A Study On Generic Structure And Attitude Resources Of English Company Profiles

With the rapid development of economic integration, the world economy is increasingly linked. Lots of Chinese enterprises increase investments in overseas markets, and their products have been extended to foreign countries. Facing fierce competition in overseas markets, company profiles play an extremely important role in terms of attracting customers. However, many scholars at home and abroad mainly study the company profiles from translation or cross-cultural perspective. Research on company profiles from genre analysis and appraisal system remains low.This paper selects 50 English Company profiles from the Fortune2015 Global 500 List to create a small corpus. Then, according to Bhatia(1993)Promotion Letters Analysis Model and Martin(2005) Attitude Theory, the author presents a careful study on the small corpus.First, based on Bhatia's Promotion Letters Analysis Model, moves and steps of these English company profiles are marked. Then attitude resources distributed in each step are identified and calculated. And lastly, explanations about realization ways of interpersonal meaning are given. This thesis answers three research questions:(1) What are the genre structures of company profiles?(2) What are the attitude resources of company profiles?(3) How are these attitude resources distributed in each move of company profiles?After the study, the author finds that at the macro level, there are six moves in the English company profiles. Among them, Move One Introducing Background Information and Move Two Offering Products or Services are obligatory moves. As for other optional moves, the percentage of Move Three Establishing Credibility is far higher than Move Four Social Responsibilities(40%) and Move Five Company Values(48%). The percentage of Move Six Soliciting Further Contact is the least, only accounting for 20%. At the micro level, the occurrence times of attitudinal resources are 417, wherein the occurrence times of "Judgment" and "Appreciation" are 245 and 103, much higher than 69 of the affect resources. In Move Two Products or Services Presentation and two steps of Move Three: Capacity Description and Achievements Introduction, the occurrences of attitude resources are much higher, indicating that a company profile is inclined to use judgment and appreciation resources in order to attract customers.This study, based on genre analysis and attitudes theory, carefully studies the company profiles at both macro and micro levels. The significance of this research lies in: it expands the application scope of appraisal theory, and sheds the light on understanding and writing a professional company profile.