ABSTRACT

University prospectus is an important genre that deserves careful studies both because of its stylistic features and because of its roles in higher education. While traditional prospectuses aimed at passing on information, today’s prospectuses, under the impact of commodity economy, strive to establish a positive image of the universities for the purpose of persuading more students to buy educational products. When preparing a prospectus, universities view students as customers with special needs. Therefore, the communicative function of prospectuses has been transformed from exchanging educational information to marketing and promoting educational products. 

This thesis, by making a case study of university prospectus from both within and without China, attempts to examine the interdiscursive features of commodified educational discourse within the theoretical framework of Fairclough’s discourse intertextuality and Swale’s genre theory. This study will have two implications: theoretically, it will perfect the framework for the analysis of educational discourse and, therefore shed some light for future studies carried out from similar perspectives. In the meantime, it will provide some suggestions for the writing of university prospectus. 

Key words: Prospectus; Interdiscursivity; Commodified Educational Discourse

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One-1

INTRODUCTION-1

1.1 Objective and Significance of the Study-1

1.2 Structure of the Thesis-1

Chapter Two-3

LITERATURE REVIEW-3

2.1 Definition-3

2.2 Previous Studies on Educational Discourse-3

2.3 Previous Studies on University Prospectus-5

Chapter Three-7

RESEARCH DESIGN-7

3.1 Data Collection and Description-7

3.2 Theoretical Framework-8

3.3 Data Analysis-9

Chapter Four-13

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION-13

4.1 The Genre Level-13

4.2 The Content Level-14

4.3 The Lexical/Linguistic Level-15

Chapter Five-17

CONCLUSION-17

5.1 Major Findings-17

5.2 Implication of the Study-18

5.3 Limitations-18

REFERENCE-19