A Contrastive Study Of Modal Verbs In English And Chinese Medical Device Promotional News

Since international competition is becoming increasingly fierce in the medical device industry,promotional news is incredibly important in disseminating knowledge and promoting products.Examining 60 press releases related to coronary stents from listed American and Chinese medical device companies,this thesis through quantitative and qualitative analysis conducts a contrastive study of the cognitive process of modal meaning in medical device promotional news(MDPNs)from the perspective of cognitive grammar(CG).Based on Langacker’s grounding theory(2008)and dynamic evolution model(1991),this thesis aims to analyze how English and Chinese discourse producers,influenced by their different understanding of modal verbs,consciously or unconsciously highlight information with different degrees of salience to express their interpretation of the promoted products,thereby affecting readers’ perceptions and achieving their promotional purposes accordingly.The results show that English discourses prefer epistemic modality while Chinese discourses favor dynamic modality.Deontic modality is barely used in both discourses.The conceptualization of typical modal verbs in modal grounding analysis indicates that English and Chinese discourse producers manipulate readers’ focus of attention by highlighting favorable information respectively.In English discourses,epistemic modal force comes from clinical progress and results,while dynamic modal force mainly comes from and targets at stents and companies themselves.In Chinese discourses,epistemic modal force roots in stents’ features and experts’ explanation,and dynamic modal force roots in stents features and companies’ strength in research and development.In addition,most of the main modal force elements are onstage construed objectively,enhancing objectivity of discourses.Then dynamic evolutionary model(DEM)of modal verb + verb(MV)structure reveals that in both English and Chinese MDPNs,activity and accomplishment verbs are profiled by modal verbs for economic interests.They construct dynamic and accomplished mental images in irreality which cater to target readers’ mental experience.Meanwhile,the cognitive models show that the use of modal verbs represents a nonfactive future world and thus softens the tone of overpromotion to avoid absoluteness.Finally,cognitive differences and similarities are explained from commercial,communicative,cultural and social perspectives.This thesis combines CG and discourse analysis to enrich cross-cultural and cross-linguistic studies and provide promotional news producers with some enlightenment on domestic medical device promotion on its way to internationalization.