Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1Research Background
Along with the advent of the age of mass toxirism, tourism industry has become one of thelargest and strongest industries in the global economy. Under these circumstances, China has become(Hie of the most popular tourist destinations among overseas tourists. It is predicted that by the yearof2020, China will become the world's largest tourist destination and the fourth largest tourist sourcecountry; therefore, it is of great importance to promote China's international tourism in order toattract more overseas tourists.When planning their trips, potential tourists nowadays prefer to obtain useful tourisminformation from websites instead of by reading magazines or brochures due to the convenience andcomprehensiveness of the Internet. Influenced by globalization，English is extensively adopted inmtemational business. Besides，most overseas tourists are from English-speaking countries orcountries where English is studied as the second language. For these reasons, many Chinese citiesand tourist attractions are setting up English homepages on their websites. Therefore, much attentionshould be paid to the promotion of online English tourism texts in order to turn potential foreigntourists into actual tourists, especially for China.
……………
1.2Objectives and Significance of the Study
Online English tourism texts offer people the most up to date and comprehensive tourisminformation regarding all the tourist attractions available. The impact of these texts towards thepublicity of tourism attraction is immeasurable.Under the guidance of general stylistics, the present thesis attempts to obtain the general andunique features of online English tourism texts by examining ten sample texts selected from foreignprofessional travel websites with regard to three aspects，namely linguistic description，textualanalysis and contextual factor analysis.By conducting a detailed and comprehensive analysis，it is hoped that this thesis could make aslight theoretical contribution to stylistic analysis by broadening its scope of study，especially onlineEnglish tourism texts. Additionally, this thesis also testifies that general stylistics is of great helpwhen analyzing varieties of English language.In addition to the theoretical meaning, it is also hoped that this thesis could help Englishlearners to fully appreciate information expressed by online English tourism texts. Meanwhile，forthose who work in the field of tourism in China, a better knowledge of the stylistic features of thesetexts can greatly contribute to their own texts. As a result, greater online promotion will bring moreoversee tourists to China.
………….
Chapter 2 Literature Review.
2.lTheoratical Framework
Since the present study is conducted within the framework of general stylistics, it is quitenecessary to explain what style and stylistics are about before going any further. At the same time，itis also helpful to review the development of stylistics over the past decades. What is style? "It is difficult to define the term style since it has many meanings." (DongQiming, 2008，p.5). Zhang Delu (2008) admits that “so far，no one has given a definition of style thatcan be accepted by most of the stylisticians”（p.208). It is hard to give a definition agreed by most stylisticians since scholars see style from differentperspectives. However, there are still some overlaps among these listed definitions. For instance.Swift and Enkvist care more about the appropriateness of the language while Burry and Murry bothbelieve ftat style reflects the man himself. Style may refer to a set of collective characteristics of language use, i.e. language habitsGlared by a group of people at a given time, as "Elizabethan style，，，in a given place, as"Yankee humor", amidst a given occasion, as 'the style of public speaking，，，for a literarygenre, as "ballad style，” etc.
………..
2J2 Tourism Texts
The previous section has reviewed the development of stylistics and offered a procedure tocarry out the analysis of online English tourism texts. In this section，the definitions and、classifications of touriam texts will be clearly explained and previous studies on tourist texts andonline tourist text will be fully reviewed. Simply defined, tourism texts are the language used for promoting tourism business. Accordingto Collins Cobuild Advanced Learner *s English Dictionary (2006), tourism is the business ofproviding services for people on holiday，for example hotels，restaurants and trips. Since tourismcovers various fields of industry, tourism texts are readily observed in many places, such as in travelbooks and brochures，on TV programs, in magazines and on websites, etc, as well as in various otherforms, such as advertisements for tourist destinations, hotels and restaurants, travelogues and otherrelated information.Chen gang (2004) proposes that tourism text refers to a kind of application-oriented text, whichis closely related to tourist reception staff, including travel guides, travel contracts, advertisements，forms, commentary of tour guides，introduction to tourist attractions，travel brochures, maps, menus,and related road signs and so on.Darin (1996) considers that the language of tourism，usually verbal descriptions, along withtheir glossy display of photographs and film footage，collectively constitute a very special type ofcommunication, one which differs from other forms of human exchange since it represents thelargest industry in the world——that is tourism. Dann proposes that tourism language as a wholecombines texts, audio tools and video tools together.
………..
Chapter 3 Stylistic Analysis.........18
3.1Linguistic Description........18
3.2Textual Analysis........52
3.1.1 Cohesive Device........52
3.2.2 Discourse Structure........56
3.3Contextual Factor Analysis........58
3.3.1Field of Discourse........58
3.3.2Tenor of Discoxirse........59
3.3.3Mode of Discourse........60
Chapter 4 Conclusion........62
4.1Major Findings........62
4.2Limitations........64
Chapter 3 Stylistic Analysis
3.1 Linguistic Description
Dong Qiming (2008) indicated that “linguistic description refers to the exploration andclassification of linguistic features of a given text" (p. 15). Since all linguistic choices are meaningfuland all linguistic choices can be regarded as stylistic, the present discussion would focuses on thosefeatures represented by style markers which only appear, or are most or least frequent in the giventexts.Style markers can be found at different language levels. Several researchers have classifiedthese style markers. Leech and Short (1981) provides a check list of four linguistic and stylisticcategories: lexical categories，grammatical categories, figures of speech, and cohesion and context.Chinese scholar Qian Yuan, (2006) classifies these style markers into two distinct，though interactinglevels: the phonological/graphological level and the lexicogrammatical level. To be more specific,Dong Qiming (2008) offers a checklist of five categories: phonology, graphology，lexis，syntax/grammar, and semantics.
………….
Conclusion
So far this thesis has analyzed ten English tourism texts selected from famous tourism websitesat the levels of linguistic description, textual and contextual factor analysis under the guidance ofmodem general stylistics. The findings will be summarized from these three aspects.The first step of stylistic analysis is about linguistic description where the ten sample texts areanalyzed from the aspects of graphology, lexis and syntax.At the graphological level, online English tourism texts adopt plenty of punctuations. Apartfrom periods and colons which are also the most frequently used in all the language varieties, dashand parenthesis appear a lot This is because online English tourism texts are introductive in natureand the use of dash and parenthesis mean to provide further and extra explanation. In addition, amajor difference between online and offline English tourism texts is the use of hyperlink whichprovides extra information to the reader. At the same time hyperlink makes it easy for readers to lookup for the related article，both convenient and a time saver. Another typical feature of online Englishtourism texts is the large employment of visual aids, namely pictures and videos, which addvividness to the word description. In addition，short paragraphs are adopted to make it easier forreaders to obtain useful information quickly and efficiently.
…………
Reference (omitted)