A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Structure and Content of Letters of Reference

Different expectations for structure and content in the construction of text can lead to difficulties in cross-cultural communication. This study investigates letters of reference as one type of written text that is relatively frequent in the contexts of the international academic community. Sixty-five letters of reference written by American referees and 65 letters written by referees from five Asian cultures were analyzed to discover the conventions and expectations guiding readers and writers from these backgrounds. Although there were many similarities in the two sets of texts, there were also several differences in the structure, content, and implicature employed in the letters; there is a complex interaction between the tripartite conceptual structure of the letters (the introduction, body, and closing) and the occurrence of specific elements of content and the form those elements took.