Generic Structure and Rhetorical Relations of Online Book Reviews in English, Japanese and Chinese

Sonya Chik,Maite Taboada

doi:10.1163/26660393-bja10008

Sonya Chik, Maite Taboada

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10008

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Abstract

Abstract We examine the generic structure and rhetorical relations that characterise online book reviews in English, Japanese and Chinese to describe the pragmatic features of this emerging genre in a contrastive light. The corpus we analyse contains online book reviews written by consumers for consumers. The purpose of the study is two-fold. First, we seek to identify the generic structure of online book reviews. Second, we investigate the cross-cultural variation in the rhetorical organisation of opinions and evaluations in written reviews across language communities. The reviews are analysed in terms of the generic stages of book reviews, which are determined by their overall communicative goals (Motta-Roth, 1995; Taboada, 2011). The stages are then mapped against rhetorical relations that capture the coherence and meaningful organisation of the text (Mann and Thompson, 1988). Results show that online book reviews in all three languages share a common generic structure comprising three broad stages: Metapragmatic Comment, Evaluation (Book Overall, Author, Plot, Character) and Recommendation. While Evaluation is the only obligatory stage, Metapragmatic Comment serves to prepare the reader for the Evaluation that follows. The recommendation stage is common in both English and Chinese reviews but is conspicuously absent in their Japanese counterpart. In terms of rhetorical patterns, Contrast, Concession and Antithesis relations are preferred in Metapragmatic Comment and Evaluation, while Motivation is typically present in the recommendation stage. This paper proposes a methodology for the contrastive analyses of pragmatic phenomena, illustrating this methodology through the study of an emerging online genre.

Highlights

Studies of pragmatic phenomena from a contrastive point of view occur at different levels of granularity, from the micro analyses of the realisation of speech acts (e.g., Blum-Kulka et al, 1989) or cohesive conjunctions (Kunz and Lapshinova-Koltunski, 2014) to the macro examination of conversational structure (Taboada, 2004) or application letters (Upton and Connor, 2001)
We present a study in the macro area, which is aimed at understanding the generic structure and organisation of online book reviews in three languages, namely English, Japanese and Chinese
The vast literature on contrastive studies and pragmatics provides a fruitful ground for our approach, which is inspired by Systemic Functional Linguistics and the concept of genre (Halliday and Hasan, 1985; Martin, 1984)

Summary

Introduction

Studies of pragmatic phenomena from a contrastive point of view occur at different levels of granularity, from the micro analyses of the realisation of speech acts (e.g., Blum-Kulka et al, 1989) or cohesive conjunctions (Kunz and Lapshinova-Koltunski, 2014) to the macro examination of conversational structure (Taboada, 2004) or application letters (Upton and Connor, 2001). We present a study in the macro area, which is aimed at understanding the generic structure and organisation of online book reviews in three languages, namely English, Japanese and Chinese. We focus here on the context of culture, as a means for understanding the similarities and differences of the emerging online book review genre across languages. 3.3 Annotation and Analytical Procedures We annotated all 60 online book reviews by coding the generic stages based on the communicative purposes of the genre. Taking into consideration the generic stages proposed in other review genres in the literature, we identified the high-level categories of online book reviews and refined the sub-categories based on the texts that we analysed. Preparation Circumstance Elaboration Concession Antithesis Otherwise Condition Cause Purpose Result Justify Evidence Evaluation Solutionhood Restatement Motivation Enablement Contrast Joint Sequence English Japanese Chinese.

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