If anyone has seen anything, especially this kind of thing in email discourse:
"thanks in advance for your help"
That would be really useful. I'm searching and getting no hits. The only relevant article I've found is the one below, which only mentions pre-emptive thanking in passing:
Puustinen, Minna, Josie Bernicot, and Alain Bert-Erboul. 2011. “Written Computer-Mediated Requests for Help by French-Speaking Students: An Analysis of Their Forms and Functions.” Learning and Instruction 21(2):281–89. Retrieved (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2010.07.005)
I've searched for 'pre-emptive thanking' (both hyphenated and not), 'anticipatory thanking' and 'thanks in advance' - if you think I'm using the wrong terminology, please also let me know!
While it might reside in the realm of the law, the margin of appreciation doctrine from European court proceedings may provide some pointers and leads into the related notions of:
Derogatory statements
Rudeness
Platitudes
Relative truth ("thanks but no thanks" feeling that one encounters in the expression "thanks in advance".). Veiled intimidation in the context o superiors- subordinate relations.Even coercion.
Interestingly advanced thanks can be thought as the flipside of "postmortem feedbacks". Only the decoding happens before the promised outcome. A sort of preemptive appraisal rather than a constructive feedback. An interesting RG member's work: at the other end of the decoding spectrum but deals nonetheless with misconstrued communications:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270575477_Unpacking_Student_Feedback_as_a_Basis_for_Metacognition_and_Mediated_Learning_Experiences_A_Socio-cultural_Perspective
Article Unpacking Student Feedback as a Basis for Metacognition and ...
Hi ,just an observation....I use this form when requesting an action in a referral letter.."thanking you in anticipation".....it is ,to my mind,a polite ,indirect way to encourage the action requested be carried out ASAP!!! Regards,Tina.So perhaps there is a degree of coercion as the previous respondant has suggested,albeit couched in polite language.
Manno Giuseppe (1999): “Le remerciement prospectif, ou la condensation de l’échange directif. Pour une conception plus dialogale des actes de discours”, Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, 52, 203-235.
I'm not sure I could help you or not. I have no work on "Thanking in advance", but a study on writing acknowledgements in Thesis and Dissertation.
I think you can consider the expression as a discourse marker than a pre-emptive statement because it does not necessarily coerce anybody to act but rather shows the author's attitude to the information in the letter. I am sure literature on discourse markers will help. You have actually set me thinking of that expression in all the letters I read from instituional communication.
I've done some research on thanking and "thanking in advance" in particular. This type was mentioned and discussed in the following studies/articles: Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2011; Chejnova, 2014 and Zborowski, 2005. I hope this would help!
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