How Universities in Korea and the US Position Themselves in Brochures*

* This paper is based on the first author’s doctoral dissertation (Kim, 2018).

Jeong Eun Kim & Chul Joo Uhm**

https://doi.org/10.24303/lakdoi.2018.26.2.61

∣ Jeong Eun Kim & Chul Joo Uhm

How Universities in Korea and the US Position Themselves in Brochures ∣

** The first author is Jeong Eun Kim and the corresponding author, Chul Joo Uhm.

(Chonnam National University)

Kim, Jeong Eun & Uhm, Chul Joo. (2018). How universities in Korea and the US position themselves in brochures. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 26(2), 61-86. The purpose of this study is to identify the position of universities in Korea and the US in university brochures and compare the similarities and differences in their relationships with students. The investigation focuses on describing and interpreting linguistic features by using transitivity analysis. The results indicate that the US university brochures (UUBs) stake out their universities’ positions as service providers who try to create conversational atmospheres and equal relationships with students. The universities and the students are both key actors in the UUBs. On the other hand, universities in Korean university brochures (KUBs) take on the role of introducers of future careers. They promote students’ career paths or career possibilities. The lead actor here in KUBs is the university. The main difference can be construed from the historical and cultural backgrounds of the establishments which reflect the present roles of universities in the US and Korea.

Key Words: marketization of higher education, university brochures

1. Introduction

Universities across the world have gone through some changes driven by marketization. In other words, universities have adopted a free market economy model in which they are now competing with each other to get more fee-paying students. This adoption of free market practices in running schools is referred to as the marketization of education (Kwong, 2000). These changes have a profound impact on the operation of education institutions as well as on their identity and discursive practices (Mautner, 2010).

The world trend of the marketization of higher education has resulted in undeniable changes in the discourse of higher education. Research about analysis of university discourse has been carried out from various fields. Various texts of university discourse have been analyzed such as prospectuses (Askehave, 2007; Bano & Shakir, 2015; Fairclough, 1993), online websites (Hoang & Rojas-Lizana, 2015), brochures (Osman, 2008), and job advertisements (Fairclough, 1993; Kheovichai, 2014). Also there are analysis in EFL or ESL situations (Han, 2014) or cross-cultural comparison (Bano & Shakir, 2015).

To my knowledge, previous studies of marketization of universities in Korea have focused on university advertisements (Kim & Lee, 2014; Oh & Pyun, 2014; Son, 1997). Yet university discourses in Korea are rarely investigated or compared cross-culturally. Further investigation as to whether the marketization of higher education in Korea has indeed been adopted or not is therefore of interest. With the main objective of identifying the marketization of higher education in Korea, the analysis aims at deconstructing the representations of the universities and students in discourse. The research questions were followed as below:

a) How do Korean and the US universities position themselves through the use of language in brochures?

b)  What are similarities and differences in the way these universities construct their identities and relationships with students?

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Marketization of Higher Education

Universities have entered the market of delivering an educational experience, which is their service, to their customer, or students. The number of students determines the amount of money allocated by the government to support teaching (Kheovichai, 2014). Universities have become more businesslike and profit-seeking institutions. Universities are a business, promoting services through its brand (Molesworth et al.., 2009). Therefore they need to create their own distinctive image, differentiating themselves from others to gain competitive advantages (Hoang & Rojas-Lizana, 2015).

One of the marketing strategies of universities is publishing brochures. A brochure is a printed document used to introduce an organization and distributed to special members of the public for a single purpose (Newsom & Haynes, 2007). As students are targeted as consumers, brochures now provide more than just information. The provided information should be attractive to students and it should persuade them to apply after reading the brochure.

Through the process of packaging their services to maximize sales and hence increase their profits, we can see the distinct shift in authority relations between the universities and their potential clients. Universities have changed their stance from authoritarianism to egalitarianism when identifying themselves to students. The personalization of both institution (we) and addressees (you), and the individualized address of potential applicants (you) form an informal and equal relationship between institution and potential applicant (Fairclough, 1993). As universities entered the world trend of the marketization of higher education, linguistic changes have been shown to exist in their marketing activities, as can be seen in the brochures in this study.

2.2. Transitivity Analysis and University Brochures

To get an idea of the purpose of university brochures, studying of the participants – both the sender and the receiver of the brochures – should be followed (Askehave, 1999). The transitivity system borrowed from Halliday’s systemic functional grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) is a useful analytical framework to deconstruct the representations of universities and students in discourse. It helps to investigate how the grammar of clause and personal pronouns condition attitudes to each other and to the institutional and socio-cultural setting (Halliday, 2014). It provides the potential for categorizing the infinite variety of occurrences or ‘goings-on’ into a finite set of process types (Erjavec, 2004). Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) presented six process types based on the domain of experiential line (see Table 1).

Table 1. Process Types, Their Meanings, and Key Participants

(adapted from Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.173)

Process Type	Category Meaning	Participants
Material	Doing	Actor, Goal
Mental	Sensing	Sensor, Phenomenon
Relational	Being	Carrier, Attiribute
Behavior	Behaving	Behavior
Verbal	Saying	Sayer, Target
Existential	Existing	Existent

This analytical framework helps understand how meaning is represented in the clauses. To focus on characterizing the relationships of the universities and the prospective students, the analytical framework conducted in Askehave (2007) is adopted. This framework groups the process according to semantic categories and then looks at the selection of process type to construe the action. Its aim is on the positions and relationships assigned to the university and the prospective students in an attempt to show how the brochure uses a discourse which represents how the university acts as a provider of services and satisfies the students’ or customers’ needs (Askehave, 2007).

To look into the relationship between universities and students, Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) argued that “interpersonal meanings are embodied in the person system both as pronouns and as possessive determiners” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 328). It can also be concerned with authority relations. Traditionally, authority resided within the university; however, recently this has been turned over to students. Research in higher education institutions highlights the frequent use of the corporate (we) and the singular (you) to refer to the university and individual students (Askehave, 2007; Bano & Shakir, 2015; Kheovichai, 2014). Universities reconstruct their professional identities on a more entrepreneurial (self-promotional) basis, with the foregrounding of personal qualities (Fairclough, 1993).

3. Method

3.1. Data Collection

The selected universities were chosen by the global university ranking service, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) 2015 (http://cwur.org/). The top 25 universities in the US and Korea which publish English versions of university brochures were selected. Fifty university brochures were downloaded in PDF files from each university websites (see Appendix A). The latest versions that were uploaded on the websites were selected. PDF files of university brochures were converted into TXT files. An optical character recognition (OCR) system, ABBYY FineReaders 12, which converts PDF documents into editable formats, was used. After conversion, manual checking was followed to detect any errors.

3.2. Procedures

The transitivity system of Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) was introduced to identify the representation of the participants through analyzing the actions and the attributions of the universities and the students. The sentences which the university and the students were mentioned as performing actions was categorized as actions and having the attributions were extracted. The classification of actions and attributions was adopted from the method used by Askehave (2007). Next, the actions and attributions were grouped according to the semantic roles.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Universities

Table 2 shows the number of instances of actions and attributions of terms related to universities.

Table 2. Frequency of Action and Attribution of the Universities

	UUBs		KUBs
	Frequency	%	Frequency	%
Action	366	60.7	808	78.7
Attribution	237	39.3	219	21.3
Total	603	100	1,027	100

The total frequency gap (603 vs. 1,027) indicates that universities in KUBs are mentioned more frequently, suggesting that they are represented more frequently as an agent. By comparing the frequencies of actions (366 vs. 808), KUBs have more than twice as many instances of a university performing an action than the UUBs. It seems that universities in KUBs are represented as more active and dynamic than the universities in the UUBs. Universities in KUBs are given a greater weight, appearing as performing actions or providing services.

In the case of attributions, the UUBs have a higher frequency (237 vs. 219) and percentage (39.3% vs. 21.3%) than KUBs. Also, the UUBs have rather equal emphasis on actions and attributions, whereas KUBs have much more emphasis on actions. This indicates that the UUBs emphasize more on constructing the identity of the university through attributions than KUBs.

4.1.1. Action

Besides the frequency differences between the two countries, actions performed by the UUBs and KUBs will be grouped into semantic categories: 1) academic, 2) non-academic, 3) achievements, 4) enabling actions, 5) support and service providing, 6) recruiting, and 7) non-discrimination. Figure 1 and 2 below summarizes the frequency of semantic categories of actions that the universities are construed as performing in the UUBs and KUBs, respectively. As the total frequency is different between the UUBs and KUBs, the frequency bar graphs are separated also from Figure 3 to 8.

Figure 1. Frequency of Actions Assigned to Universities (UUBs)

Figure 2. Frequency of Actions Assigned to Universities (KUBs)

The first type of actions, Academic, seems to provide informative aspects inherently. However, a close investigation of the linguistic features indicates attempts of commodifying the educational offerings. See the examples below.

(1) Carolina offers an exceptional college experience (…). (U19)

(2) PKNU is providing a systematic education (…). (K22)

(3) We ranked 13th in the nation (…). (U15)

(4) (…) will teach state-of-the-art techniques (…). (K21)

Even though universities explain their academic programs, they use words like offer and provide. Universities are providing academic “services” to students ((1) and (2)). Universities present their academic actions with ordinal numbers or evaluative forms like (3). Universities mostly function as service providers to students and present their academic actions with the evaluations by external participants, such as organizations or the government.

While the word educate as a verb in academic in the UUBs occurs only one time, the word teach as a verb as in (4) and the word educate occur 14 times and 5 times in academic in KUBs, respectively. It can be concluded that universities in KUBs still consider themselves to be educators to students, not just service providers.

Universities function as not just educational institutions but also as a ground of various experiences. Both countries contain non-academic actions. Examples are provided below.

(5) Yale offers student-run club sports (…). (U8)

(6) (…) University runs various voluntary programs (…). (K24)

Comparing to the results of academics, the frequency is quite low in here. Even though presenting non-academic services in the brochures has become usual, it is still rare to represent universities as actors of non-academic services.

The Achievements category is inherently persuasive and promotional. It is about works that universities are doing or having done. Examples are provided below.

(7) We are transforming data analysis methods to protect individuals’ privacy. (U9)

(8) Yonsei has demonstrated extraordinary resilience, progress, and innovation, solidifying its status as (…). (K1)

The UUBs present 70 percent of their achievements with present progressive forms. Using present progressive forms arouses their achievements to be on-going actions. KUBs, on the other hand, use present or present perfect forms. These forms make their achievements more static and complete actions. Even though KUBs seem to be active and dynamic in the brochures as they have higher frequency of actions and attributions, these linguistic features complement the UUBs as having dynamic aspects in achievements.

In enabling actions, students do or become something as a result of the actions of university. Examples are below.

(9) Princeton University has offered extraordinary educational opportunities (…) to become leaders in (…). (U7)

(10) The department aims to train architects (…). (K22)

(11) The department helps develop the musical talent (…). (K20)

As in (9) in the UUBs, the goals in these clauses are not necessarily concrete or physical events (Halliday, 2014). The UUBs suggest academic opportunities or merits with evaluative forms. The word ‘opportunity’ stresses that this offering is beneficial to the prospective students. KUBs, on the other hand, emphasizes possible future careers after the graduation ((10) and (11)). As students expect to have a career after the graduation, the prospects of employment after graduation can be informative and, at the same time, promotional for the prospective students. Statements about the future careers in KUBs occur frequently in the clauses where students perform as actors (see also 4.2.1). The UUBs strive to deliver feelings or images about their university education whereas KUBs deliver enabling career information to prospective students.

The next semantic group is support and service providing. This semantic group is inborn promotional as universities take a role of a supporter of students. Examples are provided below.

(12) The university offers an extraordinary level of funding for travel, supplies and (…). (U2)

(13) We offer challenging, hands-on instruction in a collaborative and supportive environment. (U25)

(14) POSTECH cares to help you (…) maintain a healthy and active life. (K5)

(15) We provide a customized job guidance program (…). (K13)

Universities in both countries tend to be service providers to students. Here, universities are actors of service providing and students are often included as a beneficiary. Words like offer, help and provide occur frequently to mention their services ((12), (13), (14), and (15)). Universities do not solely present themselves as academic institutions, but take themselves as a role of supporters.

The next semantic group is recruiting. Universities state their desire of characters of prospective students or describe the admission steps. Examples are provided below.

(16) We look for distinctive students who exhibit an abundance of energy and curiosity (…). (U2)

(17) The university seeks students who have a natural curiosity about science (…). (U18)

(18) The undergraduate college selects excellent international students (…). (K10)

Universities in the UUBs actively look for prospective students ((16) and (17)). Phrases such as look for in (16) and seek in (17) indicate an active search for a new student. Their goal, the description of a new student, contains positive evaluative forms such as energy, curiosity, or enthusiasm. Universities are deliberately reluctant to assign highly specific attributes to students (Askehave, 2007). Therefore, the UUBs rather state quite obscure descriptions preventing a student from applying who does not live up to the high ability.

While universities in the UUBs are active seekers, universities in KUBs are institutions that have the right of selecting or choosing the prospective students. Using the verb select in (18) gives impression of the authority of the university upon students. By expressing the university’s right of selection, a student assumes a passive role waiting to be selected.

Universities can also state requirements of prospective students. Both universities and students can be an actor in these clauses. Clauses related to the representation of students will be discusses in 4.2. Here, universities are expressed as an actor stating requirements. An example is provided below.

(19) We recommend that students make arrangements to take the required tests well (…). (U2)

The use of the pronoun ‘we’ and the word ‘recommend’ seems to mitigate the imposition on students. The personalization of institution (we) stimulates a conversational and relatively personal and equal relationship with the readers, prospective students (Fairclough, 1993). Even though the requirement is a must for students, the university frames the requirements as the university’s suggestion.

Non-discrimination semantic type appears only in the UUBs. Every university shares the common statement to emphasize a nondiscrimination policy. An example is provided below.

(20) The Institute does not discriminate against individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, (…) (U3)

As a whole, the universities in the UUBs mostly function as “service providers.” They actively take a role of a supporter of the overall students’ university life. Universities in KUBs, on the other hand, are largely “introducers for future careers.” By stating the prospects of employment after graduation of each major, universities guarantee students careers after graduation, which can be appealing to students.

4.1.2. Attribution

Though the raw frequency of attribution of the UUBs and KUBs are similar (237 vs. 219), the UUBs’ proportion of attribution is twice that of KUBs’. Attributions of universities reveal their emphasis on their identity, both in terms of what they are and what they have (Kheovichai, 2014). Attributions describing universities in the UUBs and KUBs will be grouped into semantic categories: 1) organizational classification, 2) credentials, 3) location, 4) diversity, and 5) others. Figure 3 and 4 below present the attributions assigned to the universities in the UUBs and KUBs, respectively.

Figure 3. Frequency of Attributions Assigned to Universities (UUBs)

Figure 4. Frequency of Attributions Assigned to Universities (KUBs)

The first semantic category is an organizational classification, which appears only 3 times in the UUBs and 21 times in KUBs.

(21) The University has 16 colleges and schools (U19)

(22) The college is made up of 10 Departments (…). (K11)

Delivering the composition of the colleges or programs can be seen as mutual information rather than promotional information.

The second semantic category, credentials, is the most frequent category. Both universities try to promote their academic reputations and other selling points to students. There are sub-categories in credentials: academic merits, facilities, supportive services, atmosphere, size, and history. Different process types are used to enhance the evaluative meaning of the credentials of universities. Below are the examples of relational process.

(23)  The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is one of the most distinguished graduate schools in (…). (U4)

(24) KAIST is the top research-oriented university in (…). (K4)

The relational process with superlative and evaluative words in (23) and (24), is a frequently used form in credentials. Some sentences, however, are classified as verbal and mental processes in which a relational process seems to be a congruent form. See the examples below.

(25) Harvard was named “Best Value” by US News. (U1)

(26) KAIST is known internationally for excellence in (…). (K4)

The example of the verbal process is (25). Here, the university uses a media source to deliver the attributes of itself. In doing so, the statement about the university becomes more reliable as it is from authorized media rather than the university itself. (26) is an instance of a passive construction with a mental process. The university is construed as phenomena being sensed by other sensors. As the attributes of the university are from voices of others – the general public or authorized research centers - rather than the university itself, it makes their promotional statements more trustworthy. Below are examples of the material processes.

(27) It can afford a really beautiful humanities program. (U3)

(28) Ewha has served as an incubator of leading women scientists in Korea. (K9)

In the same vein, a more congruent process would be a relational process, such as ‘it has a really beautiful humanities program’ for (27) or ‘Ewha is an incubator of leading women scientists in Korea’ for (28). However, the use of the material process makes the university more active and dynamic. Also, they suggest students as receiving benefits from the university.

The third semantic category is location. Below are examples.

(29) MIT sits at the junction of two rivers. (U22)

(30) Konkuk's main campus is located in (…). (K16)

Universities describe not only geographical location but also easy access to and advantages of the location. Comparing the frequency, the UUBs occur 29 times while KUBs occur 10 times. Rather than using verbs like locate in (30), lie, or be, (29) uses the verb sit, which encodes action. It makes the stative descriptions of location more dynamic and thus more appealing.

As both the UUBs and KUBs are written to target domestic and international students, they emphasize the diversity of the student population. As the UUBs have the only non-discrimination semantic type in actions of universities, they have higher frequency in attributions of diversity as well (6 vs. 1).

(31) MIT is indescribably international. (U3)

(32) PKNU has a large and diverse international student (…). (K22)

The last semantic group is others. These are the clauses which have very low frequency: non-academic merits and contributions to local community.

(33) Johns Hopkins is (…) largest private employer. (U12)

(34) CNU has more than 80 actively operating clubs (…). (K8)

As a whole, the predominant attributions of both brochures are credentials. It suggests that both universities have the great emphasis on self-promotion. Even though total frequency of attributions between the two brochures is quite similar (236 vs. 219), the ratio of actions to attributions between them has a big gap. The ratio of actions to attributions of the UUBs is 1.5 (366 occurrences for actions and 236 occurrences for attributions) whereas that of KUBs is 3.6 (808 occurrences for actions and 219 occurrences for attributions). In consequence, universities in KUBs occur frequently as agents in the brochures while universities in the UUBs have a balance in acting and identifying themselves with attributions.

4.2. Students

Table 3 shows the number of instances of actions and attributions of terms related to the other participants in brochures, that is, students.

Table 3. Frequency of Action and Attribution of Students

	UUBs		KUBs
	Frequency	%	Frequency	%
Action	442	78.5	294	86.73
Attribution	121	21.5	45	13.27
Total	563	100	339	100

Students in the UUBs occur more frequently than in KUBs. This means that students in the UUBs are more active and lively than students in KUBs. Also, the UUBs try to identify students with more attributions than KUBs. Comparing the actions and attributions of the universities and students in the UUBs and KUBs (compare Table 2 and 3), the UUBs have similar total frequencies between the universities and students (603 vs. 563). It can be concluded that the universities and students are both key actors in the UUBs. On the other hand, universities in KUBs occur three times more frequently than students in KUBs (1,027 vs. 339). This implies that the university acts as a lead actor in KUBs. They act or perform actions more than students in KUBs.

4.2.1. Action

The actions performed by students in the UUBs and KUBs will be grouped into semantic categories: 1) benefiting, 2) applying, 3) getting a job, 4) contacting, and 5) others. Figure 5 and 6 show the frequency of semantic categories of actions of students in the UUBs and KUBs.

Figure 5. Frequency of Actions Assigned to Students (UUBs)

Figure 6. Frequency of Actions Assigned to Students (KUBs)

The most frequent category is benefiting. Students are the actors in the process and are constructed as the beneficiary of actions performed by the university. This category elaborates the students’ outstanding actions that can be acquired and performed in their university life. Although the intended readers are mostly prospective students, universities tend to appraise current students’ ability. Examples are shown below.

(35) You will learn the power of language (…). (U7)

(36) through which students can develop their ability, (…). (K4)

The benefits can be academic excellences like in (35) or supportive services like in (36). Although there is no statement of concrete curriculum from the university, it is implied that students will develop their ability through the programs of the university. Therefore, the high ability of current students may correspond to the high educational ability of university to prospective students.

Besides the total frequency of actions performed by students, the use of words referring to students are worth discussing. Table 4 shows the frequency of students’ reference terms in the benefiting category.

Table 4. Frequency of Students’ Reference Terms for Benefiting

Linguistic feature	UUBs	KUBs
Students, Undergraduates	146 (40.5%)	173 (88.3%)
Personal pronoun	151 (41.8%)	8 (4.1%)
Anaphor	31 (8.7%)	10 (5.1%)
Generic terms	5 (1.3%)	2 (1%)
None	28 (7.7%)	3 (1.5%)
Total	361 (100%)	196 (100%)

The big difference between the UUBs and KUBs, as shown in Table 4, is the frequency and the percentage of the use of the personal pronoun, you. The personalization of the university and potential applicants and students stimulate a conversational and therefore relatively personal, informal, solidary and equal relationship between the university and potential applicants (Fairclough, 1993). The UUBs uses ‘students’ and ‘personal pronoun’ quite equally whereas KUBs focus mostly on using ‘students’. This makes the readers feel more personal while reading the UUBs than KUBs. The below examples show how the personal connection is made by the personal pronoun ‘you’ in brochures.

(37) You can take advantage of the University’s (…). (U7)

(38) Students acquire basic knowledge and techniques (…). (K17)

(37) makes a more intimate relationship between the writer, the university, and the reader, prospective students. In (38), on the other hand, there is a distant relationship between the university and the prospective students. Personal pronouns generate liveliness in brochures, personalize the writing, and therefore make reading more comfortable.

The second semantic category is applying. Students are the actors in the process of proceeding the enrollment procedures. Universities can give information about the procedures like in (39) and (40) or urge students to apply like in (41).

(39) Students may submit official scores from either test. (U5)

(40) Applicants must have completed or will have completed at least 2 years or 4 semesters. (K10)

(41) You can also investigate this on your own (…). (U16)

Here, the university encourages some actions from students and students actually do these actions. These sentences make portray students in the UUBs more active and lively.

The frequent use of personal pronouns referring to students in the UUBs also occurs in the applying category. The UUBs use the personal pronoun you to indicate the prospective students to make a solidary relationship. This also happens in the applying category (see Table 5). Even though the UUBs are said to deliver the “information” of admission, they call you intimately and urges you to enroll in their university reducing the authority and making a conversational atmosphere.

Table 5. Frequency of Students’ Reference Terms for Applying

Linguistic feature	UUBs	KUBs
students, undergraduates	33 (42.8%)	16 (51.6%)
personal pronoun	26 (33.8%)	8 (25.8%)
anaphor	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
generic terms	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
None	18 (23.4%)	7 (22.6%)
Total	77 (100%)	31 (100%)

Except for benefiting and applying, other semantic categories show rather low frequency. Contacting in (42), getting a job in (43), and others in (44) are below. Others contain some actions that foreigners do in a new culture, Korea.

(42) Please do not hesitate to contact staff members (…). (K3)

(43) Students can work as sports professors, (…). (K21)

(44) You may purchase a mobile device and (…). (K5)

4.2.2. Attribution

As seen in Table 4, the UUBs show 3 times higher frequency in attributions of students than KUBs (123 vs. 45). Attributions describing the students in the UUBs and KUBs will be grouped into semantic categories: 1) excellence, 2) opportunity to use services, 3) possible jobs, and 4) diversity. Figure 7 and Figure 8 below present the attributions assigned to the students in the UUBs and KUBs, respectively.

Figure 7. Frequency of Attributions Assigned to Students (UUBs)

Figure 8. Frequency of Attributions Assigned to Students (KUBs)

The most frequently used attribution is excellence. This may be in line with benefiting of students’ actions. The difference of benefiting and excellence is that excellence describes students’ characteristics whereas benefiting shows outstanding academic actions. Examples are below.

(45) Our students are smart, funny, and (…). (U6)

(46) The students (…) are active on various stages, (…). (K17)

(47) YOU ARE adventurous (U20)

In (45), students are described with adjectives such as smart and funny. Also in (46), they are stated as active students. Even as in (47), the universities appraise the reader, that is, prospective students whom they have never met.

The second frequent semantic category, opportunities to use services, may be conceptualized as a mirror image of support and service providing in the universities’ actions. Examples are below.

(48) You will have opportunities to explore and (…). (U7)

(49) SAY students have numerous opportunities (…). (K1)

Universities describe their offerings as “opportunities” for students like in (48) and (49). Universities market themselves by evaluating their services in a positive way to students.

The rest of the semantic categories of attributions of students appear only in the UUBs. They are diversity in (50) and others in (51). Others contains clauses which are hard to categorize into one as they show very low frequency.

(50) Forty-two percent of our undergraduates are Americans of color, and 11 percent are from outside (…). (U7)

(51) (…), you aren't just test scores. (U17)

Thus far, comparing the total frequency of actions and attributions of the universities and students in the UUBs and KUBs, the university in KUBs act as a lead actor in brochures. They act more and assign more attributes than students. On the other hand, the universities and the students both are key actors in the UUBs.

Regarding the representation of universities and students, the UUBs and KUBs position themselves in a different position. As the results of the frequency of sematic categories of actions of universities, universities in the UUBs take a role of the service providers of not only facilities but also academic courses. Universities perform actions with the frequent use of the verb offer and provide to explain the services or academic courses. On the other hand, universities in KUBs are introducers for future careers. They show high frequency in the category of enabling actions in actions of universities.

5. Conclusion

The purpose of the study is to identify the position of universities in Korea and the US in university brochures and compare the similarities and differences of their relationships with students. Twenty-five English-language versions of university brochures in the two countries are compared using transitivity analysis.

Messages in promotional genres represent cultural values, as they are formed based on the lifestyle and values of society members (Han, 2016). The messages from the UUBs and KUBs, therefore, represent the cultural values of the US and Korea. This leads to each university having different roles in the UUBs and KUBs. To discover the start of this difference, we should go back to the historical and cultural backgrounds of the establishments of universities in both countries.

A university in middle aged Europe dates back to 476-1453 A.D. and was originally from the Latin word ‘universitas’. It was the first association of students and teachers. They were guaranteed the legal rights under the name of university. Each city operated the local universities, which means that they were free from the government and had the right of self-government (Lim, 2009). On the other hand, in the Eastern culture, there is a saying that students should not step on the shadows of teachers. Teachers have a high authority and act as a guidance to students to let them go on to the right path. The start of education in Korea dates back to the Silla Dynasty from the 6th century. The dynasty operated Hwarangdo, also known as the way of the flowering knights, and trained young boys to have significant roles in politics and take on martial duties well. Over time, Seonggyungwan, the foremost educational institution in the late Goryeo and Joseon Dynasties, was also operated by the dynasties. Western universities started as an association of students and teachers, which made the teacher’s position to be a helper or a supporter. In Eastern universities, on the other hand, the dynasty hired the teacher and let them teach the students. This process makes the teacher’s authority higher. These historical and cultural backgrounds may reflect the present role of universities in the US and Korea.

Universities in the UUBs take a role of the service providers to students in terms of academic and non-academic fields. Universities in KUBs position themselves as introducers for future careers to students. As brochures have the intention to attract students more, universities should know the brochures’ needs. In other words, if brochures want to accomplish the purpose of the writing, they should understand the cultural backgrounds of the targets.

As this corpus has been formed from a small number of data sources, it poses a limitation on the generalization of the findings. It is recommended that a broader spectrum of universities is necessary to evaluate the promotional genre of university brochures. The analysis can be expanded to other countries, mid- and low-ranked universities, or institutions of specialized higher education.

References

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Appendix A. Universities in the US and Korea

	US		Korea
U1	Harvard University (2015)	K1	Seoul National University (2015)
U2	Stanford University (2016)	K2	Yonsei University (2015)
U3	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006)	K3	Korea University (2015)
U4	Columbia University (2012)	K4	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (2015)
U5	University of California, Berkeley (2016)	K5	Pohang University of Science and Technology (2015)
U6	University of Chicago (2013)	K6	Hanyang University (2015)
U7	Princeton University (2015)	K7	Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (2015)
U8	Yale University (2016)	K8	Chonnam National University (2013)
U9	California Institute of Technology (2015)	K9	Ewha Womans University (2015)
U10	University of Pennsylvania (2015)	K10	Ajou University (2015)
U11	University of California, Los Angeles (2015)	K11	Gyeongsang National University (2015)
U12	Johns Hopkins University (2015)	K12	Pusan National University (2015)
U13	New York University (2016)	K13	Catholic University of Korea (2015)
U14	Northwestern University (2016)	K14	Inha University (2015)
U15	University of Wisconsin–Madison (2015)	K15	Sogang University (2015)
U16	University of California, San Francisco (2015)	K16	Konkuk University (2015)
U17	University of Washington –Seattle (2015)	K17	Chungnam National University (2015)
U18	Rockefeller University (2015)	K18	Chungbuk National University (2015)
U19	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2015)	K19	Kangwon National University (2011)
U20	University of Virginia (2015)	K20	Dankook University (2015)
U21	University of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh Campus (2015)	K21	Sejong University (2014)
U22	Pennsylvania State University, University Park (2015)	K22	Pukyong National University (2015)
U23	Ohio State University, Columbus (2015)	K23	Chosun University (2016)
U24	Rutgers University-New Brunswick (2015)	K24	Gachon University (2015)
U25	University of California, Davis (2016)	K25	Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (2016)

Jeong Eun Kim

Ph.D. Graduate

Department of English Education

Chonnam National University

77 Yongbong-ro, Buk-gu

Gwangju 61186, Korea

Phone: (062)530-2440

Email: clara3805@naver.com

Chul Joo Uhm

Professor

Department of English Education

Chonnam National University

77 Yongbong-ro, Buk-gu

Gwangju 61186, Korea

Phone: (062)530-2440

Email: cjuhm@jnu.ac.kr

Received on May 13, 2018

Revised version received on June 16, 2018

Accepted on June 30, 2018