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Pragmatics and Society: Online-First Articles

Comparing Chinese and British entrepreneurial pitches in reality TV shows

A corpus-based appraisal analysis

 | Zhejiang University
 | Zhejiang University
 | China Zheshang Bank
 | Chengdu Lianzhou International Technology Co., Ltd.
This paper aims to explore and compare how entrepreneurs in different cultures mobilize evaluative linguistic resources to perform self-promotion in entrepreneurial pitches. Through corpus-based quantitative and qualitative analyses of 160 pitches from two venture capital reality TV shows, the UK’s Dragons’ Den and its Chinese version He Huo Zhong Guo Ren, this study scrutinizes the functions and features of Attitude and Graduation resources in entrepreneurial pitches and conducts further cross-culture comparisons. It is found that all entrepreneurs frequently use positive Attitude resources and upscaled Graduation resources to align investors with the value position being promoted and generate emotional appeal, so as to achieve their pragmatic intent of self-promotion. As for cross-cultural differences within the different social contexts of business culture, Chinese entrepreneurs use Judgment and Intensification resources more frequently and resort more to authoritative institutions, highlighting entrepreneurial commitment and achievements in the pitch process, while British entrepreneurs place more emphasis on the product, including its innovativeness, markets, and usability. With these findings, this study contributes to the literature on self-promotion discourse and cross-cultural pragmatics by exploring and comparing the evaluative resources and linguistic features of entrepreneurial pitches in different cultures.
Keywords: entrepreneurial pitch, appraisal theory, discursive promotion, attitude resources, graduation resources
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Discourse of the entrepreneurial pitch
  • 3.Evaluation, attitude, and graduation in appraisal theory
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Data collection and coding
    • 4.2Data analysis
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Attitude resources in entrepreneurial pitches
      • 5.1.1Attitude resources in the corpus
      • 5.1.2Comparing Attitude resources in Chinese and British entrepreneurial pitches
    • 5.2Graduation resources in entrepreneurial pitches
      • 5.2.1Graduation resources in the corpus
      • 5.2.2Comparing Graduation resources in Chinese and British entrepreneurial pitches
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Conflict of Interest
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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