A Comparative Genre Analysis Of Chairman’ Statements In Corporate Social Responsibility Reports Between Chinese And American Listed Corporations

With the rapid development of global econom y, the rise of ecological civilization and the pro motion of s ustainable development in recen t decades, corporate social responsibility(CSR) reports become increasingly im portant for the sustainable development of enterprises. Disclosure CS R in English for listed corporations has been considered as an ef fective channel to enhance a favorable corpo rate image and promote business in overseas markets. As the front part of the CSR report, chairm an’s statement is a brief overview of the main contents and plays a critical role in the whole report. This study will m ake a comparative analysis of ch airman’s statements in CSR between American and Chinese corporations from the perspective of genre theory.The present research collects 60 CSR in English from the official websites of the Chinese and Am erican listed corporations. Based on the theoretical foundation of Swales’ Move-Step Model and Hasan’ s Generic Structure Potential, the autho r conducts a genre-based research to explore communi cative purposes and investigate move structures as well as ge neric structure potentials of the chairman’s statements in CSR both from Chinese and American corporations, and then compare the differences and similarities of their generic structure pot entials to guide the practical writing of chairman’s statements in Chinese CSR reports.This research has figured out the fo llowing conclusion. Firstly, CSR can be regarded as a sub-genre of prom otion genre, with the co mmunicative purposes of disclosing information to shareholders so as to capture their attention and convince theirs’ continuing support and build up a good corporate im age. Secondly, after move analysis of all the samples in the two co rpora, the author finds bo th chairman’s statements of Chinese and Am erican enterprises have e ight moves in tota l. After observing the GSP of the two corpora, we can dem onstrate that the Values and beliefs(VB) and CSR perfor mance(CP) are the obl igatory moves to determine such a text being the chairman’s statement in CSR. Finally, by m aking a com parison of GSP between the two corpo ra, some significant d ifferences are worked ou t. The m ost distinctive differences between th e two is that Establishing Credential(EC) is an obligatory move in Chinese sam ples which must be com bined with Exter nal Environment(EE) and V alues and beliefs(VB) to occur before the move of CSR performance(CP). W hile it can not be f ound in Am erican samples. And Soliciting Feedback(SF) is an obligatory one only appeared in American GSP. The reasons may lie in the different cultural factors, language systems and thinking patterns.