A Rhetorical Comparison Of English And Chinese Argumentative Discourses Of Crisis Intervention

In recent years, due to improper words, inferior products or unsatisfactory services, a few individuals or organizations are caught up with credit crisis. There is a rhetorical need to deal with crisis rationally and professionally. Based on Toulmin’s argument model as well as Aristotle’s three appeals, this thesis concentrates on constructing an analytical model for the analysis of both English and Chinese crisis intervention discourse and thus tries to find out the rhetorical similarities and differences between them.This thesis focuses on crisis statements published from 2005 to 2015 by world-renown enterprises such as Apple, Walmart, McDonald’s, JDB, Shuanghui, Tencent and Alipay.15 of them are English statements, written by native English speakers and 15 are Chinese statements, written by native Chinese speakers. By applying Toulmin’s argument model, this thesis has fully unfolded the process of argument and label each argumentative element. As a result, the following similarities and differences between English and Chinese statements are observed:From macro structure, both of them use DWC model as their basic argumentation model. Differences are (1) English statements take on the feature of deductive reasoning, while Chinese statements inductive reasoning. (2) DWC structures in English statements are more than in Chinese statements.Differences from micro language features are (3) Data employed by English rhetors is mainly statistical compilation, while Chinese Data is mainly authoritative citation. (4) English rhetors tend to use arousing language to get the message conveyed, while the language used by Chinese rhetors is more concise and plain. Similarities are due to the argumentative nature of crisis discourses. And differences result from different cultures, thought patterns and power distance between western countries and China.