Comparing Chinese and British entrepreneurial pitches in reality TV shows

Abstract This paper aims to explore and compare how entrepreneurs in different cultures mobilize evaluative linguistic resources to perform self-promotion in entrepreneurial pitches. Through corpus-based quantitative and qualitative analyses of 160 pitches from two venture capital reality TV shows, the UK’s Dragons’ Den and its Chinese version He Huo Zhong Guo Ren , this study scrutinizes the functions and features of Attitude and Graduation resources in entrepreneurial pitches and conducts further cross-culture comparisons. It is found that all entrepreneurs frequently use positive Attitude resources and upscaled Graduation resources to align investors with the value position being promoted and generate emotional appeal, so as to achieve their pragmatic intent of self-promotion. As for cross-cultural differences within the different social contexts of business culture, Chinese entrepreneurs use Judgment and Intensification resources more frequently and resort more to authoritative institutions, highlighting entrepreneurial commitment and achievements in the pitch process, while British entrepreneurs place more emphasis on the product, including its innovativeness, markets, and usability. With these findings, this study contributes to the literature on self-promotion discourse and cross-cultural pragmatics by exploring and comparing the evaluative resources and linguistic features of entrepreneurial pitches in different cultures.