| Acknowledgements | 第1-4页 |
| Declaration | 第4-5页 |
| 摘要 | 第5-6页 |
| Abstract | 第6-10页 |
| List of tables | 第10-11页 |
| List of figures | 第11-12页 |
| Abbreviations | 第12-13页 |
| Chapter 1 Introduction | 第13-19页 |
| ·The objective of the study | 第13-14页 |
| ·The context of the study | 第14-15页 |
| ·Conceptualizing personal statement as an argumentative discourse | 第15-16页 |
| ·Research questions | 第16-17页 |
| ·Organization of the paper | 第17-19页 |
| Chapter 2 Literature Review | 第19-36页 |
| ·Overview | 第19页 |
| ·Studies on contrastive rhetoric | 第19-27页 |
| ·Development of Contrastive rhetoric studies in applied linguistics | 第19-21页 |
| ·Genre-specific studies in CR | 第21-25页 |
| ·The concept of genre | 第22-24页 |
| ·CR studies on professional writing | 第24-25页 |
| ·Chinese-English contrastive rhetoric of argumentative writing | 第25-27页 |
| ·Chinese socio-psychological studies in communication | 第27-31页 |
| ·The etic approach | 第28-29页 |
| ·The emic approach | 第29-31页 |
| ·Cross-cultural aspects of Genre analysis | 第31-34页 |
| ·Genre analysis: an overview | 第31-32页 |
| ·Genre analysis in cross-cultural perspective | 第32-34页 |
| ·Summary | 第34-36页 |
| Chapter 3 Theoretical framework and methodology | 第36-47页 |
| ·Overview | 第36页 |
| ·Chinese versus western socio-psychological principles in communication | 第36-43页 |
| ·High- versus low-context communication | 第37-39页 |
| ·High- versus low-power distance | 第39-42页 |
| ·Affective versus instrumental communication | 第42-43页 |
| ·Summing up | 第43页 |
| ·Schematic structure in genre analysis | 第43-47页 |
| Chapter 4 Research design | 第47-54页 |
| ·Overview | 第47页 |
| ·Data collection | 第47-52页 |
| ·Types of data | 第47-48页 |
| ·Collection of personal statements | 第48-49页 |
| ·Personal statements with Chinese characteristics | 第48页 |
| ·Western typical personal statements | 第48-49页 |
| ·Western writing principles and feedbacks given by admissions officers | 第49-50页 |
| ·Writing rationale beneath Chinese argumentative style | 第50-52页 |
| ·Informants | 第50-51页 |
| ·Instruments | 第51-52页 |
| ·Procedures for data analysis | 第52-53页 |
| ·Summary | 第53-54页 |
| Chapter 5 Results from genre analysis of PS | 第54-68页 |
| ·Overview | 第54页 |
| ·Schematic structures of Chinese and western typical PS | 第54-59页 |
| ·Two major distinctions from genre analysis | 第59-67页 |
| ·General-to-specific vs. specific-to-general | 第59-63页 |
| ·Emotional vs. logical appeal | 第63-67页 |
| ·Summary | 第67-68页 |
| Chapter 6 Analysis on text-level | 第68-79页 |
| ·Writing principles in western practice | 第68-73页 |
| ·On organizational pattern | 第68-71页 |
| ·On appeals | 第71-73页 |
| ·Feedbacks from the admissions officers | 第73-77页 |
| ·"We do not like the account of an epic" | 第74-75页 |
| ·"Get to the point" | 第75-76页 |
| ·"We do not have enough time to read through" | 第76-77页 |
| ·Summary | 第77-79页 |
| Chapter 7 Analysis on socio-psychological level | 第79-88页 |
| ·Overview | 第79-80页 |
| ·Rationales underneath the Chinese style of communication | 第80-86页 |
| ·"Readers can infer by themselves" | 第80-81页 |
| ·"More indirect, more polite" | 第81-85页 |
| ·"We seek for emotional echoes from others" | 第85-86页 |
| ·Summary | 第86-88页 |
| Conclusion | 第88-94页 |
| References | 第94-101页 |
| APPENDIX A Major works on written discourse an genre analysis | 第101-103页 |
| APPENDIX B PS C#8 written by a Chinese EFL learner | 第103-106页 |
| APPENDIX C PS W#4 written by an English native speaker | 第106-108页 |
| APPENDIX D Example of each move and step | 第108-119页 |
