ABSTRACT

Nowadays, tourism industry has gained its popularity and become unprecedented prosperous, and Tourism English is of huge importance in every aspect of the tourism industry. Based on the theories of style and stylistics and the comparative analysis, this thesis aims at exploring the stylistic similarities and differences of English scenic-spot introductions between China and major English-speaking countries at four levels, which includes the graphetics/graphology level, the lexical level, the syntactical level and the semantics level.

This research indicates that, despite some similarities, stylistic discrepancies of English scenic-spot introductions between China and major English-speaking countries are obvious. For example, on graphological level, the layout of Chinese web page is more delicate and orderly structured. On lexical level, vocabulary richness of English scenic-spot introductions in English-speaking countries is greater, while words of English scenic-spot introductions in China are more complicated. On syntactical level, the average mean sentence length of English scenic-spot introductions in China is longer than that in English-speaking countries. On semantic level, English scenic-spot introductions in English-speaking countries tend to use more adverbial connectors.

It is hoped that this study will enrich the theory of stylistics by widening its application, and more studies on this subject will be furthered.

Key Words: stylistic features; Tourism English; comparative analysis

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One  INRODUCTION-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Significance of the Study-2

1.3 Layout of the Thesis-2

Chapter Two  LITERATURE REVIEW-4

2.1 Style and Stylistics-4

2.2 Analytic Perspectives in Stylistics-6

2.3 Scenic-spot Introductions-7

Chapter Three  RESEARCH METHODOLOGY-9

3.1 Research Objectives and Research Questions-9

3.2 Data Used in the Thesis-.9

3.3 Instruments-10

3.4 Procedures-10

Chapter Four STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH SCENIC-SPOT INTRODUCTIONS IN CHINA AND ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNRTIES-12

4.1 The Graphological Features of English Scenic-spot Introductions in China and English-speaking Countries-12

   4.1.1 Shared graphological features-12

   4.1.2 Contrastive graphological features-13

4.2 The Lexical Features of English Scenic-spot Introductions in China and English-speaking Countries-15

   4.2.1 Shared lexical features-15

   4.2.2 Contrastive lexical features-16

4.3 The Syntactical Features of English Scenic-spot Introductions in China and English-speaking Countries-18

   4.3.1 Shared syntactical features-18

   4.3.2 Contrastive syntactical features-19

4.4 The Semantic Features of English Scenic-spot Introductions in China and English-speaking Countries-20

   4.4.1 Shared semantic features-20

   4.4.2 Contrastive semantic features-21

Chapter Five  CONCLUSIONS-23

5.1 Major Findings-23

5.2 Implications of the Study-25

5.3 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research-25

REFERENCES-26