A Comparative Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Disclosure Discourses Of Intangible Assets On The Chinese And American Pharmaceutical Enterprises’ Official Websites

The official website of an enterprise tends to combine images and texts to transmit information,which is one of the main channels for the audience to understand an enterprise and one of the important media for an enterprise to establish interactive relationship with the audience.Due to the lack of disclosure of intangible assets in annual reports,Chinese and American pharmaceutical enterprises turn to their official websites to disclose them.Under the guidance of the Appraisal Theory,the Visual Grammar,and the Image-Text Relations System,this paper selects the 10 Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises and the 10 American ones,combining quantitative and qualitative analysis to make a comparative analysis of the disclosure discourses of intangible assets on the Chinese and American pharmaceutical enterprises’ official websites.The research questions are as follows:(1)In the texts,what are the similarities and differences between the two countries about the distribution characteristics of attitude resources and the interactive meanings?(2)Among the images,what are the similarities and differences between the two countries concerning the distribution features of the three dimensions to interactive meaning construction and the interactive meanings?(3)What are the similarities and differences between the two countries about the image-text relations in the disclosure discourses? The main research results are presented as follows:In terms of the text analysis,the official websites of the Chinese and American pharmaceutical enterprises tend to use the judgment resources of “capacity” and “tenacity”and the appreciation resources of “valuation” to show the enterprises’ strong competence,encouraging the audience to generate a sense of trust.The American pharmaceutical enterprises usually use the affect resources of “happiness” to reflect the positive evaluation of the enterprises made by their executives and employees,which can leave a good impression on the audience;the Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises often use the judgment resources of “propriety” to present the sense of social responsibility and show the popularity of the enterprises through the appreciation resources of “reaction”.In regard to the image analysis,the official websites of the Chinese and American pharmaceutical enterprises select those pictures taken from the frontal angle and at eye level to shorten the distance between the enterprises and the audience.The Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises prefer the offering images taken in a long shot,which can allow the audience to objectively view the information of intangible assets,while the American pharmaceutical enterprises would rather use the demanding images taken in a close shot to establish an intimate relationship with the audience.Last,the relationship between the image and the text in the disclosure discourses of intangible assets on the official websites of the Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises is largely complementary,while the independent relationship between the image and the text is more common in the American disclosure discourses.And image subordination found in the Chinese disclosure discourses far exceeds text subordination,while the frequency of image subordination in the American disclosure discourses is close to that of text subordination.