A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Interperoanl Meaning In Chinese IT Corporate Annual Reports

As the “Belt and Road” initiative put forward,more and more Chinese IT companies are exploring overseas markets.As an investor relations management tool,the annual report plays an important role in demonstrating corporate image and value.With the constant changes in the form of business communication,the language of the annual report has changed from simple words to multi-modal forms,combining text and pictures to collaboratively display the contents of the annual report.This study takes the Chinese IT corporate annual reports as the research object.Based on Appraisal Theory and Visual Grammar,it analyzes the verbal and visual resources in the annual report to explore how verbal and visual resources realize the interpersonal meaning.This paper selects 30 multi-modal discourse samples from 8 Chinese IT corporate annual reports,and through analysis,the following results are obtained:Firstly,from the view of verbiage resources,positive attitudinal resources accounts for 87.43%.To ensure the profession and objectivity of IT corporate annual reports,affect(17.3%)resources are not directly used to establish companies' image.As for judgment resources(46.6%),the adoption of abundant capability resources not only shows the capability and strategy of companies but also establishes companies' reliability.As far as appreciation resources(36.1%)are concerned,the percentage of valuation resources ranks in the first,which can help build capable and responsible images of companies to the potential investors.Secondly,in visual image analysis,both demand and offer images can be found in Chinese IT corporate annual reports.Demand images are the majority,which can help establish direct relations between the enterprises and the readers /viewers.Few offer images are adopted to help the viewers have a comprehensive understanding to the verbiage resources.As for social distance,most of images in this research are presented in close shot and medium shot.Personal/intimate distance can grasp viewers' attention and establish close relationship with the viewers.As for perspective,horizontal angle is preferred in this study,which indicates that the represented participants in images have no power difference over the viewers,which gives viewers a chance to involve in the represented participants' world and helps companies build equality relations with the viewers.In a nutshell,the verbal resources and visual resources in the Chinese IT corporate annual reports are cooperated to convey positive interpersonal meaning.The positive attitudinal resources not only provide relevant enterprise information about enterprises,but also are helpful for establishing positive interpersonal relationships with the readers.visual resources are designed to increase the attractiveness of the language,and also play a significant role in conveying interpersonal meaning.This study not only develops the research perspective of the discourse,but also provides some suggestions and inspiration for the writing of the English IT corporate annual reports.Besides,it may help IT enterprises establish favorable images.