Corpus I

Corpus I is a complete collection of an email business negotiation. Starting on June 22 and ending on August 17, 2005, the business negotiation lasted 56 days. Not including the number of words in the email addresses and the signature blocks, Corpus I consists of 2949 words, 1311 by two native speakers of English, and 1638 by a native speaker of Chinese.

Corpus I is about forming a strategic business alliance between an American and a Chinese company. The American company, named W&B Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd (henceforth W&B), is located in the Northeastern United States. W&B is a

middle-Chapter 4. Research Design and Methodology 66 sized pharmaceutical manufacturer capable of carrying out its own product development and research. W&B is looking for a Chinese partner to cooperate in a wide range of business activities in order to reduce its costs and increase its competitiveness in the international market. The Chinese company, named Eastarr Co. Ltd (henceforth Eastarr), is a medium-sized private pharmaceutical company situated near Shanghai, China. Primarily interested in forming strategic business alliances with companies in North American and European countries, Eastarr is looking for business opportunities in the international market. Hence, both companies are in search of business partners in the other country. There are three interactants in Corpus I. Two of them are native speakers of English from the U.S. company. The chief interactant from the American company is Henry Brown, the vice president in charge of international business. In his fifties and having a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, Henry Brown is a highly competent international business executive experienced in dealing with pharmaceutical products, FDA registration in particular.

He is the author of 13 emails in Corpus I. The other American interactant is Bob White, the president of the American company. He is engaged in this email conversation only when he is asked to make the final decision about the Confidentiality Agreement between the two companies. Being native speakers of American English, Henry Brown and Bob White are typically individualism-oriented, hence direct and straightforward. Since Brown and White mainly have the characteristics of buyers, they are dubbed ‘BI’, which is the abbreviation for the Buyer(s) in Corpus I.

The third interactant, Li Tang, male, in his forties, is a Chinese American representing a Chinese company. Li is his last name, and Tang the first name. Li Tang contributes 15 emails in Corpus I. Li Tang’s first language is Mandarin Chinese. He had thirteen years of formal English training and got his bachelor’s degree in international trade in China. After that, Li went to the U.S. and obtained the degree of MBA from one of the top U.S. universities. He became a new immigrant in the 1990s, found a good job in one of the largest American companies, and worked there for a number of years. His current post is the vice president of Eastarr in charge of international business. Having lived and worked in both the United States and China,

Chapter 4. Research Design and Methodology 67 Li is quite familiar with the American and Chinese cultures. Although Americanized, Li’s is still heavily influenced by his culture of origin. He tends to be indirect, and is inclined to interpret business issues in terms of basic human emotions and interests to build rapport between business partners. With rich experience drawn from having worked in the field of international business for 17 years at the time when Corpus I was donated, Li is one of the most successful executives in the pharmaceutical industry in China. In this dissertation, Li is termed ‘SI’, which is the abbreviation for the seller in Corpus I.

Brown and Li meet each other at an international business fair held in Shanghai, China. They are interested in each other’s businesses and intend to continue the conversation to form a strategic business alliance. The first email is from Li to Brown, in which Li asks Brown to resume the conversation on working together towards cooperation. The email conversation proceeds smoothly until Li fails to receive the countersignature from Brown, who is travelling in Europe, after Li has signed the initial agreement. The misunderstanding is cleared up – White sends three successive faxes to Li in one day when Li’s fax machine happens to be broken. The email conversation takes up again after Brown is back in the U.S. An initial contract is signed and the two parties meet with each other in the U.S. The last email signals a win-win conclusion of the first phase of the negotiation on forming a strategic business alliance. It also indicates Brown’s satisfaction on the smooth progress of the business negotiation. It is known from one of the interactants in Corpus I that the negotiation was finalised three months later, which may suggest that the performance of illocutionary acts in Corpus I is at least satisfactory.

Corpus I is essentially a macro request: the native speaker of Chinese asks the native speakers of English to do business together. As such, requests are the focus of the study. Revolving around the requests is a wide range of illocutionary acts such as assertions, offers, thanking, promises and apologies.

In order to keep the authenticity of the data, Li’s language errors are not corrected, and Brown’s language lapses such as misspellings, repeated words and incomplete

Chapter 4. Research Design and Methodology 68 sentences are preserved, as they are the features of authentic written dialogues. The names of the interactants, the companies they represent, the addresses, the prices and the names of the products in the emails have been modified in order to protect business secrets. The full text of Corpus I appears in Chapter 5.