摘 要

在国际贸易中，外贸函电是与外国商人进行沟通交流的一种必不可少的手段。可是如今，英语专业的学生在习作中依然存在许多错误，当务之急对于他们来说，应该认清这些错误，去完成一篇合格的外贸函电。本论文通过对英语专业学生外贸函电的习作分析，研究其习作中的常见错误。通过对错误进行分析，我们发现学生的错误主要集中在语言，语境和外贸知识这三个方面，概括出 8 种常见的错误类型，同时提出了相应的改善意见，希望可以提高学生们的习作水平。

关键词：外贸函电习作；错误分析; 英语专业；建议

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 2
   1. Error analysis theory 2
   2. Sample collection 3
      1. Punctuation misuse 4
      2. Misspelling 4
      3. Collocation error 5
      4. Syntax and grammar error 5
      5. Impolite tone 6
      6. Incomplete and incorrect letter layout 7
      7. Lack of foreign trade expertise 8
      8. Not clear and verbose information 8
3. Suggestions on improve business correspondence writing 8
   1. Strengthening the basic knowledge of English 8
   2. Raising cross-culture awareness 9
   3. Learning the international trade business knowledge 9
4. Conclusion 9

Works Cited 11

Bibliography 12

Error Analysis on Business Correspondence Writing for English

Majors

Introduction

With the rapid development of global economic integration, foreign trade has become more and more frequent between developed countries and developing countries. English correspondence writing has become one of the necessary business activities in international trade (Bao, 2011). As a type of practical writing, business correspondence plays an important and indispensable role in the field of international trade. It is a vital method to communicate with foreign businessmen in international trade. Writing a good business correspondence is not only conductive to the delivery of exchanging business information, but also beneficial to establishing the company's good image.

The ability of business correspondence writing is one of the most important skills in foreign trade work. The growing international business has put forward new requirements on the quantity and quality of International Business English talents. Business Correspondence, briefly speaking, refers to the letters between importers and exporters in the process of international trade, but in today's highly developed information technology, the letter is not limited to paper letters, and also can be e-mail, fax or MSN. It is not different from any other form of creative writing. In business writing, the writers are supposed to comply with some necessary and significant principles. There are certain basic qualities of business correspondence, which can be summarized in 7C and 3S, namely, Courtesy, Consideration, Completeness, Clearness, Conciseness, Concreteness, Correctness and Soon, Strategy, Security (Suo, 2008). Therefore, it is particularly important for students to master the principle of writing foreign trade correspondence. However, at present, there are still some undesirable problems in English correspondence education and a lot of errors existing in the writings of English majors. Students are lack of systematic English language learning

(Bao, 2011). As Wang and Liu (2007) put it, on the one hand, many teachers are unable to use the correct teaching method. On the other hand, it is really difficult for students to write a correct and prompt business correspondence.

It is known to us that learners conduct all kinds of errors in their second language learning. Everyone has chance to make mistakes in writing, which is a common phenomenon, and error is beneficial to enhancing writing ability. Just as the old saying goes, “Failure is the mother of success”. Through analyzing the errors, teachers can get useful information in order to improve teaching methods. Meanwhile, students also can examine how well they have learned.

The present paper complies with writing principles of business correspondence, based on the error analysis theory and the sample survey has been taken in the paper. And then, the paper focuses on analyzing the common errors that the English major students have made in the actual writings and puts forward some effective suggestions on how to improve the students’ ability of business correspondence writing.

Demonstration

2.1 Error analysis theory

Error analysis is one of branches of Applied Linguistics. It is a systematic analysis on the learner's errors in the process of the second language acquisition. Firstly the American linguists Charles C.Fries and Robert Lado put forward the contrastive analysis theory during the 1950s and 1960s. It is the comparison of linguistic system of two different languages. It mainly directs at establishing the areas of learning difficulties to help the learners overcome the negative effects of first language transfer (Robert Lado, 1957).

But the limitation is gradually exposed; there is a new tendency from the paper The Significance of Learner’s Errors written by Corder in 1967. Corder think error is an important and necessary part in the learning process, because it can reveal the differences between the learner's transitional language grammar and the target