A Comparative Study Of The Dynamic Intertextuality And Interdiscursivity In Chinese And Foreign University Profiles

With the rapid development of globalization and the market economy,universities all over the world are facing increasingly fiercer national and international competition,which leads to a trend of marketization in higher education.While people are given more choices and freedom in schooling,the genre of university profiles serves as an effective tool for the universities to promote themselves by building prestige and constructing their unique identities.To explore how Chinese universities enhance their appeal for prospective students through more attractive profiles,it is necessary for us to comprehensively investigate the similarities and differences between Chinese university profiles and their counterparts around the world.Under the guidance of Critical Genre Analysis,the present study conducts a comparative analysis of the dynamic intertextuality and interdiscursivity in Chinese and foreign university profiles through an investigation into the generic structure and the intertextual and interdiscursive manifestations.The corpus is comprised of altogether200 pieces of English-version university profiles extracted respectively from the websites of 100 Chinese universities and 100 foreign universities.Based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis,we have come to the following conclusions.Firstly,Chinese and foreign university profiles share a similar structural pattern,including seven major moves: Giving an overview of the university,Reviewing the history,Detailing the organizational structure,Stating the mission and vision,Quoting message from the President,Exhibiting advantages and achievements,and Soliciting response.A certain degree of flexibility exists in the number and sequencing of these moves,among which “Giving an overview of the university”,“Exhibiting advantages and achievements” and “Soliciting response” are obligatory moves for both groups.The move of “Stating the mission and vision” occurs more frequently in foreign university profiles while “Quoting message from the President” is used more often in Chinese university profiles.Secondly,there exist a lot of similarities in the manifestations of intertextuality and interdiscursivity commonly exploited in Chinese and foreign university profiles.Nevertheless,the feature of marketization is more prominent in foreign university profiles than in Chinese ones.It appears that foreign university profiles tend to establish and maintain a more student-centered and equal stance towards students while Chinese university profiles adopt a relatively university-centered and authoritative voice.The intertextual and interdiscursive techniques interact with and depend upon each other,permeating every aspect of the genre of university profiles.To sum up,the dynamic intertextuality and interdiscursivity help construct Chinese and foreign university profiles by promoting the universities,thereby persuading more students to apply for them.This phenomenon indicates the practices,values and logics of marketization penetrate into the genre of university profiles that should have been isolated from the influence of market in the past,demonstrating the trend of marketization in higher education.Finally,the similarities and differences between Chinese and foreign university profiles result from a comprehensive effect of diverse variables including social,historical and cultural contexts.Above all,the shift in the primary role of university profiles from simply providing basic information about the university to vigorously promoting the university to students can be seen as the consequence of marketization and commodification in the context of an education market.China is also following the global trend of marketization but China’s higher education is located in a unique bureaucracy-market duality due to the long tradition of a centralized educational system.For another thing,the distinctions between Chinese and Western university profiles rise from some remarkable differences between Chinese and Western cultures,i.e.the way“self” is treated,the priority given to the group goals and personal goals,and the power distance within the educational context respectively in collectivist cultures and individualistic cultures.This study provides certain clues for understanding how and why universities represent and market themselves through discursive practices,and offers some suggestions on how Chinese universities can enhance their appeal for prospective students and competiveness in the global education market through more attractive profiles.