The purpose of this course is to explore and expand the concept of professional – commercial and administrative writing in a modern perspective of Cross-cultural Communication. The ultimate goal is to increase students’ familiarity with different professional writing forms, mostly consisting of multipurpose business letters (inquiries, replies, orders, complaints, memos, reports) and develop awareness of the cross-cultural communicative issues raised by international communication, by studying the origins and development of a discipline which finds its roots in the ancient art of letter writing. Since target students should already possess a B1 one level of English Language competence, the teaching of grammar will not be a priority of this course.
At the end of the course, students will have developed an understanding of the general principles of corporate-administrative- professional communication, especially with regard to the 4 Cs (clarity, formal and content correctness, conciseness, courtesy); they will be able to identify the register and the most suitable contents for the most typical communicative situations of their potential working sector and will be able to apply and modulate the textual genres they have become familiar with to new and unexpected communicative contexts.