Genre Analysis Of Advisors’ Bio Statements On University Websites In China

In the information era, the Internet has changed people’s life inalmost every aspect. The Internet becomes the major channel for thespread of information. Domestic universities establish websites topublicize themselves. One of the spots on the websites, the advisor’s biostatement (or bio), catches the audience’s attention because the academicbackgrounds of the advisors demonstrate the strength of a university. Thebio is of importance to the peers for intercollegiate exchanges andpotential applicants who want to pursue further study. Also, bios fromvarious university websites show similarities and differences in terms ofform and content. Despite the wide recognition of and growing interest insuch bio statements, little research has been done on this particular genre.Little relevant research is concerned with English bios, but so far nostudy has been conducted on bio statements written in Chinese in terms ofgenre analysis. Therefore, there is the need to extend this field of study bystudying the Chinese bio statements so as to increase people’sunderstanding of the genre.Inspired by Hyland and Tse (2012), this study conducts a genreanalysis on60online Chinese versions of advisors’ bio statements at bothmacro and micro levels, by combining qualitative analysis and basicstatistical calculation. At the macro level, a seven-move generic structure is established along with comparison between move structures proposedby Hyland and Tse (2010) and the present study. All the moves wereinterpreted with examples for illustration. At the micro level, each moveand step was analyzed from the perspectives of linguistic andnon-linguistic strategies. It is found that sentences in the bios are usuallyclauses without subject or comprised of nouns or noun phrases. Thedetailed information is usually organized by listing. The non-linguisticfeatures i.e. subheads and the marked signs highlight the key information.Through the detailed analysis of bios from macro level to microlevel, this paper aims to enhance the writing of the bios in Chinese. Thestudy also demonstrates the value of genre analysis in its application.Limitations of the present study and future suggestions are discussed atthe end of the paper.