract

Though lawyers often expect their apprentices to have a sufficient command of legal letter writing, structuring a legal letter seems to be a challenging task for the apprentices. Many genre analyses in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have proposed move-step models or sequences of communicative functions (moves) and strategies used to predict those moves (steps) to help ESP learners to write professional letters. However, there is a paucity of move analysis of legal letters of demand though it is a frequently used genre by lawyers. Therefore, this study analyzed 30 authentic legal letters of demand, collected from 15 Sri Lankan lawyers to identify patterns in the genre organization. The Constructivist Grounded Theory methods were intersected with the move analysis to analyze emergent moves and steps. The results include a sequence of four obligatory moves (i.e., Opening, Stating Background Details, Stating the Cause of Action, Demanding), and an optional move (Closing), which were realized in 14 steps, and classified into obligatory, conventional and optional. The accuracy of the moves and steps generated were checked for consistency with two lawyers who were interviewed at two stages of coding the letters. The move-step model could be incorporated into teaching materials of legal letters of demand writing, to help novices learn the rhetorical structure and discursive practices associated with writing legal letters of demand. The model contributes to the body of knowledge of ESP genre analysis, move analysis and to the field of teaching English for Legal Purposes.