The content, or substance, of the internal email messages is described from the viewpoint of the orientations they exhibit, that is, Informational, Relational, Promotional, and Transformational (see 2.3.6, also Rogers & Hildebrandt 1993); the focus is on the Informational (providing information) and Relational (building rapport) orientations since they clearly dominated in the corpus.
Only one message could be characterized as predominantly Promotional (see example 4 in 5.1.3), and none of the messages
could be described as Transformational. Although the content of a clear majority of the messages was characterized as both Informational and Relational, 7% of the 282 messages (n=20) only manifested the Informational orientation. Four of them were press releases or appointment news delivered for information, and 16 represented textless messages attaching documents or forwarding old messages for the recipient’s information. In contrast, in none of the messages did the Relational content manifest itself alone.
A majority of the email messages could thus be described as factually accurate while simultaneously building rapport. Below, example (11) illustrates how the Informational and Relational orientations manifested in the corpus:
(11) Satu,
1) The secretary at SE X International in Ycity is Britt-Louise Hagmark.
2) Kalle Ahonen has his office in Ycity.
Regards Monica (S189)
Example (11) is a highly informational message; the language is precise and neutral. However, it also incorporates the Relational orientation through the use of salutation, complimentary close, and signature. This was characteristic of the corpus; the salutation typically contained the first name of the recipient and the message was also signed with a first name (for details, see 8.2.2 and Chapter 9). The combination of the two orientations entails that example (11) does not only provide information, but also pays attention to the recipient.
The Informational content of the messages, by definition, provided information related to the running of the company. It was of two types: it created intertextuality with other, either preceding or following, communicative events in the company (see also 5.2) and it provided (new) information, which was related to at least one of the four subsystems identified by Suchan & Dulek (1998; see also 2.1.1) and discussed in 5.1.2.
Manifest intertextuality (see Fairclough 1992a) with other communicative events, both written and spoken, was common in the messages. Information was provided and exchanged about them, as the examples below show:
(12) I discussed today with Hans e.g. my job and its contents (F209) (13) I would like to thank you for the reports you sent us. (F31) (14) As agreed on the phone, I send you some questions. (F146) (15) please find enclosed a memo of the telephone conference held
on 2.2.2001 (F72)
(16) I will ring you later today to discuss. (S76)
(17) As decided at the last meeting, please also mail me ideas of X articles (S281)
As examples (12)–(17) indicate, other communicative events precede, follow, maybe overlap, and co-exist with the events effected via email. In other words, intertextuality was manifest in the messages, which means that through references to other texts, both written and spoken, corporate knowledge and expertise were generated and maintained in discussion, elaboration, and revision.
And, all through the discussion, corporate employees were present, either as originators of those prior texts or as readers, commen-tators, or revisers of the new ones.
In addition to the intertextual references, the Informational content of the messages also consisted of references to the four subsystems of task, structure, technology, and control as identified by Suchan & Dulek (1998), but their frequency was dependent of the job role of the informant, i.e. Executive, Manager, Specialist, and Staff. For example, the content of the Vice President’s messages (representing the Executive level) consisted of references to e.g.
sales activities, including negotiations, visits to customers, deliveries, order inflows, and commission rates, representing corporate tasks; structure was represented by, for instance, information on summer holidays, employee exchange, closing of a unit; technology included, for instance, capacity of production machinery; and control included items, such as renewed score
calculation, calculation rules for bonus targets, and budget. In contrast, in the messages of the two secretaries/assistants or the communication specialists references to the control system were non-existent and references to corporate tasks dominated. Since the corpus contained messages from informants representing all the four job roles, the Informational content of the messages showed variety in the references to the four subsystems through which the company’s mission, vision, and values were realized.
The uniqueness of the content of the messages and the shared knowledge required of the Stora Enso discourse community members to be able to act accordingly seemed to be supported by some comments from the focus group members consisting of international business people (see Appendix 4). Even though the messages chosen for their evaluation were carefully screened to represent as explicit messages as possible without any corporate-bound lexis for example, they still aroused comments such as “a little bit weird,” or “not a typical email message”. For example, the message about the labor contract situation in Sweden at a time of collective bargaining (Message C in Appendix 4 and example 10 in 6.4), which represents the subsystem of control since it has an effect on wages, was not a typical email message in the opinion of most focus group members.
The Relational content of the messages built rapport and contributeed to amicable social relations in the company. In the corpus, it was typically reflected in the salutations and closings, in which first names were frequently used. In none of the messages did Relational content manifest itself alone, however, which is in disagreement with Sproull & Kiesler (1986), whose subjects received a number of non-work messages from their colleagues;
the phenomenon may have been due to the novelty of the me-dium in the late 1980s as no such messages could be found in this corpus collected in the early 2000s.57
57 Of course, the informants were allowed to remove such personal messages from their mailboxes, but in the mailbox that I received in its entirety, no such messages were detected.
Example (18a–c) below represents an exceptional exchange of messages. It can be characterized as an exchange with the heaviest input of Relational orientation (marked with italics) found in the corpus.
(18)
(a) Hello Seppo,
How is life in Dusseldorf? I hope you had a nice Christmas and a good start of the new year.
Today I spoke to Mikko Heinonen in XTeam about the coverage from Ymagazine of the program there. We also spoke a bit about our thought of how to merge the picture of what is happening in R with the situation in O. During our talk we came to think about a previous member of XTeam now working as production man-ager for one of the two x machines in R (I think no. 2). His name is Thomas Steuer and I think he could give you a good perspec-tive of the activities in R compared with other units. In Xteam he worked in Ucity, Bcity, Kcity, Rcity and Ncity.
I hope this contact can be of use for you. If you want me to intro-duce you, just give me a call!
All the best and Guten Rutsch!
//Sven (S153)
(b) Hi Sven,
Just came back from Finland yesterday. Thanks for your idea regar ding the R interviews!! I will check the issue with R . . . Hopefully everything is fine there in Stockholm, tell my regards also to Helena, you have now an IT-guru in family.
mfg,
Seppo (F156)
(c) Hi Seppo,
Things are just fine in Stockholm. The nice snow we had at new year has all but disappeared, sadly enough. But instead we tend to see the sun every now and then. Helena, the IT-guru, sends her regards.
If there is anything I can assist you with about the X interviews, just get in touch!
Regards, Sven (S157)
The Relational orientation in message (a) is dominating at the beginning of the message and can be attributed to the use of the salutation with the first name of the recipient and small talk about holidays. The Informational orientation takes over when the propositional content is introduced although the Relational orientation is still manifest through the use of personal pronouns, private verbs (think, hope), and familiar words (a bit) for example.
Also, the writer offers his help by using a conversational construction, just give me a call, the effect of which is further emphasized through the exclamation mark. In examples (b) and (c) the Relational orientation dominates; the communicators are chatting about the weather and family affairs, both of which are typical topics for small talk between close friends. However, in both (b) and (c) traces of the Informational orientation can be found:
the interview is still on the agenda.
The dominance of the Informational and Relational orientations in the corpus reflected two overall purposes of these internal messages, that is, the furtherance of corporate activities and the maintenance of social relations. Since neither Promotional nor Transformational orientations were dominant in the corpus, it suggests that they either are common in some other forums such as attachments delivered with the email messages, meetings, oral presentations or speeches, or then they are not typical of internal communication. Indeed, Rogers & Hildebrandt’s (1993) examples of Promotional messages consist of messages of external communi-cation such as sales presentations, new product announcements, and job application letters. Their examples representing internal communication, such as recommendations to an executive board or recommendation sections of a report, did not manifest in the corpus; the only promotional message (see example 4 in 5.1.3) in the corpus motivated a group of people (at least) some of whom were Executive and Managerial level staff to guarantee high quality for the reorganized production of a major customer’s grades. In none of the messages did the Transformational orientation dominate although the written examples given by
Rogers & Hildebrandt (1993) represent internal communication, that is, a strategic plan or a mission statement. Again, it can only be suggested that these documents are not delivered by email.