THE IDENTIFICATION OF LANGUAGE EXPRESSION AND LETTER FORMAT IN EMAILS WRITTEN BY RESERVATION STAFFS IN INTERCONTINENTAL BALI RESORT IDENTIFIKASI

UNGKAPAN BAHASA DAN FORMAT SURAT PADA EMAIL YANG DITULIS OLEH STAF RESERVASI DI INTERCONTINENTAL BALI RESORT

VALERIA RATNA ROSITA DIII English Department Ganesha University of Education, Singaraja Abstract This study was mainly intended to identify the language expression and letter format in emails written by reservation staffs in InterContinental Bali Resort. The writer included some review of related literature to support this study and as the references to the findings and discussion. The subject of this study was ten (10) email correspondences which were written by the reservation staffs in the resort and sent to the guests or travel agents. The writer implemented a descriptive design in this present study. The result of the analysis was divided to two parts. The first one is language expression and the second one is the analysis of letter format in those emails. Based on the two analysis, it was found that the format of language expression used in those emails are introductory sentence, content, and in the closing sentence. There are some specific words that are usually used either

in the introductory sentence or the closing sentence. One of those specific words are thank you, which usually appears in one of the two language expressions. Meanwhile, 8 components were found in the analysis of the 10 emails Those components are: sender/from, receiver/to, Cc (carbon copy), title/subject, salutation, content, conclusion, and signature. Bcc (blind carbon copy) is not available because it is not necessary in business correspondence in this hotel, especially in the reservation department. Another finding was the all the ten emails which had been composed using the same letter style, blocked style. The reservation staffs in InterContinental Bali Resort use template in composing or replying incoming emails to have the same format, such as: font, space, style, etc. The emphasis of this study was the identification of the language expression and letter format. Keywords Abstak Penelitian ini ditujukan untuk mengidentifikasi ungkapan kebahasaan dan format surat pada email yang ditulis oleh staff reservasi di InterContinental Bali Resort. Penulis memasukkan beberapa teori dari beberapa sumber untuk mendukung penelitian ini dan sebagai acuan dari pembahasan. Subjek penelitian ini adalah sepuluh (10) email yang ditulis oleh staff reservasi di InterContinental Bali Resort dan dikirim ke tamu hotel atau travel agent. Penulis mengimplementasikan desain deskriptif terhadap penelitian ini. Hasil penelitian ini dibagi menjadi dua, yang pertama merupakan identifikasi ungkapan kebahasaan, dan analisa yang kedua adalah identifikasi format surat. Berdasarkan dua analisa tersebut, ditemukan : email, language expression, letter format

bahwa format ungkapan kebahasaan yang digunakan pada email-email tersebut yaitu kalimat pembuka, isi, dan penutup. Ada beberapa frase tertentu yang selalu digunakan pada salah satu ungkapan kebahasaan pada email tersebut, misalnya thank you. Frase ini biasanya muncul pada kalimat pembuka ataupun kalimat penutup. Sementara itu, delapan (8) komponen ditemukan pada analisa kesepuluh email. komponen-komponen tersebut yaitu: pengirim/dari, kepada/to, Cc(salinan karbon), judul/subjek, salam pembuka, isi, kesimpulan, dan tanda tangan. Bcc (salinan karbon tersembunyi) tidak terdapat dalam email-email tersebut karena staff reservasi diharuskan untuk menjaga transparansi informasi di dalam hotel tersebut. Temuan lainnya yaitu kesepuluh email tersebut dibuat dengan gaya yang sama, yaitu blocked style. Staff reservasi di InterContinental Bali Resort menggunakan template sehingga menghasilkan font, spasi, dan detail-detail lain yang sama. Penekanan dari penelitian ini yaitu pada ungkapan kebahasaan dan format suratnya. Kata kunci : email, ungkapan kebahasaan, dan format surat

1. Introduction As an industry which is selling intangible experiences, communication is a vital to the success. Communication is the only way that tourism marketers can offer their products or services to customers. Therefore, a company, hotel, or travel agent is not able to run well if the communication is not facilitated with optimum communication medium. Let us say the electricity is break down in a hotel. Guests who have a problem with their room cannot call to the operator to fix the problem. While a room is ready for a checked-in guest but the telephone or the

computer system is not working, front office staffs would find it very hard to get the information about the inspected room. Reservation staffs who are dealing with costumers or travel agent have to stop their activity during the electricity breakdown. The whole activity in that hotel will not run well if communication is not working among the staffs and the guest. So do every other company in tourism industry. As technology develops rapidly communication becomes one aspect which got much influenced. Along time ago people only can share information orally, then letter as the first medium which enables people to record messages and send them was invented. As time rolls by, written media for mass audience like books and newspaper was found, before people commonly know television or radio as electronic means of communication. Nowadays, email which is enabled by computer development has been introduced by the society. Communication by using email (electronic mail), it is possible to get multiple and simultaneous receiver. This kind of communication medium then became popular around the world. Even big companies prefer to use email instead of the other type of electrical means to communicate inside or outside them. Some of them send large amount of emails every day. However, it was found that the big number of emails sent by a staff of a company influences the level of their carefulness. Some mistakes may be found by the receiver of those emails, such as the structure or the format, or even the politeness of language which is used in those emails. Usually, content of an email as business letter affects the impression of the receiver towards the image of the company. A bad composed email then of course is not a good thing for the development of a company. Moreover, people know the common format, structure, and also appropriate language expressions

used in a business letter, particularly email. However, some hotels have a particular rules and custom for every email that they send. The purpose is to create an image about those companies their selves toward their costumer or the relations. This study was design to examine this issue, therefore, focuses on identifying the language expression and letter format written by reservation staffs in a particular hotel. The writer picked on InterContinental Bali Resort which is located in Jimbaran to execute this study and took this hotel to identify the emails. This empirical research therefore helps fill some of the gaps in our knowledge and understanding of this important communication medium. 2. Background In busy hospitality industry, communication is one of important things that are highly employed to make operational activities run well in a hotel. It takes place in every part and done by almost every staff in a hotel. Without communication, information cannot be transferred and activities would be obstructed. Nowadays, information can be transferred by many kinds of devices and instrument. Hotel industry utilizes those kinds of instruments and devices to make their communication easier, such as: telephone, fax, letter, short message, pager, and so on. Email message is an efficient way to communicate to other company, to guest, or to other staff in different department. In reservation, hundreds of emails are sent everyday with various purposes, such as dealing with room booking, contract rate agreement, and even simple information from one staff to others. The intensity of sending email to each other sometimes cause the lack of attention by the staff or the email sender, if the language aspects they use in the correspondence and letter structure are correct and appropriate. It is possible, that

misunderstanding

can happen to the receiver

of those emails.

This

misunderstanding, indirectly can affect the process of information transfer from the sender to the receiver. A study of dysfunctional email usage and attitude among managers was conducted in Paris in 2005 by Michael Segalla. In this research, attitude of European managers towards email senders with badly composed email was analyzed. One of the data showed that 15% the managers thought that emails sender with badly composed emails were lazy, 18% judged them as disrespectful, 28% said that they were under pressure, 7% thought that they could not cope with the job, 36% said that they were careless and sloppy, 2% thought that they should be sacked, 3% felt inclined to reply in the same style, and the rest of the managers gave no response. The result of this study showed that negative response may be given by an email receiver towards sender with badly composed email. Another study on business letter was conducted in 2011 by Ester Indah Ayu which was a student of DIII English Department in Undiksha. She identified the format and

component of business letter from different hotels in Bali, they are: Sunari Hotel, Grand Hyatt Bali, Adirama Beach Hotel, and The Westin Resort. It was found that each of those four hotels use their own rules in writing the business letter. Cases were also found when the writer did her on-the-job training in Reservation Department in InterContinental Bali Resort. Some of the staffs did mistakes during the process of correspondence, in grammar as well as in letter structure. The limited of time and

the big number of emails which must be followed up force them to save time, so they rarely review what they had written and just sent them straight away. Not every receiver can accept the mistake in grammar, abbreviations, and inappropriate structure of email that have been sent, especially when the communication takes place in a formal situation. The writer found this problem a matter which is faced by many staffs in InterContinental Bali Resort, nor in other hotels in Bali. Therefore, the writer gladly adapted the problem in her final project. There are two things identified by the writer in this study, they are the language expression and the letter format used in emails written by reservation staffs in this hotel. By this study, the writer hoped to provide some information about the correct letter format and the appropriate language expression used in emails as business letter. Besides, the writer hoped that this study would be useful for other related courses as a reference. 3. Research Method This study was designed descriptively to identify the language expression and letter format in emails written by reservation staffs in InterContinental Bali Resort. It helps to build hypothesis on which further research may be based. Things to be identified in this study were the language expression and letter format in emails written by Reservation staff in a hotel. The subjects of this study were emails written by the reservation staff in InterContinental Bali Resort which is located in Jimbaran. The writer collected the subjects of the study by looking for correspondence in the form of email with personal booker, travel agent, or other staffs inside the hotel. In this study, the writer collected the printed copy of emails as reservation correspondence in reservation department in

InterContinental Bali Resort. The whole correspondences in that hotel are sent through Microsoft Outlook, so they filed the emails in archive based on the month. The writer took the printed out of those emails since removable disk or CD could not be inserted into any of the computer in that department. There are some online local disk that make them possible to share data from one computer to each other. In this study, the writer followed the ethical procedures of collecting the data. The writer identified the format, component, and language expression used in emails made by the reservation staffs. The first analysis is about the identification of email component, the second one is the identification of language expression used in those emails.

4. Findings and Discussions 4.1 The Identification of Email Component There were 10 emails which had been analyzed by the writer. Those emails are: personal booking confirmation, confirmation of booking revision, confirmation of booking cancellation, airport pickup information, agent booking confirmation, interconnecting room availability, airport pickup and baby cot confirmation, additional charge on late check out, club room and villa availability, and declined credit card. There are nine (9) component of emails analyzed in this study. There are: sender/from, receiver/to, Cc (carbon copy), Bcc (blind carbon copy), title/subject, salutation, content, conclusion, and signature. The result of the identification shows some findings. Sender/from is available in the 10 emails, as well as receiver/to. Cc (carbon copy) is found on two of those emails. One of the

10 emails did not have a title/subject. So was the salutation which was only available in one email. As content is considered the most important part, it was available in the 10 emails. So was the conclusion and signature. However, Bcc is not available in all of the 10 emails. It is because the reservation staffs are supposed to keep the transparency of information inside the hotel. Below table would show the whole result of the identification. 4.1 The Table of the Components of Each Email Print screen of each emails were displayed as an empirical data for this study, they
Email Components No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Email Types Personal booking confirmation Confirmation of booking revision Confirmation of booking cancellation Airport pick up information Agent booking confirmation Interconnecting room availability Airport pick up and baby cot confirmation Additional charge on late check out Club room and villa availability Declined credit card Sender/ From Receiver/ To Cc Bcc Title Salutation Content Conclusion Signature

are placed in the findings and discussion. The specific identification of each component had also been done to get more detailed data. 4.2 The Identification of Language Expression

The second analysis about the identification of language expressions shows that there are at least three (3) kinds of language expressions found in every email written by reservation staffs in InterContinental Bali Resort, they are: introductory sentence, content, and closing sentence. Based on the identification, the writer formulated a generic structure of the 10 emails that had been analyzed. Here are the generic structure of those emails:

Table 4.3 The Generic Structure of Emails Written by Reservation Staffs in InterContinental Bali Resort Type of Language Expression Introductory Sentence Content / Message Closing Sentence Example Thank you for your email. Warmest greetings from InterContinental Bali Resort! Pleased to inform you . Regret to cancel your reservation for . Please note that Should you have additional question please contact us directly. Thank you for your kind attention and we look forward to receiving your confirmation.

It was found that a specific word usually appear in one of three parts of the language expressions. Thank you for example, will appear in introductory sentence if it is not available in closing sentence. If the message is about something pleasant for the guest or the receiver, content will begin with Pleased to inform you; if the message is about bad news or refusal the sentence usually begin by Regret to inform you that, while when the message is about an important information for the guest, the sentence will begin with Please note that.

5. Conclusion Based on the previous chapter discussion, there are some points concluded by the writer regarding the research problem. As mentioned in the first chapter, there are two research problems in this study. The first one is dealing with the letter format and the second is about language expressions. The Reservation Department in InterContinental Bali Resort use Microsoft Outlook to send emails to each other, other departments, travel agents, and clients. Therefore, their emails have same components, which are: sender/from, receiver/to, Cc, title, greeting, content, conclusion, and signature. They have the same format for every email that they send. The same format of those emails reflects the firm identity of the resort which is also shown by the same font, font size, line spacing and so on. One other prove of the identity reflection is indicated from the using of language expression which is supposed to be the same in style. The way to keep courtesy and warmth in every email is run through the use of language expressions. The staffs either in reservation or other department are supposed to make the best use of same style in using language expression. It can be shown in some components of the ten emails that have been analyzed, such as: greeting, content, conclusion, and signature. In writing the emails, the staffs always try to make the information is communicated politely no matter how bad it is. The purpose is to make the client or the receiver feels comfortable in dealing with the resort. The last but not least, there are some differences between a manual business letter and email, based on their components. Composing emails is considered a little easier than composing business letter, because some component is automatically added to the email when it is composed, like the date. Besides, the emails that have been sent are

automatically saved to the computer, so it is much easier to be achieved or printed out.

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