A Contrastive Study On Discursive Features For The Construction Of Chinese And German Corporate Identities

The discourse of corporate identity construction has attracted increasing academic attention in recent years,but there are few studies contrasting Chinese and foreign companies,even less multi-dimensional contrastive studies based on longitudinal corpus.Therefore,based on the 2015-2019 five-year annual reports of BYD from China and Daimler from German,within the “DFG Transdisciplinary Framework” concept,this thesis draws on the multi-dimension theory and corporate annual report visual rhetorical analysis paradigm to make a contrastive analysis on the corporate identity construction discourses of Chinese and German companies by combined use of quantitative and qualitative methods.Similarities and differences of corporate discourses and corporate institutional identities are investigated.The relation among corporate discourse,corporate institutional identities,and the socio-cultural environment,as well as the ideological structures are studied.The micro-level analysis based on “DFG Transdisciplinary Framework ” unveils both similarities and differences in the discourse structures,the use of linguistic symbols and non-linguistic symbols in Chinese and German corporates’ annual reports.Similar discourse structures,a variety of referential means and multi-modal symbols are used by both companies to present the operating status and future development plans.At the same time,the annual reports of the two companies present certain characteristics,such as the different ratios of symbols,like words,tables,pictures,and the different contexts.In general,BYD annual report is short and concise with few pictures,large number of forms and rich colors.Daimler annual report is longer with more pictures,forms,and prominent main colors.The study finds the interactive correlation between micro level discourse features and meso-level identity construction.On one hand,through similar discourse structures,a variety of referential methods,multiple modal symbols and other discourse applications in micro level,Chinese and German enterprises have constructed some common institutional identities,such as being “trustworthy”,“sustainable development”,and “globally oriented”.On the other hand,with the differentiations in discourses,Chinese and German enterprises have built their characterized institutional identities as “unified managing” VS “federalism managing”,“authoritative” VS “friendly”,“assortative promise maker” VS “factual wish realizer”,“future company” VS “leading enterprise”.The macro-level analysis based on DFG Transdisciplinary Framework unmasks the dynamic mutual construction between corporate discourse and corporate institutional identity,which gets influenced by the socio-culture facts and shapes the structure of social historical culture and ideology at the same time.