Structural moves reflected in English and Chinese sales letters
ZHU YUNXIA UNITEC, AUCKLAND
Discourse Studies 2000. Vol 2(4): 473C496.
ABSTRACT Understanding differences in communication styles is becoming
increasingly important in intercultural business communication as more and
more countries are involved in doing business internationally and more and
more people are doing business with mainland China. This article aims to
compare the structural moves used in English and Chinese sales letters from
social, intercultural and pragmatic perspectives. It has been argued that the
study of text styles such as linearity and circularity in comparative rhetoric
may not be sufficient to reflect the overall features of the genres involved.
Therefore a holistic approach based on genre study and schema theory has
been employed to explore the communicative purposes and various levels of the
text. Hall’s high- and low-context cultures and cross-cultural pragmatics have
also been incorporated to enrich the genre approach. A corpus of 40 sales
letters (20 in Chinese and 20 in English) was examined and it was found that
Chinese sales letters share similar marketing strategies with English letters as
the Chinese economy is becoming increasingly decentralized and privatized.
Differences in communication patterns between these letters were identified,
however, and shown to be largely due to a number of factors such as the
specific values and beliefs of each culture and the different business practice in
mainland China.
http://www.corpus4u.org/upload/forum/2005062822025973.pdf
ZHU YUNXIA UNITEC, AUCKLAND
Discourse Studies 2000. Vol 2(4): 473C496.
ABSTRACT Understanding differences in communication styles is becoming
increasingly important in intercultural business communication as more and
more countries are involved in doing business internationally and more and
more people are doing business with mainland China. This article aims to
compare the structural moves used in English and Chinese sales letters from
social, intercultural and pragmatic perspectives. It has been argued that the
study of text styles such as linearity and circularity in comparative rhetoric
may not be sufficient to reflect the overall features of the genres involved.
Therefore a holistic approach based on genre study and schema theory has
been employed to explore the communicative purposes and various levels of the
text. Hall’s high- and low-context cultures and cross-cultural pragmatics have
also been incorporated to enrich the genre approach. A corpus of 40 sales
letters (20 in Chinese and 20 in English) was examined and it was found that
Chinese sales letters share similar marketing strategies with English letters as
the Chinese economy is becoming increasingly decentralized and privatized.
Differences in communication patterns between these letters were identified,
however, and shown to be largely due to a number of factors such as the
specific values and beliefs of each culture and the different business practice in
mainland China.
http://www.corpus4u.org/upload/forum/2005062822025973.pdf