A Comparative Genre Analysis Of CEO’ Statements In Annual Reports In Chinese,Japanese And Ameircan Companies

The CEO’s statement,as one of the most important components of Corporate Annual Report,aims to disclose corporate operating information in the previous fiscal year,forecast business activities in the coming fiscal year.It is an effective medium for maintaining existing shareholders,attracting potential investors and showing a responsible corporate image.During the past three decades,the study of genre analysis has aroused worldwide interests from linguists and discourse researchers.While other business genres have been increasingly a focus in the literature,little attention has been paid to the comparative genre analysis of CEO’s statements in companies with contrasting linguistic and cultural traditions,such as those in China,Japan and the US.The present research aims to investigate the similarities and differences in genre structure among statements by CEOs from listed companies in China,Japan and the US by examining a corpus of ninety CEOs’ statements from official websites of Fortune 500 listed companies.A framework which integrates models of Swales(1990),Bhatia(1993)and Hasan(1985)was employed.The results show that CEO’s statement mainly consists of seven moves,but there are some differences in the specific moves.Suggestions are made as to how to help business English majors in terms of cross-cultural genre awareness and writing ability.The limitations of the research here also discussed.