A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Persuasiveness In English APP Introduction Discourses

In modern society,all kinds of third party apps(applications)attached to mobile terminal devices such as smart phones and tablet computers flood into people’s life.As a form of communication between developers and potential users,app introduction,a new kind of advertising text,comes into people’s sight rapidly and broadly and arouses wide concern,the ultimate aim of which is to persuade users to purchase and download apps.This study analyzes English app introduction discourses from the perspective of critical discourse analysis so as to mainly reveal how their persuasiveness is realized.At present,there are many researches on the persuasiveness of advertising language at home and abroad,while most of them still focus on the analysis of language itself.Few studies on the persuasiveness of advertising discourses are done from the perspective of critical discourse analysis,especially the researches on advertising like application introduction discourses.Critical discourse analysis aims at uncovering the relations among language,ideology and power.Therefore,it can effectively analyze the ideological meaning contained in app introduction discourses which persuades people to take action of downloading.This study collects 90 English app introduction discourses from App Store in Apple i OS11 system published in September 2017.Among them,there are 30 app introduction discourses in each of the three types which are life and entertainment,education and learning,and news and information app introduction discourses.The study takes Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics as the main theory basis and analysis tool.Based on three meta-functions of Systemic Functional Grammar,ideational function,interpersonal function and textual function,this study analyzes the persuasiveness of English app introduction discourses via the method of combining quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis.It makes descriptive analysis centering on modal auxiliaries,mood,transitivity system and theme-rheme pattern and detailed statistics on the distribution and frequency of occurrences of related items.Besides,the study analyzes the relationship between persuasiveness and ideology which serves power and provides suggestions for Chinese app advertisers when they write the English version of app introduction discourses.A series of researches lead to thefollowing conclusions.Firstly,in the era of new media,critical discourse analysis of persuasiveness in distinct categories of English app introduction discourses is of applicability and practical significance.Secondly,different types of English app introduction discourses employ distinct linguistic means to realize the persuasiveness.Life and entertainment English app advertising usually uses median value modal operator “will”,declarative mood,material process and alternative theme-rheme pattern.Education and learning English app introduction discourses often employ “will”,imperative mood,material process and same theme pattern.And news and education English app advertising generally chooses low value modal operator“can”,declarative mood,material process and same theme pattern.Thirdly,Chinese app advertisers should determine the scope of target user groups and write the specific app introductions in English according to potential users’ preference and requirements about the functions of apps so that the target users can be persuaded successfully to purchase and download apps.