A Contrastive Study Between English And Chinese Introductions Of Digital Electronic Products From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

The introduction of digital electronic products is a kind of advertising discourse which is used to introduce the appearance, features and functions of the products to the consumers. The introduction discourses of digital electronic products are full of Appraisal resources. Appraisal Theory is an evolution of systemic-functional linguistics. It contains three subsystems as Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. Appraisal Theory can explain the ideology of language users based on the distribution of Appraisal resources in the discourse. Meanwhile, we can explore the social culture factors in the discourses. So, studying products’ introductions from the perspective of Appraisal Theory, we can not only know more about the products but also dig out the authors’standpoint of the author so as to get a clear picture of the cultural similarities and differences of different social communities.This thesis is mainly considered to answer these three questions:(1) What is the distribution of the appraisal resources in English introductions of digital electronic products?(2) What is distribution of the appraisal resources in Chinese introductions of digital electronic products?(3) What are the similarities and differences of these two kinds of distribution situation and what are their motivations?By qualitative and quantitative analysis of 30 English and 30 Chinese introductions of digital electronic products, we find out some similarities and differences in the distribution of various kinds of Appraisal resources between English and Chinese electronic product introduction discourses.There are mainly 5 such similarities as follows. First, from an overview, the Attitude resources are the most frequently used kind in both English and Chinese electronic product introduction discourses and Graduation resources are the second frequently used one. Engagement resources are used rather less than Attitude and Graduation. Second, most of the resources in Attitude system are Appreciation resources (74.9% in English,77.5% in Chinese). Third, positive resources (more than 90%) are much more than negative resources(less than 10%) in Attitude system. Forth, most of the Engagement resources are Monogloss. And finally, force resources (95.8% in English,93.8% in Chinese) are more frequently used than Focus resources in Graduation system. These are due to the introductive and persuasive functions of introduction discourses.There are also 3 differences in the distribution of Appraisal resources between English and Chinese electronic product introduction discourses. First, English electronic product introductions use more Judgment resources (12.2%) than Chinese ones (7.2%). That is to say, English electronic product introduction discourses tend to use Judgment resources to present their Attitude while Chinese ones do not. Besides, Chinese electronic product introductions discourses are more tend to use negative Judgment resources (22.4%) than English ones (7.5%). Second, English electronic product introductions discourses use more Hetroglossic resources (12.2%) than Chinese ones (7.1%). Third, English electronic product introduction discourses prefer to use Soften resources (52.4%) rather than Sharpen resources (47.6%) while Chinese ones, on the contrary, prefer to use Sharpen resources (66.7%) rather than Soften (33.3%) resources. Theses differences may due to the different emphasis on cultural concept, different communication style and different degrees of open culture.Generally speaking, by analyzing the distribution of Appraisal resources between English and Chinese introductions of digital electronic products, we find that English and Chinese has different ways in using Appraisal resources to align readers, we hope this thesis can provide some enlightenments for the promoting of Chinese products into international market.