Peking University And Harvard University Promotion Films:A Comparative Study From The Perspective Of Rhetorical Appeals

This research aims to explore what strategies are used in PKU and HU promotion films to attract talents,and the differences in the use of strategies between them.In the background of higher education internationalization,the top universities in the world hope to attract outstanding domestic and foreign talents through their promotion films.Previous researches on promotion film are mainly in the perspectives of semiotics and brand.However,the research on promotion films in the rhetorical perspective is still rare.Therefore,this research takes PKU and HU promotion films as persuasive discourse for attracting talents.Based on Aristotle’s rhetorical theory,this research employs multimodal comparative analysis method to conduct the qualitative analysis of PKU and HU promotion films by means of O’Halloran’s filmic transcription method.In order to better understand how PKU and HU strategically use rhetorical appeals to attract talents in their promotion films,this research answers the following three questions:1.What appeals are employed in PKU and HU promotion films?2.How these appeals get realized in PKU and HU promotion films?3.In what way PKU differs from HU in the use and realization of appeals in their promotion films?The results of this research show that: pathos,ethos and logos are all reflected inPKU and HU promotion films.PKU promotion film mainly employs pathos,while HU promotion film focuses on ethos and logos.Moreover,in PKU promotion film,pathos is realized mainly through historical events.While HU promotion film realizes ethos by demonstrating authoritativeness,and logos by concrete examples,statistics and enthymemes.Furthermore,PKU promotion film mainly relies on the changes of the gate of PKU in different historical periods,as well as the presentation of historical sculptures on the campus of PKU with frequent use of pictures,colors and background music.HU promotion film mainly relies on the outstanding deeds of famous alumni to achieve ethos,and mainly through specific examples of ordinary students,detailed statistics and enthymemes to realize logos,specially using language monologues,color layouts and subtitles to achieve rhetorical appeal.This research will have a certain model function for cross-cultural communication in the production of promotion films for schools that are going abroad and achieving internationalization of education.