Ihre fachliche Qualifizierung steht für uns außer Frage oder Da ist ein gutes Kompliment teuer! – Zur Analyse der Komplimente in den deutschen Absageschreiben

The aim of a refusal letter as an answer to a job application is to communicate negative information to the person who is trying to obtain a job. For the reason of the necessity to save face as well as an inconvenience of the situation, authors of refusal letters apply various strategies aiming at mitigation of the formulated refusal. The objective of the article is to present structural elements of refusal letters containing complimenting phrases, as well as an analysis of language means used in such phrases.