In the recent years, posting online job advertisements has become a major way for a growing number of multinational cor?porations to publicize their employment information and to recruit job seekers. Nevertheless, the language and space of online job advertisement are uneven, which may affect the companies to attract and communicate with the potential candidates. Based on the theoretical framework of moves and steps analysis suggested by Swales (1990) and Bhatia (2004), the study aims to explore the structural pattern of this genre and to examine the lexico-grammatical features of each move and step. After analyzing four pieces of job advertisements retrieved from different recruiting websites, the study reveals that there are six moves in the whole structure of online job advertisement, among these, three moves are obligatory, named: establishing credential, introducing the position, to?gether with specifying required qualifications, skills, and experiences. Meanwhile, in each move, the positive adjectives, verbs, and first person are frequently used to serve the promotional function, and therefore to intensify the communicative purpose. The study may contribute to the application of genre analysis in business English teaching, and also be instructive to the reading and writing of online job advertisement.
展开▼
