A Comparative Genre Analysis Of American And Chinese Hotel Introduction

The economy of China develops fast since the policy of reform and opening up. It has become the second largest economy in the world. Meanwhile, various kinds of communications with foreign countries become more frequent, such as economic cooperation, cultural communications, tourism and other activities. These kinds of communication would promote the development of tertiary industry. The hotel industry is developing during these activities of communication.The people need to know some information before they decide which hotel to stay. Internet makes hotels have a platform to communicate with the customers especially for the foreign potential customers. The website of the hotel is necessary and hotel introduction is essential. The people would get general information of the hotel by reading the hotel introduction. An effective hotel introduction would give a good impression to the customer and help the hotel set a good profile.In order to understand the genre structures of hotel introduction and promote the communication between hotels and the potential customers, this paper studies the genre structures of 60 hotel introductions. Among them, 30 samples of Chinese hotel introduction are from Chinese hotel and 30 samples of English hotel introduction are from the American hotel. This paper conducts the research in the following three aspects:1. What are the genre structures of American and Chinese hotel introduction? 2. Are there any differences between genre structures of American and Chinese hotel introduction? If yes, what are the differences? 3. If there are differences, how do the differences of culture between America and China influence the differences of genre structures?The framework for this study comprehensively applies the theory of Hasan (1989), Bhatia (1993) and Nwogn (1997). After analyzing the genre structures of 60 samples, the author identifies the move structures of American and Chinese hotel introductions. Comparing the move structures of American hotel introductions with Chinese hotel introductions, this study aims to find the differences between them. The results show that there are 5 moves in American hotel introductions: Salutation, Describing the hotel, Establishing credentials, Detailing the offer and Soliciting response. Among them, the obligatory moves are Describing the hotel, Detailing the offer and Soliciting response and the optional moves are Salutation and Establishing credentials. There are 6 moves in Chinese hotel introductions: Salutation, Describing the hotel, Establishing credentials, Detailing the offer, Soliciting response and Contact information. Among them, the moves of Describing the hotel, Establishing credentials, Detailing the offer and Soliciting response are obligatory and the moves of Salutation and Contact information are optional.The results also show that the cultural differences between America and China influence the genre structures of their hotel introduction. The paper uses the culture theory of Hofstede (1991) and Hall (1976) to explore the differences. For instance, China is a high power distance country and America is a low power distance country. The move Establishing credentials is obligatory for Chinese hotel introductions and optional for American hotel introductions.The research of the genre structures of American and Chinese hotel introductions and comparison between them from cultural perspective would be useful and helpful for the construction of hotel introductions. The study plays a reference role for people in writing hotel introduction for both American and Chinese hotel. The research findings provide the first-hand materials for the ESP teaching of hotel introduction.