A Contrastive Study Of Interpersonal Meaning In English And Chinese Pro-environmental Public Service Advertisements:A Systemic Functional Approach

One of the most principal functions of language is to establish and maintain relations among people.In recent years,researchers have attached importance to studies on interpersonal meaning in English discourses and they have seldom paid attention to contrastive analyses of interpersonal meaning in English and Chinese discourses.As one kind of media between advertisers and the public,pro-environmental public service advertisements are typical discourses of interpersonal meaning.Through language,advertisers express their viewpoints on environmental issues so as to influence the attitude and behavior of the public toward environmental issues.Due to the similar context of situation and dissimilar context of culture,there are some similarities and differences of interpersonal meaning realization between English and Chinese pro-environmental public service advertisements.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct a contrastive study of interpersonal meaning in different languages but in the same register.Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are adopted in this thesis.Based on the theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics,100 pieces of English pro-environmental public service advertisements and 100 pieces of Chinese pro-environmental public service advertisements are collected from the Internet to make a contrastive study of interpersonal meaning through Mood system,modality system,and person system.The process of research is stated as follows: Firstly,different types of interpersonal meaning realization are identified.Next,the frequency of these types of interpersonal meaning realization is counted to illustrate similarities and differences of realization.Finally,the explanation with examples will be presented in detail.It is concluded that both advertisers of English and Chinese pro-environmental public service advertisements employ various lexicogrammatical patterns skillfully to establish interpersonal relationship with readers.The main similarities are(1)the speech roles of both English and Chinese pro-environmental public service advertisements are information-givers and action-demanders;(2)declarative Mood is preferred;(3)interrogative clauses are interpersonal metaphors;(4)Adjuncts of intensity is applied with highest frequency;(5)the frequency of the second person pronouns is close.The great differences are(1)negative imperatives are more often used in Chinese samples,which indicates the high power distance between advertisers and readers in China;(2)median value moral operators are more commonly employed in English samples while low value volitive verbs are more frequently used in Chinese samples;(3)there is the second person singular pronoun“?”(you)in Chinese samples expressing politeness and respect without equivalent in English samples;(4)the third person pronouns he,him,and her in English samples can be employed to refer to animals while among the third person pronouns in Chinese samples only“?”(it)and“??”(they)refer to animals.The significance of the present study is to verify the feasibility and efficiency of Systemic Functional Linguistics in conducting a contrastive analysis between English and Chinese discourses,to enrich the study of pro-environmental public service advertisements and to inspire advertisers to make better use of the advertising language.