A Comparative Analysis of English Profiles of Chinese and Foreign University Websites Based on Transitivity System

Abstract

In the new era of higher education internationalization, international exchange has become the focus of colleges and universities. The English profile of university, as a specialized discourse, aims to publicize universities’ popularity and improve reputation of universities. Therefore, this paper takes English profiles of China Three Gorges University and University of Birmingham websites as examples, analyzes texts of profiles (About Us) from the perspective of transitivity system and tries to figure out the similarities and differences and their causes of the university profile between CTGU and University of Birmingham. After analyzing, this paper found that: (1) The process types, the participants in transitivity system are regularly distributed in two universities. The process types of transitivity system are similarly distributed in them. Material process and relational process are used mostly, and the use of relational processes in the English profile of CTGU is less than that in University of Birmingham. At the same time, the distributions of participants in these two universities are different. We-our serves as the participants in most of transitive process clauses in the English profile of University of Birmingham website, while there is no use of pronouns, only “CTGU” as participant in the English profile of CTGU. (2) The major causes for the similarities and differences of the distribution of the transitivity system in English profiles of CTGU and University of Birmingham websites are the characteristics of the introduction itself, the different ways of thinking, the different culture backgrounds and different rights relationship between Chinese and western universities.