A Critical Genre Analysis Of Job Advertisements On Corporate Websites

Employees,as one of the most important assets of companies,are the cornerstones of their development.Being a crucial way for companies to attract talents,job advertisements on corporate websites,deeply influence companies and should not be underestimated.However,there are few researches focusing on corporate job advertisements.In view of this,this study conducts analyses on job advertising on companies’ official websites,aiming at finding the generic features and structures of online recruitment advertising,and revealing the mechanism of interdiscursivity in it.By associating professional practices with the professional culture,this study explores the reasons for its pragmatic success: the reasons for applying interdiscursive strategies in the construction of online recruitment advertising.This research aims at answering three questions:(1)What main generic and textual features do job advertisements on corporate websites have?(2)How does interdiscursivity function in job advertisements on corporate websites?(3)Why does interdiscursivity phenomenon permeate in the social-cultural domain?In order to answer the research questions above,this paper selects the job advertisements of “Sales Manager/Project Manager” published by 46 most admirable companies(21 from American ranking,Fortune,and 25 from Chinese ranking,Linkedin)on their official websites as the research corpus shows.Critical Genre Analysis is the guideline of this research,and Swales’(1990)study of genre,Bhatia’s(2002)interpretation of interdiscursivity,Wu Jianguo’s(2012)mechanism of interdiscursivity in public discourses and Fairclough’s(1992)research on discourse tendency are engaged in the analytical framework.Specifically,this study conducts analyses in respectively three spaces: textual-generic space,the space of professional practice,and the space of professional culture.Through the three-space analysis,it is found that:(1)The generic moves of job advertisement on corporate official websites include highlighting,establishing credentials,introducing the offer,offering incentives,soliciting responses and statements.(2)During the research in the text-genre space,some features in professional practice space are found: interdiscursive phenomenon is manifested in the forms of blended interdiscursivity,embedded interdiscursivity,switched interdiscursivity,and chained interdiscursivity.(3)Finally,it found that trends of democratization,commodification and technologization are the reasons for the above generic features and interdiscursive performance.This research is meaningful,for it helps to: 1)guide companies on online job advertisements writing,to improve their writing efficiency;2)give enlightenment on mechanism of job advertisements for job hunters,to guide their resume revision in order to improve competitiveness;3)supply learning materials for ESP learners,especially those studying Business English.