Abstract:
Our century is characterised by the rapid development of innovations
and technologies. People, human daily life, human relationships, types and
means of communication have changed rapidly. The human of the modern
world is constantly receiving a stream of new information, he is constantly
in the space of communication, rethinking the received information, his
brain responds with amazing speed to the current changes that are instantly
changing and transforming. With everything, the communication
area has changed: it expanded and took on a global look. The means of
establishing communication (mobile/E-mail connection, internet connection)
have been greatly simplified and diversified. The latest technological
advances in communication tools have made it possible to establish a fast
connection with any point on the earth.
Electronic correspondence has become one of the main sources of
communication in modern life. And in the last few years, electronic communications, in the face of a pandemic caused by the spread of the COVID
virus, have virtually replaced direct contacts.
All accredited universities in Georgia have switched to an online teaching
format. The university administration has also moved to an online
format. Students communicate remotely with the relevant departments
through e-mail correspondence with various requests to the administrative
departments.
The study aims to analyze the electronic correspondence of students
and university administrative and academic staff with a view to the concept
of courtesy. Because the students’ letters mainly included the requests, the
main issue of the research was the request as one of the etiquette situations.
For the study, there was selected student correspondences with TSU
administrative departments in the 2019-2021 academic year were selected.
Altogether, 200 e-mails of Georgian-speaking and non-Georgian speaking
students were selected chosen.
The data were processed by quantitative research method, and the
results are presented in the form of tables.
In this paper, we briefly discuss theories about the concept of politeness
(Brown & Levinson; Goff man; Leech), which is a theoretical framework
for research. The results of the study allowed us to rethink the essence of
politeness.