A Comparative Study Of Appraisal Resources In English Copywriting On The Chinese And American Tourism Websites

In the 21st century,with the rapid advancement of the social economy and the popularity of the internet,travelling has become an indispensable part of people’s daily life.China,with its rich world heritage sites,has attracted an increasing number of foreign tourists,for whom the English copywriting,especially the scenic spot introductions on the official websites,is the major channel to reach the travelling information.This thesis selects twenty pieces of tourism copywriting,ten of which from Chinese websites and the other half from American websites.Based on Appraisal Theory,and with the help of the UAM Corpus Tool,this thesis conducts a quantitative and qualitative study of the distribution features of attitude,engagement and graduation resources in the collected copywriting.The similarities and differences of the appraisal resources distribution and possible reasons for those differentials are investigated.And compared with the different distribution of certain resources on American tourism websites,the author accordingly puts forward some suggestions on how to improve the English copywriting on Chinese websites.The findings firstly display that the appraisal resources in the English copywriting on two countries’ tourism websites are prevalent,with attitude resources accounting for the largest proportion,followed by graduation and engagement resources.Secondly,the considerable appreciation resources within attitude in both copywriting convey copywriters’ affection towards the scenic spots.Composition resources in the copywriting on Chinese tourism websites outnumber that on American websites because the former is inclined to describe the internal or external structure of the buildings.And the valuation resources in American copywriting are more frequently employed since the copywriters emphasize the social or historical value of the attractions via concrete events.Within the engagement resources,in both copywriting,the dialogic expansion resources are more adopted than dialogic contraction.Within graduation resources,the quantification type of force resource is more likely to be deployed to depict scenic spots in the selected data.Just a few cases of sharpening of focus are employed to highlight certain attractions or stress copywriters’ attitudes to draw tourists’ attention.Lastly,in order to cater to foreign visitors’ reading demands and customs,and further promote China’s world heritage sites,we can improve the English copywriting on Chinese tourism websites in the aspects of security,reaction,composition,valuation,entertain and attribute,based on the differences found in the distribution and use of appraisal resources in copywriting on Chinese and American tourism websites.Through the comparative study,this thesis hopes to broaden the application of Appraisal Theory and provide some references for the English copywriting on Chinese tourism websites.