Choosing Register for a Complaint Letter
Your class has been corresponding with a partner class in Taiwan about a joint environmental project. Your school's supplier delivered 40 reusable water bottles printed with the partner school's name, but 12 of them have the school name misspelled. The project teacher asks you to write to the supplier to request replacement or refund. You also need to tell the Taiwanese partner school about the delay. A classmate suggests using the same strongly worded message for both, arguing that being direct is efficient and that Taiwanese students will understand. The supplier is a small family business that has supplied the school for eight years.
1. Explain why one message style is not appropriate for both recipients, referring to audience, purpose and relationship.
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The two messages have different purposes and different relationships with the reader. The supplier message is a transactional complaint: the purpose is to obtain a remedy, and the relationship is a business one with a long-standing local supplier. A firm but polite register is appropriate, stating the fault, the number affected, the evidence, and the requested remedy.
The partner school message is relational and informational: the purpose is to maintain goodwill and explain a delay that is not their fault. The register should be warm and apologetic, and should avoid blaming language directed at the supplier, because that is not the partner's concern. Using the same blunt message for both would damage the partner relationship and would also be disproportionate toward a small supplier with an eight-year record. Register follows purpose and relationship, not convenience.
2. Draft the opening two sentences of the supplier letter in Chinese, and justify your word choices.
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A suitable opening: 您好！感谢贵公司多年来对我校的支持。此次订购的四十个水杯中有十二个学校名称拼写有误，希望能与您协商解决。
The greeting 您好 maintains politeness without excessive formality. 贵公司 is a respectful way to refer to the supplier's business, appropriate for a long-standing relationship. 感谢...多年来的支持 acknowledges the history before raising the problem, which softens the complaint. The problem is then stated factually with numbers (四十个, 十二个), which is clear without being accusatory. 希望能与您协商解决 signals a cooperative intent rather than a demand, leaving room for replacement or refund. The wording avoids direct blame words and keeps the focus on resolving the issue.