A Contrastive Genre Analysis Of University Prospectus Between Chinese University And University Of Speaking English Countries

As specific discourses aiming to advertise universities and enhance image of universities,university prospectuses on the websites play an essential role in achieving communicative purposes and share similar genre structure.According to the definition of genre concluded by Swales(1990),Chinese university prospectuses(CUP)and English-speaking university prospectuses(EUP)both share similar communicative purposes and therefore belong to the same genre.But there are still differences and similarities in genre structure remaining to be seen.Hence,it is of great significance to carry out a contrastive analysis between CUP and EUP so that the English version of Chinese university prospectus can better advertise themselves towards foreign prospective students and education faculties.This study collects 30 samples from Wu Shulian's 2018 ranking list of Chinese universities and World university rankings list of English-speaking universities respectively as corpora.As for Chinese university prospectuses,they are usually divided into 5 categories: comprehensive university,foreign language university,colleges of science and engineering university,medical university and financial university.The theoretical framework of present research is based on the definition of genre concluded by Swales(1990)and Bhatia's(1993,2006,2008,2012,2017)Move-Step analysis.And this research applies individualism,collectivism,and uncertainty avoidance in Culture-dimension theory to explore the reasons for their similarities and differences.This study firstly identifies move-step and concludes genre structure of university prospectuses in quantitative and qualitative method.Later,this study makes a contrastive analysis from the perspective of move frequency and move sequence.Culture-dimension theory will be used to explore their similarities and differences.The results indicate that both Chinese university prospectuses and English-speakinguniversity prospectuses share similar genre structure in macro perspective.In other words,they share similar aspects in optional moves and obligatory moves from macro level.Moreover,move sequences are not strictly arranged in linear order.There are occurrences of move repetition,move cycle and move reversion.Culture-dimension theory explains that differences in move frequency are caused by people's attitudes towards collectivism and individualism in different cultural background;the differences in move sequence depend on different reactions when people are confronted with uncertainty avoidance.Finally,this research puts forward two suggestions for English version of Chinese university prospectuses under the foundation of their differences in move structure.On the one hand,English version of Chinese university prospectuses can properly reduce the optional moves or can mention key information when moves are relatively long or arrange it in hyperlink with pictures or subtitles.On the other hand,English version of Chinese university prospectus should be properly arranged according to English-Speaking university move style instead of directly translated in Chinese order.