A Comparative Genre Study Of English And Chinese Package Inserts

Genre analysis, a kind of analysis on social convention, is used by certain discourse community to achieve some particular goal by means of (non-)language resources. The focus of genre studies has transformed from the linguistic surface structure of texts into the macrostructure and communicative purposes of the texts, i.e. from literature and rhetoric to such application fields as translation, language teaching. Although some studies on medical inserts exist in applied linguistics at the moment, they mainly focus on the linguistic features or translation skills, and a comparative genre study of English and Chinese medical package inserts has not been found. Grounded on Hasan's GSP theory and Swales'genre study model, this study makes a comparative analysis of English medical inserts (EMI) and Chinese medical inserts (CMI) in order to find out their generic structures and communicative purposes. By comparing 30 Chinese medical inserts and 30 English medical inserts quantitatively and qualitatively, the present study makes an attempt to further understand the nature of genre and extend its application fields. The study can also help professionals to build up their confidence to achieve cross-cultural communication in pharmaceutical industry successfully.By comparing English medical inserts and Chinese medical inserts, the present study reveals the following findings. Firstly, some common moves such as Drug Title Move, Contraindications Move, and Precautions Move exist in both EMIs and CMIs. Secondly, there are some differences in the way of drug naming and the degree of move content details; drugs in CMIs are often named after the component herb's name, function of the drug, metaphor or legendary stories, while drugs in EMIs are usually named after the main chemical component of the drug concerned. Besides, several moves in CMIs are often stated"unclear", while all the moves in EMIs are very detailedly and persuasively described by means of scientific data. Thirdly, there exist obvious divergences in the number of obligatory and optional moves. There are 18 moves in Chinese medical inserts, of which 14 is obligatory and 4 optional. By contrast, there are only 14 moves in English medical inserts with 10 obligatory moves and 4 optional. Finally, EMIs and CMIs embody different communicative purposes. CMIs are characterized by two communicative purposes, namely, drug information and legal status; however, EMIs carry an additional purpose of offering emergency measures for unexpected emergency in addition to the drug information and legal status. All in all, although both English and Chinese medical inserts share some common generic structures of the genre concerned, they also disclose some specific communicative purpose of their respective culture. Common physiological structure and shared living experience of the human race pave the way for the shared moves while the specific cultural background is the root of different moves.