An Analysis Of Prospectus In The U.S Stock Market From The Perspective Of Functional Stylistics

The economy of the U.S has been the indicator of the world for a long time. Similarly, the US Stock Market is the most globalized securities market in the world. In recent years, as A-share market of China has been suffering from serious bubbles, B-share and H-share market slumped sharply, the US Stock Market has become the primary objective of investing for China's institutions and individual investors as well as the companies seeking for listing. As one of the most important documents dealing with information disclosure, the prospectus is the only reliable proxy for the initial public offering (IPO) of a company which affects the investment decisions and reflects the basic requirements of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Through a complete and standardized prospectus, listed companies can set foot on financing from the public and expanding its business scale. The U.S Stock Market has its own distinctive requirements on register systems like the emphasis on the information disclosure and language standardization. For companies and investors trying to invest in the market, it is important to recognize and analyze prospectus in the U.S Stock Market, which possesses some unique linguistic features. Hitherto, the prospectus has been studied through applying economic theories and content analysis, and with rare studies of it within the scope of functional stylistics.Taking Halliday's functional stylistics as the theoretical framework, this thesis selected 6 pieces of prospectuses from the NASDAQ and the NYSE, discussing how the features of functional stylistic are realized in the three meta-functions together with the register theory. The author of this thesis aims to, on the one hand, provide some advice for underwriters and listed companies from the perspective of functional stylistics aspects, and lay foundation for the IPO procedure; on the other hand, help the individual investors comprehend the prospectus better and make right investment decisionsIn this paper, a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis is applied through examples and statistics to make the analysis objective. The analysis shows the realization of ideational function primarily through the frequent use of material process and rational process to reinforce the objectivity of description, reflecting the facts and operation activities of the company, offering the evaluation of the business performance and enhancing the company's credibility. Moreover, the wide use of legal, accounting and securities terminologies provides official and authoritative guide for investors.In interpersonal function analysis we found that from the temporal aspect, prospectus mainly uses present tense and past tense, and the first-person and third-person are frequently used perspectives, presenting the objective description of the company's past performance, the current state as well as its foreseeable future. Considering there is relatively long social distance between the companies and readers, the extensive use of declarative sentences represents the informative function of prospectus, and a small amount of the imperative mood are used to clear legal responsibilities. Apart from the legal provisions cited, the prospectus prefers medium and low levels of modal auxiliaries so as to show a firm and optimistic attitude about the future, which is based on the existing performance of the company illustrated in its prospectus. In lexical and semantic level, the archaism and loanwords are frequently used, demanding more on the basic linguistic skills for readers. And in the future plan description, a reasonably small amount of use of the ambiguity of information presentation is also consistent with SEC regulations allowing listed companies to protect themselves.As the textual function is concerned, cohesive devices are widely employed in prospectus, playing an important role in constructing the text. Simple theme and unmarked theme are more frequently used and the multiple theme as well as the marked theme are used as supplement to highlight the information, indicating that ideational theme is used more than interpersonal theme or the textual them in prospectus. Moreover, the use of abbreviation saves the time and space of a prospectus, facilitating the professional readers and making it more demanding for the underwriters.This article looks forward to contributing to the study of the prospectus. Through stylistic analysis, the author provides some advice for underwriters and investors on writing or reading prospectus in the U.S Stock Market.