A Comparative Study On Interpersonal Meaning Of Chinese And English Cosmetic Advertising Texts

Interpersonal metafunction is an important function of language. Interpersonal meaning is a term drawn from Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar, serving to establish and maintain relations such as the expression of social roles.This thesis studies the interpersonal meaning in Chinese and English cosmetic advertising texts. The author chooses thirty Chinese cosmetic advertising texts and thirty English cosmetic advertising texts in written form from the Internet. These sample texts refer to the text of discourse, not including titles, slogans and so on. Mainly based on the theories of Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar, this thesis analyzes how the interpersonal meanings are realized in Chinese and English sample texts by mood, modality and evaluation.It discusses seven aspects of similarities between Chinese and English in the realization of interpersonal meaning, including the aspect of discourse patterns, the realization of the speech role of information-giving, the realization of the speech role of action-demanding, the realization of modalization, the realization of modulation, the realization of evaluation, and the promoting approaches. Besides, it finds out three aspects of differences, including the aspect of discourse patterns, the realization of modulation, and the promoting approaches In the tendency of globalization, it is easy to understand that there are more similarities than differences in the realization of interpersonal meaning in cross-cultural communication. We can also give explanation that these similarities result from the advertisers' common goal to promote cosmetic products and the same adoption of the soft selling approach and that the differences result from the various features of the languages and cultures of the two peoplesThe comparative study of interpersonal meaning in cosmetic advertising texts between Chinese and English is likely to achieve a sort of domain extension from the previous researches both on advertising texts and on interpersonal meaning, and has much cultural significance.