The Development of the Epistolary Genre: Students’ E-Mails in the Academic Discourse

The article discusses the development of e-mails in the 21st century in the context of epistolography (i.e. an epistolary genre): an ever increasing amount of e-mails covers both personal relationships and social, cultural and academic communication in the academic environment. The article aims to analyse the e-mails written in the spring semester by the fourth year undergraduate students of the Faculty of Environmental Engineering, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) and sent to the author of the article together with compulsory homework. The e-mails are analysed in terms of structural, functional and linguistic expression properties. The object of the research is 432 e-mails sent in 2010 by the fourth year undergraduate students of the VGTU Faculty of Environmental Engineering. The research results show that in terms of structure most e-mails either do not comply or only partially comply with the requirements of formal written communication. The functional analysis reveals that, in summary, students’ e-mails are distinguished by an extremely specific expression of the following functions characteristic to formal written communication: salutation or greeting, giving information and specifying, giving explanations and excuses, asking questions and negotiating, valediction and thanksgiving, signature and contacts