Abstract:

This paper examines the construction of attitudes toward life and death in the generic hybridity of pre-plan funeral arrangement contracts. The pre-plan funeral arrangement contracts, including agreements and product manuals from an insurance company and a private funeral company, were selected as research data. Swale’s (1990) move-step approach of genre analysis has been adopted to analyze the generic structure, the features of the genre, and the construction of attitudes toward life and death. The findings revealed that the pre-plan funeral arrangement contracts shared a similar generic structure although differences were found at the step level. The pre-plan funeral agreement contracts determine what will happen to a person’s mortal remains in form of commercial contracts that have both commercial and humanistic characteristics. This is a new genre in China, which reflects and constructs the values of autonomy, death planning, and death control.

Keywords: pre-plan funeral arrangement contracts; move and step; generic analysis; discursive hybridity; attitudes toward life and death

摘要：

本研究聚焦“生前契约”语类杂糅中的生死观建构,选取了“生前契约”合同和产品手册作为研究对象,语料分别采集于一家保险公司和一家民营殡葬公司,运用Swales的“语步—语跬”语类分析模式,分析其语类结构、话语特征以及其中体现出的生死观建构。研究发现,尽管所收集的“生前契约”在语跬上存在差异,但语类结构相似。“生前契约”以商业契约的形式确定生命终结后遗体料理的内容与形式,兼具商业与人文特征,在我国是一种新兴的生命话语语类,体现和建构了个人独立自主、死亡可规划可掌控的价值观。

关键词: 生前契约, 语步和语跬, 语类分析, 话语杂糅, 生死观