A Study On Interpersonal Meaning In English Corporate Apologies From The Perspective Of Genre Analysis

With the fade of information asymmetry between corporations and customers,the misconducts of corporations can no longer be covered.To ease the crisis,restore the reputation and restore public trust,issuing a public apology is the most common and convenient way.Thus,how to organize the content and language of corporate apologies to achieve interpersonal relationship with the public is a linguistic task worth exploring.Recent years has witnessed the popularity of genre analysis as a discourse analytical tool due to its strong applicability.However,the existing research largely focuses on the macro move structure and surface grammatical features,and lacks more specific research points at micro level.To fill this gap,based on the characteristics of corporate apologies,this study invites interpersonal perspective into the research framework of genre analysis.In this paper,40 English corporate apologies are selected to explore the interpersonal meaning under the framework of genre analysis.Specifically,following Biber-Connor-Upton approach(Biber et al,2007),move structure analysis is conducted at macro level with the aid of Hasan’s GSP theory(1993)and appraisal system(Martin& White,2005)at micro lexical level is adopted to reveal linguistic pattern,with an ultimate aim of revealing interpersonal meaning embodied in corporate apologies.The results show that 1)there are seven move types in corporate apologies,each of which has a few strategies.Among them,“Expression of Apology” move is obligatory move,the rest are non-obligatory ones.As for the move structures,it is found that instead of a fixed pattern,the move structure pattern for corporate apology texts is rather flexible,though there are certain rules to follow.2)Corporate apologies show certain characteristics in the selection of appraisal resources,in which attitude resources rank first,graduation resources rank second,and engagement occupies the last position.3)In terms of interpersonal meaning realization,each move presents its unique way by adopting different appraisal resource.This paper discusses in detail the interpersonal meaning and its embodiment at the generic stratum from the interpersonal point of view,and extends the concept of interpersonal to the generic stratum,which not only enriches the studies of traditional genre analysis,but also proves the applicability of appraisal system.It is hoped that the findings of this study can help improve the appreciation ability to corporate apologies and further enhance customer awareness.