A Study On Persuasion In Johnson & Johnson’s Letters To Shareholders From The Perspective Of Interpersonal Meaning

Letters to shareholders are the CEOs’ introduction to the company’s financial status over the past year and their expectations for future development.With the rapid development of the medical industry,it is critical for Chinese pharmaceutical companies to better participate in the global economy.And the exploration on how to realize persuasion in letters to shareholders in pharmaceutical enterprises is conducive to building a good relationship with readers and strengthening investors’ confidence.Johnson & Johnson,as the top pharmaceutical company in the world,is of great research value and can be referenced.Interpersonal meaning is one of the three metafunctions of language proposed by Halliday.It refers to writer’s role relationship with readers and writer’s attitude towards the subject matter.And letters to shareholders,as a persuasive genre,have an integrating point with interpersonal meaning.Therefore,this paper applies the system of mood,modality,and attitude under the interpersonal meaning,combined with Aristotle’s three rhetorical appeals,and discusses the realization of persuasion in Johnson & Johnson’s letters to shareholders.This thesis collects the letters to shareholders from 2010 to 2020 on the official website of Johnson & Johnson,and builds a small corpus based on it.With the help of the corpus tool UAM,quantitative analysis is made by analyzing the frequency and distribution of language resources in mood,modality,and attitude system.And qualitative analysis is carried out on application of language resources and the realization of interpersonal meaning and persuasion by examples.This study mainly answers the following questions:(1)What are the distribution characteristics of language resources in Johnson & Johnson’s letters to shareholders in terms of the mood,modality,and attitude systems?(2)How are interpersonal meanings realized in Johnson & Johnson’s letters to shareholders through the mood,modality,and attitude systems?(3)How is persuasion achieved through such a pattern of realization of interpersonal meaning?The major findings are as follows.(1)In mood system,declarative accounts for the largest proportion.It accords with the basic requirements of letters to shareholders,providing information,and being objective.In modality system,probability is used most frequently in letters to shareholders in JNJ,and inclination comes after it.They are used to control the possibility of expression and to demonstrate the company’s initiative.In attitude system,judgement accounts for the largest part,and appreciation follows it.Appreciation and judgement are more often used because CEOs tend to avoid expressing affect directly.(2)In mood system,declaratives have the functions of information-giving and action-giving.In modality system,the proper choice of moderate operators of probability and inclination work together,presenting the company’s strong willingness to lead the industry,but also presenting the passion rationally.In attitude system,judgement and appreciation resources are combined to show the company’s strong ability and good personality.(3)From Aristotle’s three rhetorical means of persuasion,persuasion is achieved through such a pattern of realization of interpersonal meaning.Mood and modality resources of probability can achieve logos by presenting facts;affect and appreciation resources of impact can achieve pathos by conveying emotion;mood,modality resources of inclination,obligation,and usuality,as well as attitude resources of judgement and part of appreciation can work to help the company build the image of being capable and responsible to achieve ethos.Theoretically,this study verifies the feasibility of analyzing the persuasion in pharmaceutical companies’ letters to shareholders through interpersonal meaning under systemic functional linguistics.Practically,it provides some advice on enhancing persuasion through building a good relationship with readers by mood modality,and attitude resources in writing letters to shareholders for pharmaceutical companies.It is hoped that this research will be helpful for Chinese medical enterprises to go overseas and promote overseas development.