A Study On English New Product Press Release From The Perspective Of Intertextuality

Press release is a kind of journalist published by companies or organizations forinforming public the products and services, important news, management revolution,cultural activities, sponsorship for social activities and so on, and those used toannouncing the launch of new products and services are called new product pressrelease (NPPR). The press release is usually written by the public relation departmentof the company and published through media such as newspaper, television, broadcastor network. The coming of network age provides a good platform for the new productpress release. It helps the company announce the news to the largest amount of peoplein shortest time. In addition to informing potential customers of the specifications andperformances of the products or services, the NPPR also utilizes various contents,styles, and genres to impact the ideology of readers, thereby induce consumers topurchase the products or identify the culture and reputation of the company.To have a deeper understanding of the NPPR, this thesis chooses50EnglishNPPRs from the websites of some famous companies in different industries andadopts the theory of intertextuality to analyze these NPPRs. Based on Fairclough’stheory and Sebeok and Lemke’s typology, this paper proposes a theoretical frameworkand classifies the common intertextual relations appeared in the selected samples, thenit analyzes the influence of the intertextuality on readers and how the writers use theseintertextuality strategy to inspire the readers’ desire to purchase the new products orservices. Then the influence of social practice on the discursive practice in NPPRs isdiscussed. Through the qualitative and quantitative analysis, the paper summarizes tenkinds of common intertextual types in NPPRS. The writers use intertextuality toachieve the communicative purpose of promoting the products and services as well asthe corporate image. The use of intertextuality is also influenced by social change,such as technology information and economic globalization.This paper is a tentative exploration in both intertextuality theory and newproducts press release research. It attempts to arouse the attention of scholars, expertsand learners to these two fields, and provides a framework for future research andstudies.