ABSTRACT
This study looks into the question of how to theorize the role of cultural values in communication through persuasion. A multi-method approach is used to encode 60 English hotel introductions and 60 Chinese ones for data analyses. The relation between cultural values and persuasive strategies is explored in the context of communication. It is argued that hotel discourse not only reflects cultural values; more importantly, it creates empirical evidence for people within the culture to learn and induce their own conception of their culture.
Acknowledgments
Thanks are extended to Miss Zhu Shen who helped in data collection.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Data from https://china-outbound.com/cotri-analytics/, retrieved on October 20 2018.
2. From Hilton Newark Penn station website “About Hilton Newark Penn Station” at http://www.guestreservations.com/hilton-newark-penn-station/booking.
3. From Sichuan Jinjiang Hotel website “Overview Sichuan Jinjiang Hotel” at http://www.jjhotel.com/en/default.aspx.
4. Introduction from www.comfortinnbirmingham.co.uk.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Donghong Liu
Donghong Liu is a Professor of English in School of Foreign Languages at Central China Normal University, China. Her research interests include comparative rhetoric and second language composition, inter-cultural composition and communication, the teaching of English writing and Second Language acquisition.
Hong Wang
Hong Wang is an associate professor of communication at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include cultural semiotics, intercultural communication, and environmental communication.