Authority-oriented Persuasion

The purpose of this current study is to examine the use of persuasive strategywithin texts of Chinese exhibition profiles. Based on Bhatia’s (1993) move structurein promotional discourse and Connor and Lauer’s (1985) rhetorical appeal codingsystem, this research investigated the features of organizational pattern and persuasiveappeals through a top-down corpus-based discourse analysis (Biber, Connor&Upton,2007). We contrasted rhetorical move structures and persuasive appeals betweenChinese and Western texts and three distinct Chinese-specific persuasive strategies aresummarized and explained from Chinese socio-psychology perspective withHofstede’s (2001) power distance, Hall’s (1976) high or low context as well as Yang’s(1995) authoritarian orientation.The main procedures of this study are: contextual factor investigation, corpuscompilation, ethnographic interview, rhetorical move analysis and rhetorical appealanalysis. We established a specialized corpus of60profiles from Chinese and Westerninternational exhibitions websites and collected informants’ comments on best-caseChinese and Western profiles,10of them are alumni from Guangdong University ofForeign Studies while another10are western volunteers recruited from internationalbusiness forum.On the evidence of perceptual data provided by interviews, we determinedanalysis units in corpus and quantified the results on rhetorical move, rhetoricalappeal and register levels. The result indicates that: Chinese profiles tend to presentcomplete information without a specific purpose and therefore readers have to inferby themselves; both Chinese and Western profiles resort to rational appeals(presenting statistics and facts), but Chinese writers often highlight supportinggovernments and authoritative certificates instead of engaging the needs of reader;Chinese profiles utilize highly specialized and unreadable words to build theircredible images. These Chinese-specific persuasive strategies are adopted for the reason that Chinese communication practices are governed by authority-orientedrelationship in Chinese society, which causes writers to ignore readers’ benefits andstress on authority in writing.We argue that cross-cultural awareness is essential for Chinese corporate writersto construct their persuasive strategies in western context where equality rather thanauthority is valued. As these Chinese persuasions are found sterile or unsuccessful tointernational readers, the pedagogical implication of this research is that Chineselearners have to tailor the organizational pattern and persuasive appeals for theirwestern readers in international business setting.