A Contrastive Study Of The Construction Of Corporate Environmental Protection Image In Chinese And American Energy Companies’ Corporate Social Responsibility Reports From The Perspective Of Multimodality

Since the 21 st century,with the continuous deepening of the corporate social responsibility movement and the growing environmental protection awareness,the number of companies issuing corporate social responsibility(CSR)reports has gradually increased.Energy corporations,which belong to a high-consumption and high-polluting industry,bear more responsibility for protecting the environment.Therefore,it is necessary for them to consciously disclose their environmental information in CSR reports to construct a better environmental protection image.Researchers have paid growing attention to CSR reports from the linguistic perspective,but most of them only explore the text,and few studies focus on both the text and image.Therefore,by applying multimodal discourse analysis,this study analyzes the text and image of Chinese and American energy company’s CSR reports to explore the construction of corporate environmental protection image.In this study,English CSR reports of 8 Chinese and 8 American energy corporations from 2016 to 2019 are selected.Based on the theory of system functional grammar,visual grammar,and image-text relations,a theoretical framework is proposed to analyze the texts,pictures,and image-text relations in CSR reports so as to investigate how Chinese and American energy companies build their corporate environmental protection images.Moreover,the similarities and differences in constructing environmental protection images in Chinese and American energy companies’ CSR reports are summarized,and then Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory is applied to explain the possible reasons for the differences.Research findings show that the differences between Chinese and American energy companies in constructing corporate environmental protection images are as follows.In terms of the text,material processes in Chinese energy companies’ CSR reports emphasize the establishment of environmental protection mechanisms and systems;verbal processes stress the company’s response to the government’s call for environmental protection.Whereas American energy companies adopt material processes to highlight that they help local communities and customers save energy and protect the environment;use more relational and mental processes and high modalization to show that the companies have a strong environmental awareness and determination,and they are confident in and optimistic about environmental improvement.Apart from the process type,Chinese energy companies tend to employ more past tenses to lay stress on their past achievements in environmental protection,whereas American ones prefer to use more present tenses to show that they have been committed to environmental protection.For the picture,Chinese energy companies’ CSR reports feature more analytical processes to highlight the company’s strengths and capabilities of protecting the environment,while American energy companies’ CSR reports use more symbolic processes to stress their harmonious relationship with nature.Chinese energy companies use more demand images to invite readers into their environment-friendly world,while American ones display more offer images to exhibit themselves objectively.Besides,Chinese energy companies display a little more pictures shot from a high angle to highlight customers’ status superior to the company;however,American energy companies take more pictures from the medium shot,close shot,and eye-level angle to establish a more equal and intimate relationship with the viewers.Concerning the image-text relation,the relations of images subordinate to texts with extension appear most frequently in Chinese energy companies’ CSR reports;however,American ones tend to use more relations of images and texts complementary with extension and the relations of images subordinate to texts with exemplification.Regarding the reasons for the differences,they are examined by using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory.Because under the influence of China’s collectivism,large power distance,relatively strong masculinity,and long-term orientation,Chinese energy companies have built the above-mentioned corporate images.As for the environmental protection images constructed in American energy companies’ CSR reports that are different from that of China,it is due to America’s individualism,small power distance,relatively weak masculinity,and short-term orientation.This study may enrich the research of multimodal discourse analysis and provide implications for companies to build a better environmental protection image in CSR reports and improve the public’s ability to read CSR reports.