Register Slip in a Letter to a Host Family
A student must write a 250-300 character letter in Chinese to a homestay family in Nanjing, thanking them for a two-week stay and explaining that she will visit again next summer. Her draft opens with a formal written greeting and closes with a highly literary four-character phrase expressing undying gratitude. In the body she writes that their cooking was '还可以' and that the room was '不太干净'. She also uses the casual second-person form throughout, mixed with one occurrence of the polite form. The task specifies a warm but polite register appropriate to adults who hosted her. The teacher comments that the letter reads as if assembled from a textbook and a chat message.
1. Identify the register inconsistencies in the draft and explain what each one signals to the reader.
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The draft mixes three registers. The formal written greeting and the literary closing phrase belong to elevated written Chinese, appropriate for a formal letter or ceremony, not a warm personal thank-you to a family who housed her; used together they make the letter feel stiff or performative. '还可以' is a lukewarm, conversational evaluation: to a host who cooked for her, it reads as faint praise and may cause quiet offence. '不太干净' is a direct negative judgement about their home, which in Chinese hospitality contexts is face-threatening; a guest criticising the host's cleanliness breaks the expected role of a grateful guest. The casual second-person form is fine between intimates but sits oddly beside the formal greeting; the single switch to the polite form is an inconsistency the reader will notice as carelessness. The overall effect is a letter that does not know whom it is addressing.
2. Propose a revised opening and closing strategy, and explain how you would handle the two negative comments while keeping the letter truthful.
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For the opening, choose one register and hold it: a warm but polite greeting addressing the host parents, avoiding both the stiff formal opening and the chat-style opener. For the closing, replace the literary four-character phrase with a sincere, plain expression of thanks and a concrete wish to see them again, which the task already supplies. On the negatives, the principle is to preserve truth while protecting the hosts' face. The lukewarm food comment can become specific praise of a dish she genuinely liked, which is truthful and warm. The room comment can be reframed as a request or a mild, self-directed remark rather than a judgement of the hosts - for example noting that she was cold at night and would bring warmer clothes next time. That conveys the information without evaluating their home. Consistency of address should be checked in a final read-through.
3. The student objects: 'Being polite means being dishonest.' Evaluate this claim in the context of Chinese hospitality and the task's requirements.
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The claim confuses politeness with falsehood. Politeness in this context is largely about face and about the guest role: a guest who criticises the host's home damages the host's standing and breaches the expected gratitude relationship. But nothing in the task requires her to praise what she did not like. The available moves are selection, specificity and framing: choose what is genuinely true and positive, be specific so praise sounds observed rather than flattering, and frame difficulties as her own situation or as forward-looking plans rather than as the hosts' failings. This is truthful and considerate at once. Where honesty genuinely matters - say, a safety problem - directness is warranted, but a preference about food or a slightly cold room does not meet that bar. The sophisticated response recognises that register is a tool for managing relationships, not a licence to deceive.