"Good Morning, My Dear Dr." Openings and Closings in University Students’ Academic Emails

Abstract

The current study investigates the openings and closings in the emails of Jordanian undergraduate students to their professors. It is significant as it provides invaluable insights into different aspects of student-professor interpersonal communication. This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by examining how Jordanian university undergraduates open and close their first-contact emails to their professors. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The sample of this study consisted of 200 authentic Arabic email messages drawn from a professor’s mail inbox. The data were analyzed based on Salazar-Campillo & Codina-Espurz’s typology of opening and closing. The findings reveal that the emails included all the opening and closing moves reported by previous research, however, with clear variation. The findings also show that openings and closings are used as politeness strategies to create a positive tone for student-professor academic interactions. Moreover, the study concludes that the emails resorted to more informal opening and closing formulas. The emails in this study do not conform to the norms and etiquette of student-professor email interaction. Furthermore, this study reports the use of emojis in almost all moves of the opening and closing sequences. Based on the findings, future studies are recommended.