A Contrastive Analysis Between The Introduction To Tour Resorts And Tour Guide Speech From The Perspective Of Functional Stylistics

Since 1980's,China has become the world's fourth-largest country of tourist entry and the biggest country of tourist resource in Asia. Because of the booming tourism, English, as a global language, has become increasingly important due to its function as a major communication tool in international tourism. For the past several decades researches into English for tourism have mainly been focused on translation area. Only in recent years have scholars conducted researches and analyses from the perspective of pragmatics, intercultural communication and stylistics. But few have been done from the angle of function analysis based on functional stylistics.Functional stylistic analysis is based on the three sub-systems or meta-functions of discourse–experiential, textual and interpersonal meta-functions. According to Halliday's functional grammar (Halliday&Mattiessen, 2004), the three meta-functions are exemplified mainly through transitivity system, theme system and mood and modality system. In this thesis, the author conducted a study of English for tourism on the basis of the three sytems mentioned above.Han (2000) puts forward that language for tour guide can be categorized into written, oral, audio and audio video form. In the existing research into functional stylistic analysis of English for tourism, scholars tend to conduct a research on language for tourism as a whole which cannot reveal the stylistic characteristics of both genres actually. Thus in this thesis, the author tries to conduct a contrastive research between tour guide speech (T-guide) and introduction to tour resort (Intro.) to confirm the differences and to prove the similarities between the different forms.The research shows that T-guide and Intro. well demonstrate the meta-functions of language:First, almost 90% of the processes are mental, material and relational in the perspective of transitivity, for the factual and authentic information. Second, as to theme system, most part of theme are simple unmarked theme, so that the information can be transmitted to the tourists or potential tourists directly, clearly. Third, in mood and modality system, declarative mood dominates both texts for statement for direct information transmission. These results show that different texts can reach the same function: authentic, direct and clear information transmission.The research also shows the differences between the two texts stylistically:First,in T-guide, all the mental processes are perception, recognition and reaction towards the tour resort at spot, while mental processes in Intro. is from the third party to reveal the factual situation of the tour resort and convince the potential tourists. Second, T-guide is oral while Intro. is written. Therefore, there is more unmarked simple theme in T-guide. Moreover, the theme progression in T-guide is irregular but derivative in Intro. The cohesion devices in the two texts are anaphora but derivative progression on one particular topic respectively. Third, T-guide uses modal operator can to foreground the equal social status between tour guide and tourists and politeness of the tour guide at field communication, while Intro use more comment adjunct to form a convincing text.However, due to the complexity of the language for tourism and complication of the functional stylistics, there are limitations in the research. There is also significance of the research, i.e., the research method on language for tourism to a micro level and the pedagogical guidance.