英美企业致股东信的元话语分析

Metadiscourse in Letters to Shareholders from British and American Corporations

致股东信是公司年报的重要组成部分,具有自我推销和构建企业形象的功能。选取《财富》前100强中的37家英美企业所撰写的致股东信,自建小型语料库,对元话语的使用情况和元话语功能进行分析。结果表明,互动式元话语所占的比例大大高于引导式元话语,其中自我提及标记语和过渡标记语的出现频数最高。不同的元话语标记语在致股东信中各司其职,实现了说理、气质和动情的修辞功能。自我提及标记语和介入标记语是致股东信中特有的语用特征,用于拉近总裁和股东间的关系;以过渡标记语为首的引导式元话语则顺应了关联理论,用于降低信息处理难度,提高认知效果。

Letter to shareholders,attempting to promote the company and project a positive corporate image,is an important component in the company annual report.This study is based on a small scale corpus,which collects letters to shareholders written by 37 Fortune top 100 British and American companies.It is found that interactional metadiscourse outnumbers interactive metadiscourse,with the frequency of self-mention markers and transition markers ranking the top two.Metadiscoursal markers play different roles in letters to shareholders,achieving the rhetoric functions of logos,ethos and pathos.Being a distinctive feature of letters to shareholders,the high frequency of sell-mention markers and engagement markers facilitates the intimate communication between CEO and shareholders.Interactive metadiscourse,transition markers in particular,contributes to greater pragmatic relevance by expending smaller processing effort and achieving greater positive cognitive effects.