| Peer-Reviewed

A Multidimensional Analysis of Letters to the Shareholders by Chinese and American Advanced Equipment Manufacturing Companies

Received: 12 June 2021     Accepted: 22 June 2021     Published: 30 June 2021
Views:       Downloads:
Abstract

Initially proposed by Biber, the multidimensional analysis is used to examine the linguistic variation among different registers, shedding light on the linguistic features and differences among different genres. Through the tool of MAT, this study compared the register features in the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American advanced equipment manufacturing companies (AEMCs). It is found that: 1) the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American AEMCs are both informational, non-narrative, contextually independent, non-overt in expressing views, abstract and well-planned, belonging to the text type of learned exposition; 2) In comparison, the letters to the shareholders by Chinese AEMCs are relatively more informational, narrative and abstract, but less dependent on context and lower in on-line informational elaboration while letters by American AEMCs show more features of interaction with the readers, focusing on the present actions, context-dependence and on-line informational elaboration; 3) The key linguistic features that account for these differences include nouns, nominalizations, first-person pronouns, present tense verbs, past tense verbs, phrasal coordination, phrasal coordination, prediction modals, conjuncts, passives, demonstratives and that-clauses. 4) The future Return on Equity (ROE) of the Chinese AEMCs is related to the dimensions of “explicit/context-dependent references” and “on-line informational elaboration”. 5) In comparison to the previous study, industry is found to have an effect on the linguistic variation of letters to the shareholders. This study gave a comprehensive view of the linguistic features and differences in the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American AEMCs and had some pedagogical implications for business English teaching and learning.

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 9, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14
Page(s) 161-168
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Multi-dimensional Analysis, Linguistic Variation, Letters to the Shareholders, Chinese and American Equipment Manufacturing Companies

References
[1] Bartlett, S. A., & Chandler, R. A. (1997). The corporate report and the private shareholder: Lee and Tweedie twenty years on. The British Accounting Review, 29 (3), 245-261.
[2] Mobasher, A., & Ali, A. M. (2015). Exploring the macrostructure of management forewords of corporate annual reports. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 4 (1), 14-25.
[3] Hyland, K. (1998). Exploring corporate rhetoric: Metadiscourse in the CEO's letter. The Journal of Business Communication, 35 (2), 224-244.
[4] De Groot, E. B., Korzilius, H., Nickerson, C., & Gerritsen, M. (2006). A corpus analysis of text themes and photographic themes in managerial forewords of Dutch-English and British annual general reports. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 49 (3), 217-235.
[5] Garzone, G. (2005). Letters to shareholders and chairman's Statements: Textual variability and generic integrity. Genre variation in business letters, 179-204.
[6] Conaway, R. N., & Wardrope, W. J. (2010). Do their words really matter? Thematic analysis of US and Latin American CEO letters. The Journal of Business Communication, 47 (2), 141-168.
[7] Clatworthy, M. A., & Jones, M. J. (2006). Differential patterns of textual characteristics and company performance in the chairman's statement. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 19 (4), 493-511.
[8] Wang, L., & Li, Z. (2018). A multi-dimensional contrastive study on the intertextuality in Chinese and American business discourse. Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice, 03, 56-62.
[9] Huang, Y. (2012). Contrastive Analysis of Distribution and Clustering of Metadiscourse Markers: CEO Letters in English Banking Annual Reports. Foreign Language and Literature, 28 (04), 84-90.
[10] Biber, D. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[11] Biber, D., Gray, B., & Staples, S. (2016). Predicting patterns of grammatical complexity across language exam task types and proficiency levels. Applied Linguistics, 37 (5), 639-668.
[12] Aguado-Jiménez, P., Pérez-Paredes, P., & Sánchez, P. (2012). Exploring the use of multidimensional analysis of learner language to promote register awareness. System, 40 (1), 90-103.
[13] Biber, D. (1992). On the complexity of discourse complexity: A multidimensional analysis. Discourse Processes, 15 (2), 133-163.
[14] Grieve, J., Biber, D., Friginal, E., & Nekrasova, T. (2010). Variation among blogs: A multi-dimensional analysis. In Genres on the Web (pp. 303-322). Springer, Dordrecht.
[15] Crosthwaite, P. (2016). A longitudinal multidimensional analysis of EAP writing: Determining EAP course effectiveness. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 22, 166-178.
[16] Kruger, H., & Van Rooy, B. (2016). Constrained language: A multidimensional analysis of translated English and a non-native indigenised variety of English. English World-Wide, 37 (1), 26-57.
[17] Huang, Y., & Ren, W. (2020). A novel multidimensional analysis of writing styles of editorials from China Daily and The New York Times. Lingua, 235, 102781.
[18] Gardner, S., Nesi, H., & Biber, D. (2019). Discipline, level, genre: Integrating situational perspectives in a new MD analysis of university student writing. Applied Linguistics, 40 (4), 646-674.
[19] Jiang, J., & Xu. J. (2015). A corpus-based multi-dimensional analysis of business English registers. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 47 (2), 225-236+320.
[20] Wang, L., & Bu, H. (2018). A multi-dimensional contrastive analysis of functional features of Chinese and US corporate discourse. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages, 41 (02): 96-103+161.
[21] Hu, C., & Tan, J. (2020). A multi-dimensional analysis of register features of letters to shareholders by Chinese and American enterprises. Foreign Language and Their Teaching, 03, 66-75+149.
[22] Ren, C., & Lu, X. (2021). A multi-dimensional analysis of the Management's Discussion and Analysis narratives in Chinese and American corporate annual reports. English for Specific Purposes, 62, 84-99.
[23] Nini A. (2015). Multidimensional Analysis Tagger (Version 1.3) – Mannual. retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/multidimensionaltagger. (assessed 1 March 2021).
[24] Xu, J., Liang, M. & Jia, Y. (2012). BFSU PowerConc 1.0. National Research Centre for Foreign Language Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University.
[25] Thomas J. (1997). Discourse in the marketplace: The making of meaning in annual reports. The Journal of Business Communication, 34 (1), 47-66.
[26] Hofstede G, Hofstede G J, Minkov M. (2005). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York: Mcgraw-hill.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Liao Shunzhu. (2021). A Multidimensional Analysis of Letters to the Shareholders by Chinese and American Advanced Equipment Manufacturing Companies. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 9(4), 161-168. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14

    Copy | Download

    ACS Style

    Liao Shunzhu. A Multidimensional Analysis of Letters to the Shareholders by Chinese and American Advanced Equipment Manufacturing Companies. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2021, 9(4), 161-168. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14

    Copy | Download

    AMA Style

    Liao Shunzhu. A Multidimensional Analysis of Letters to the Shareholders by Chinese and American Advanced Equipment Manufacturing Companies. Int J Lang Linguist. 2021;9(4):161-168. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14

    Copy | Download

  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14,
      author = {Liao Shunzhu},
      title = {A Multidimensional Analysis of Letters to the Shareholders by Chinese and American Advanced Equipment Manufacturing Companies},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {9},
      number = {4},
      pages = {161-168},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20210904.14},
      abstract = {Initially proposed by Biber, the multidimensional analysis is used to examine the linguistic variation among different registers, shedding light on the linguistic features and differences among different genres. Through the tool of MAT, this study compared the register features in the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American advanced equipment manufacturing companies (AEMCs). It is found that: 1) the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American AEMCs are both informational, non-narrative, contextually independent, non-overt in expressing views, abstract and well-planned, belonging to the text type of learned exposition; 2) In comparison, the letters to the shareholders by Chinese AEMCs are relatively more informational, narrative and abstract, but less dependent on context and lower in on-line informational elaboration while letters by American AEMCs show more features of interaction with the readers, focusing on the present actions, context-dependence and on-line informational elaboration; 3) The key linguistic features that account for these differences include nouns, nominalizations, first-person pronouns, present tense verbs, past tense verbs, phrasal coordination, phrasal coordination, prediction modals, conjuncts, passives, demonstratives and that-clauses. 4) The future Return on Equity (ROE) of the Chinese AEMCs is related to the dimensions of “explicit/context-dependent references” and “on-line informational elaboration”. 5) In comparison to the previous study, industry is found to have an effect on the linguistic variation of letters to the shareholders. This study gave a comprehensive view of the linguistic features and differences in the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American AEMCs and had some pedagogical implications for business English teaching and learning.},
     year = {2021}
    }
    

    Copy | Download

  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - A Multidimensional Analysis of Letters to the Shareholders by Chinese and American Advanced Equipment Manufacturing Companies
    AU  - Liao Shunzhu
    Y1  - 2021/06/30
    PY  - 2021
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14
    T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    SP  - 161
    EP  - 168
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2330-0221
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.14
    AB  - Initially proposed by Biber, the multidimensional analysis is used to examine the linguistic variation among different registers, shedding light on the linguistic features and differences among different genres. Through the tool of MAT, this study compared the register features in the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American advanced equipment manufacturing companies (AEMCs). It is found that: 1) the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American AEMCs are both informational, non-narrative, contextually independent, non-overt in expressing views, abstract and well-planned, belonging to the text type of learned exposition; 2) In comparison, the letters to the shareholders by Chinese AEMCs are relatively more informational, narrative and abstract, but less dependent on context and lower in on-line informational elaboration while letters by American AEMCs show more features of interaction with the readers, focusing on the present actions, context-dependence and on-line informational elaboration; 3) The key linguistic features that account for these differences include nouns, nominalizations, first-person pronouns, present tense verbs, past tense verbs, phrasal coordination, phrasal coordination, prediction modals, conjuncts, passives, demonstratives and that-clauses. 4) The future Return on Equity (ROE) of the Chinese AEMCs is related to the dimensions of “explicit/context-dependent references” and “on-line informational elaboration”. 5) In comparison to the previous study, industry is found to have an effect on the linguistic variation of letters to the shareholders. This study gave a comprehensive view of the linguistic features and differences in the letters to the shareholders by Chinese and American AEMCs and had some pedagogical implications for business English teaching and learning.
    VL  - 9
    IS  - 4
    ER  - 

    Copy | Download

Author Information
  • English Department, School of Foreign Languages, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

  • Sections