Cultural Comparative Analysis Of Chinese And American Entrepreneurial Image Constructions In The Perspective Of Attitudinal System Of Appraisal Theory

Appraisal theory created by Martin,J.R.is the supplement and development of interpersonal meaning of systemic functional linguistics.It pays more attention to various attitudes and emotions negotiated in discourse and various ways of expressing value and the readers of the alliance,whereas the attitudinal system of appraisal theory is not only the judgmental criteria for human's emotion and personality,behavior and value of things but also the core evaluative system in discourse analysis.As the representative persons of corporate image,Chinese and American entrepreneurs usually deliver some speeches in universities,international conferences,product launches,etc and express their feelings,behaviors and values.They construct entrepreneurial images through languages and then reflect some inherent cultural differences at the same time.Therefore,this theory provides a favorable analytical path for studying how to construct a good entrepreneur image through entrepreneurial discourse for entrepreneurs in cross-cultural business communication.Attitudinal system also involves three semantic areas,namely affect system,judgement system and appreciation system.Affect is the expression of personal inner mood and state.Judgment evaluates whether individual behavior is respected and recognized by society.Appreciation evaluates the reaction,composition and value of things.Hence,the thesis makes a cultural comparative analysis of entrepreneurial images under the framework of attitudinal system.The thesis firstly constructs the analytical framework after introducing the research background and significance of topic selection and relevant literature review;secondly,the thesis collects 20 Chinese and American entrepreneurial discourses like graduation speeches at famous colleges and international summits occurred from 2008 to 2018 respectively as data in New Oriental English,China Daily and other websites,marking some evaluative words and analyzing entrepreneurial images in discourses under the three systems of affect,judgement and appreciation.Simultaneously,the thesis calculates their frequencies with the help of Excel software and import them into SPSS20.0 software in order to test whether there are significant differences between Chinese and American entrepreneurial images by using of Chi-square test;and then it makes some cultural analysis of similar and different entrepreneurial images in Iceberg Model six levels,cultural values and religious beliefs.Based on these analyses,the research finds that obvious differences of entrepreneurial discourses are from normality under the system of judgement,expressing the image of challenging authority and respecting for human rights for American entrepreneurs but doing good deeds to be noble persons for Chinese entrepreneurs.Both entrepreneurs focus on personal competences and creatives in dominant qualities and admire competition,optimism and tenacity in recessive qualities under the system of appreciation.In contrast,there are fundamental differences in internal drive of recessive qualities.The thesis puts forward some strategies in constructing better images on this basis,expecting to provide some interpretations and references about self-image management in cross-cultural communication for entrepreneurs and widen the research field of this theory.