英汉商业介绍性文本的修辞特征比较

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Chapter I Introduction

This study is a contrastive rhetorical analysis of Chinese and American business

introductory texts, focusing on the culturally-embedded patterns underlying in the

English business introductions written or translated by the Chinese. It is going to

examine the differences and similarities in linguistic representations of three sets of

business introductions: American texts in English, Chinese texts and their English

versions. The author tries to probe into cultural factors behind the rhetorical differences

between Chinese and American.

§1.1 Significance of This Study

Business introductory text, as the author defines it, is a kind of written

introduction which serves as commercial communication. It is a text genre which may

concern every walk of life, such as companies, services, products, scenery spots, and so

forth. With the globalization of business and the development of computer science,

especially the Internet connecting every corner of the world, the prominence of the

written presentation of introductions in English can not be ignored in China’s trade

circle. A business introduction, as a promotional text, serves as a window to potential

customers. It has no doubt that a well-written company profile could create a favorable

image in reader’s mind, whereas a poorly-written one is likely to spoil the image that

the conveyer wants to express, and even worse, it may induce unfavorable or negative

effect among the readers. What’s more, a business introduction is similar to a sales letter

to capture the attention of the audience and then subtly persuade them to be prospective

customers or investors.

The development of China and China’s entry into the WTO make it almost a must

for every Chinese business introduction to have its English version, so as to develop

beyond the domestic market. Therefore, it is urgently needed for the professionals in

business settings to compose the introductory texts effectively. However, many English

written introductions are literally translated from the Chinese versions, failing to

express or even distort the exact meaning conveyed by the corresponding Chinese ones.

For most of these English business introductions, not only do they have grammatical

errors, but also have many rhetorical problems in regard to cultural differences. Even

A Contrastive Study of Rhetorical Features Between Chinese and American Cultures

Through Business Introductory Texts

though some texts are grammatically correct, they may make native speaker feel odd or

strange. In the case of English expository composing, the writers are supposed to write

what corresponds with the expectation of the English native speakers; otherwise, the

introduction will fail to fulfill its expected function.

The globalization of economy propels the contact and exchange among various

cultures, members from one particular cultural community need to be ready to have

adequate knowledge of the other cultures for the sake of better cross-cultural

communication. This study is, subsequently, anticipated to help the businessmen at

work place and pre-experience students majoring in business or business English in the

schools or institutions with their business English writing. To be more specific, the study,

in the first place, is aiming to raise the cross-cultural awareness in both the professionals

and students in that it is a pre-requisite for better business English writing. Secondly, it

may shed some light on the improvement of the quality and effectiveness of English

business introductions written or translated in Chinese context. Last but not the least, it

is hoped that the tentative explanation for the occurrence of differing cultural and

rhetorical conventions would contribute to contrastive rhetoric.

§1.2 Research Background

Initiated by the American applied linguist Robert Kaplan (1966), the study of

contrastive rhetoric reinforced the Whorfian hypothesis that each language imposes a

world view on its users, and maintained that not only spoken language but also logic

and rhetoric are culture-specific. It was claimed by Kaplan (1966) that Chinese writing

was characterized by spiral thinking, and quite contrarily, American English exposition

followed a straightforward mode of thinking. To illustrate the influence of cultural

elements on discourse pattern, an illustration of those elements from which Chinese

thought pattern developed has been made in literature review and these cultural

elements need to be further elaborated.

Since language interacts with its culture, its rhetoric and writing style preferences

are culturally embedded. In other words, the formation of rhetoric and composition

cannot be stated separately from the culture from which it emerges. As Smith (1987)

indicates, “using a common linguistic medium (English) does not mean that discourse

strategies are shared” (qtd. in Hinkel, 2001: 92), people learning English does not

necessarily master the rhetorical conventions of English, even those advanced learners.

Chapter I Introduction

Research has demonstrated that one of the difficulties in writing across cultures

frequently manifests itself in rhetorical inclinations. For Chinese students learning

English, most of them have learned their Chinese writing from primary school till high

school, where emphasis is placed on expressive writing and personal experience and

reflection are frequently used. However, when they are learning to write in English in

university, or when they are doing formal academic writing that requires clear

expression of the gist, they may sometimes transfer what they have learned about

Chinese writing to their English writing, resulting in obscure argument and organization

(Ding, 2003: 236). In addition to that, they have the tendency of employing some

rhetorical devices that are typical to Chinese writing rather than those expected in

Anglo-American academic compositions, which might cause misunderstandings in most

cases. Experts on the Chinese rhetorical tradition have observed that, the writers are

very likely to compose their ideas and thoughts according to Chinese conventional

writing norms, some of which are deeply rooted in the traditional thoughts of China,

while the point whether a common reader from Anglo-American culture can accept it is

overlooked. Besides, patriotism, loyalty, the collective interest, and respect for authority

are the basic moral principles taught in schools in China (Carson, 1992: 44), thus

Chinese writers have the tendency to value these factors much in their compositions,

while native English writers consider language as primarily a medium for expressing

individual meaning. By means of explicating the contrast between English and Chinese

rhetorical inclinations, a better perception of both of English and Chinese writing norms

can be expected and some constantly occurring mistakes can be avoided.

Another question that is frequently addressed is how to deal with rhetorical

phenomenon in the process of translation, while it is now very common to apply

rhetorical theories to the practice of writing. In the field of cross-cultural

communication, translation plays a critical role. Translation is not merely an

interlanguage transform, but essentially a communication of culture, thinking pattern,

tradition and so on. Therefore, a translator has the responsibility of introducing the

implied information in the source language to the target readers as much as possible

while putting the meaning of the superficial structure into target language. However, the

unavoidable existence of cultural differences coded in Chinese and English determines

the impossibility of conveying information of the same quantity in the target language

as in the source language. Sometimes, certain cultural phenomena in the source

A Contrastive Study of Rhetorical Features Between Chinese and American Cultures

Through Business Introductory Texts

language can even be untranslatable. Since there are remarkable differences between

English and Chinese rhetorical inclinations and a considerable amount of cultural

information is embodied in rhetorical pattern, a contrastive study of the inclinations of

English and Chinese is necessary for translating. The translator should first recognize

the rhetorical devices applied in the source language and identify the implied meaning

in it and then he needs to choose an appropriate form in the target language to convey

both superficial meaning and the implied meaning to make the target readers have the

same or similar response as the source language readers do From this point of view, a

contrastive study of English and Chinese rhetorical features, by virtue of revealing even

the subtlest in the two language, is essential in both English-Chinese and

Chinese-English translation.

Since Kaplan’s first study, a wealth of research at the discourse level has

compared writing patterns and styles in many languages and cultures (Matalene, 1985;

Ostler, 1987; Hinds, 1990; Scollon, 1991; Claiborne, 1992; Cai, 1993; and Young, 1994).

Among these studies, a variety of Chinese English writings were also proven to be

influenced by discourse of their native language. However, most researches concerning

Chinese context are only delimited in the study of ESL learners’ compositions. It hasn’t

been recognized that English is widely taught in China and widely used is mass media,

which leads to the combination of English and Chinese culture. And with English

emerging as an international language, an important shift of emphasis of contrastive

rhetoric now may be seen in the English that constitute the basis of contrastive rhetoric

research. To compensate for the limitation, a few of them turned their attention to such

more practical texts in business settings as sales letters, resumes and job applications

(Bhatia, 1993; Jekins and Hinds, 1987; Connor, 1988, and Maier, 1992;). Nevertheless,

as Yli-Jokipii (1991) and Zak and Dudley-Evans (1986) show, there is still relatively

little linguistically oriented research on business communication cross culturally.

Furthermore, the sparse literature on cross-cultural business communication has been

disappointing.

The current study is attempting to explore a different genre of written English text

in business communication—business introductory text. On account of the unique

nature of the business introductions as mentioned in the previous section, the author

anticipates to join one more subject to be analyzed in effort to testing the validity of this

hypothesis. Bearing it in mind, the author especially concentrates on the

Chapter I Introduction

culturally-embedded rhetorical pattern supposed to have influence on L2 writer. As

contrastive rhetoric typically considers Anglo-American English rhetorical features as

the norm and the most important role that the United States plays in China’s

international business, the corresponding American texts are chosen to be compared in

order to add more weight to this contrastive research.

A Contrastive Study of Rhetorical Features Between Chinese and American Cultures

Through Business Introductory Texts

Chapter II Literature Review

This chapter deals with the findings concerning the second language writing in

the realm of contrastive rhetoric. The most relevant research are worthy of a full-fledged

illumination in that their findings or the methodologies are important for the present

study. The remarks on the effects and shortages of the past research are presented

shortly after each review. Since this study falls into the domain of contrastive analysis,

the literature review shall begin with a general introduction to this division.

§2.1 General Introduction to Contrastive Analysis

Contrastive analysis is originally developed by Fries (1945) in the 1950s and then

expanded by Lado(1957), though, there is no written definition of contrastive analysis

until the 1980 when Carl James completed his landmark book Contrastive Analysis.

According to him, Contrastive Analysis (CA) is a linguistic enterprise aiming at

producing inverted two-valued typologies, and founded on the assumption that language

can be compared (James, 1980). And Xu Yulong, a Chinese scholar, defines CA as a

branch of linguistics whose task is: make a synchronic contrastive study of two or more

languages and describe the similarities and differences especially differences between

them, and finally apply the results of the study to other relevant fields (Xu, 1992).

Based on these two definitions, CA is a branch of linguistics involving language study,

and what it is most concerned with is the differences between the languages involved.

As a form of inter-lingual study, CA has much in common with the study of

bilingualism, which, by definition, is the study of the possession of two languages. But

different from bilingualism, which is concerned with how an individual or society can

possess two languages, what CA is concerned with is how a monolingual can become a

bilingual (James, 1980). Being a bilingual entails the ability of conducting smooth and

natural transfer between two different languages, so CA is supposed to explore how the

two languages in question can interact with each other, and how the mastery of one

helps master the other or how the ignorance of one hinders the acquisition of the other.

Like any other branch of linguistics, CA has its theoretical foundation. Since CA

is “a hybrid drawing on the sciences of linguistics and psychology (James, 1980)”, its

psychological foundation should be focused on. According to James, the psychological

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ChapterIIntroduction1ChapterIIntroductionThisstudyisacontrastiverhetoricalanalysisofChineseandAmericanbusinessintroductorytexts,focusingontheculturally-embeddedpatternsunderlyingintheEnglishbusinessintroductionswrittenortranslatedbytheChinese.Itisgoingtoexaminethedifferencesandsimilaritiesinlinguist...

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