| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北科技大學 === 應用英文系碩士班 === 105 === This study explores the similarities and differences in cover letters (CLs), also known as job application letters, between Taiwan and the U.S. in terms of linguistic features, length, the use of action verbs (AVs), rhetorical-discursive moves including job competency. The 60 examples of CLs were collected from six guides written by Taiwanese career experts and six provided by Ivy League American universities. CLs serve as the first introduction of the applicants to prospective employers, and provide a means for applicants to showcase their knowledge, abilities, skills as well as the ability to communicate in a professional manner to impress the job application reviewers. Finding ways to construct strong CLs within a generic framework may thus be quite instrumental in enhancing applicants’ opportunities to land job interviews.
An analytic software for corpus linguistics, WordSmith, was used for generating word list statistics, while further analyses were carried out manually to examine the linguistic features, such frequencies of action verbs (AVs) and rhetorical-discursive move analysis. In the move analysis, Upton and Connor’s (2001) Coding Scheme was used as a framework for analysis. The results demonstrated that the U.S. CLs were longer than the Taiwanese CLs; meanwhile, a greater variety of AVs were found in the U.S. CLs than in the Taiwanese CLs. The investigation of rhetorical-discursive move analysis showed that the U.S. CLs contained various move strategies including the utilization of competency statements to demonstrate applicant’s qualifications. By contrast, the Taiwanese ones included shorter sentences and much fewer move strategies with almost none competency statements. Based on the study results, several suggestions for writing CLs are provided.
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