A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Cover Letters

The thesis analyzes 30 Chinese cover letters and 30 English cover letters from macro and micro levels. Cover letters are platforms for applicants to show themselves to the potential employers. With the development of technology and society, cover letter writing is paid more and more attention by researchers. In recent years, the research for cover letters, especially the contrastive study of English and Chinese cover letters, is becoming more and more popular. Some people contrast and compare English and Chinese cover letters from genre analysis angle. Some do the study from pragmatic analysis. However, few people study them from contrastive rhetoric perspective. Therefore, the author tries the new angle to fill the gaps and expects that the study enlightens cover letter writers, teachers concentrating on writing teaching field and contrastive rhetoricians. Aristotle and other classical rhetoricians concluded five basic, interrelated canons, which we view as rules today. They are: invention, disposition, style, memory and delivery. As for macro-level, the author builds up persuasion models based on Aristotle's disposition and modern rhetoricians Ulla Connor and Lauer's model to analyze English and Chinese cover letters. In micro-level, the author analyzes sentence patterns, rhetorical figures and choice of words with the reference of Aristotle's style part. At the same time, the author compares and contrasts the results of macro-level and micro-level analysis.The present study shows some valuable results. The English and Chinese cover letters share more similarities in macro structures. The differences lie in the percentage of different persuasion factors and different persuasion appeals. But in micro level, English and Chinese cover letters share much more differences, especially in sentence patterns and choice of words. Generally speaking, Chinese cover letters are more emotive, modest and polite, while English cover letters are more logical with more objective factors.The thesis includes six chapters. Every chapter, step by step illustrating the sameness and differences of English and Chinese cover letters, are composed of key points of the paper. The details are as follows:Chapter one is introduction. The chapter introduces the definition, significance and classification of cover letters. What's more, the preparation work, including the corpus collection, the methodology choosing, the study significance and innovation points, are involved in this part.Chapter two is literature review. The chapter reviews the study of contrastive rhetoric at home and abroad and the study of cover letters. In the respect of contrastive rhetoric, foreign studies start earlier than Chinese ones so the fruit of foreign studies are richer than that of China. The review of cover letters makes the innovation points and value of the thesis clearer.Chapter three displays the theoretical background of present study, of which the rhetorical framework for persuasion analysis and the persuasive discourse are emphasized. The theoretical framework is comprised of persuasive modes and canons of rhetoric. The persuasive modes refer to the logos, pathos and ethos, which are the bases for macro-level analysis. Persuasive canons mainly introduce the style that can be seen as the foundation for micro-level analysis. Finally the generalization of persuasion discourse and the application of contrastive rhetoric on persuasive discourse are expounded.Chapter four is the main body of the thesis. The part analyzes English and Chinese cover letters from macro-level. First the author resorts to the persuasive model of Connor to analyze a sample ECL. Combining the other 29 ECLs'traits, the author builds up unique persuasive models for ECLs, analyzes 30 ECLs and takes on the results. Using the same procedure, the author analyzes 30 CCLs. At last, the author compares and contrasts the analysis results of English and Chinese cover letters from macro-level.Chapter five is also the main part of the thesis. The chapter analyzes English and Chinese cover letters from micro-level such as sentence patterns, rhetorical figures and lexical options. The differences of English and Chinese cover letters'style are listed at the end of the chapter.Chapter six is discussions. At the beginning, the author displays the macro-level and micro-level analysis results with a diagram, and then discusses the inner reasons resulting in the differences between them like thoughts, value-orientation and context.The conclusion part summarizes the above chapters, further indicating the theoretical and practical significance of the study. At last the limitation and shortcomings are also discussed.