A letter is the most common text type of written business and administrative communication. The aim of the thesis is to find out how often errors occur in business and administrative letters, what these errors consist of, and what effects they have on comprehensibility and acceptability.
The work was divided into three research questions. The results for question 1 were obtained based on the analysis method, in which 36 letters were analysed. The results for question 2 and question 3 were obtained by the method of surveying a group of people of different ages, genders, and education levels. In the survey, they expressed their (mis)understanding and (un)acceptance based on the letters they had read.
It was found that grammatical and orthographic errors are present to a greater extent (80.5%). The most common errors are missing date space, superfluous date zeros, capital initial of non-first common names in enclosure and inscription of companies (missing space and missing comma). The second part of the research showed that errors do not affect comprehensibility, but they do affect acceptability. If the letter was not understandable, it was not acceptable either.
The results of the research show that the writers and users of business and administrative texts are not sufficiently familiar with orthographic and grammatical rules. The results of the research could be a reason for improving manuals. The researchers claim that unclear and non-unified rules in different manuals are the reason for their grammatical and orthographic errors.
|