A Contrastive Study Of Interpersonal Meaning In English And Chinese Product Presentations

Successful product presentations help companies promote products,raise their image and encourage purchasing.Speeches realize certain interpersonal meaning,influencing effects of product presentations to some degree.Interpersonal meaning of language means that people build interpersonal relationships with others through language.People express their opinions on things or people and then influence others' attitude and behavior.In recent years,contrastive studies of interpersonal meaning of various discourses are quite prevalent and corresponding achievements are remarkable.However,studies of interpersonal meaning of product presentations are relatively rare.By combining Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar and Martin's appraisal theory,this research studies the similarities and differences of English and Chinese product presentations in terms of mood system,modality system and appraisal theory.The research is conducted by analyzing Apple Company and Xiaomi Company's product presentations from 2013 to 2015.It has been found that presenters of English and Chinese product presentations both use various linguistic resources to realize interpersonal meaning.There are similarities and differences.The similarities are as follows.(1)The main mood type is declarative.Interrogatives are mainly used to provide information.There are rare imperatives and no exclamatives.(2)Modal operators with low value are most frequently used.(3)Enormous positive appraisal resources are employed.In the subsystem of attitude,appreciation resources are most prevalently used.The differences are as follows.(1)Chinese presenters more frequently use interrogatives to provide information.(2)There are more high value modal expressions in Chinese product presentations than in English.(3)English presenters tend to use attitude resources more frequently.(4)When raising force,English presenters employ comparatives and superlatives more frequently while Chinese presenters use more adverbs of degree.The reasons of the above similarities and differences in the use oflinguistic resources are as follows.(1)Product presentations are mainly held to provide information of products or services.(2)Audiences are at a higher position compared with presenters.(3)Use of positive appraisal resources can help promote the superiority of products.(4)Westerners have direct thinking mode and like expressing ideas immediately.(5)Chinese advocate collectivism while westerners individualism.(6)Chinese are more conservative in expressing emotions.This research is of certain theoretical and practical significance.On one hand,it verifies the applicability of Halliday's model of interpersonal meaning and Martin's appraisal theory for analyzing interpersonal meaning of product presentations,which can deepen people's understanding of these theories.On the other hand,the research can provide reference for companies to enter international market and prepare speeches for product presentations.It can draw people's interests in studying product presentations and also help people understand product presentations better.