The interplay of society, culture, and language in direct mailing communication

Abstract

This study aims at proposing a conceptual framework, titled the “Cross-linguistic Socio-cultural Model” which addresses the role of text, context, and rhetoric in sales letter study on the one hand, and the interplay of society, culture, and language in direct mailing communication on the other. With sales letters as exemplars, this article discusses how far the similarities in message encoding can be attributed to generic considerations, that is, to the contextual configuration of the field, mode, and tenor of the texts; and also how far the differences in message encoding can be attributed to the social and cultural contexts of the texts with regard to the audience, purpose, and content.