A Comparative Study Of The Appraisal Resources In Sino-U.S.Corporate Apology Letters From The Perspective Of Trust Repair

With the rising frequency of corporate crises,how to respond to the crises and repair violated trust has become one of the important issues that companies care about.As an important measure to repair trust,corporate apology letter expresses corporate attitudes and repairs public trust effectively.Therefore,this research combines trust repair discourse and Appraisal system to conduct descriptive and explanatory analysis of corporate apology letters from perspectives of trust repair strategies and appraisal resources respectively.This research establishes two comparative corpora after collecting 100 corporate apology letters of Chinese and American respectively.Based on the corpora collection,establishment,connotation and statistics analysis,this thesis finally concludes the similarities and differences of corporates apology letters between Chinese and American.Furthermore,the research also conducts analysis and discussion based on the statistics of appraisal resources.Results shows that China’s companies are inclined to use emphasize-the-positive strategy,while American companies are likely to choose the strategy of neutralizing the negative and sought effect.When employing emphasize-the-positive strategy,Chinese companies are accustomed to using Appreciation and Focus resources,while American companies employ Judgment and Force resources.In terms of the appraisal resources employed in neutralize-the-negative strategy,American companies are more accustomed to using Disclaim resources and Entertain resources,while Chinese companies are more inclined to use Proclaim resources and Attribute resources.Finally,when using Affect resources in sought-effect strategy,corporations in U.S.use this kind of resources slightly more than that of China’s companies.Research suggests that when companies use emphasize-the-positive strategy,Chinese companies are more inclined to emphasize their own strengths and abilities while American corporations tend to convey their sincerity and honest.When corporates use neutralize-the-negative strategy,Chinese companies show that they are actively facing and dealing with the crisis,at the same time,convey their humble attitudes and honest image.In contrast,American companies are more accustomed to minimize corporates’ faults so that reduce negative effects of unfavorable situations to the minimal degree.Finally,compared with China,American companies prefer to employ Affect resources to express their regrets about the crisis in order to convey their benevolence.This study combines trust repair discourse and Appraisal system to re-construct a theoretical framework for studying trust repair.This framework verifies the feasibility of Appraisal system applied on the discourse analysis of corporate apology letters.Moreover,it also explores the relationship between Appraisal system and trust repair strategies and illustrates the functions of appraisal resources used in apology letters for trust repair.Additionally,this study also provides some enlightening suggestions for companies in writing apology letters from the aspect of language utilization and trust repair strategy.