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Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua
Impression management through hedging and
boosting: A cross-cultural investigation of the
messages of U.S. and Chinese corporate leaders
William Wai Lam Lee
Center for Language Education, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clearwater Bay, Kowloon,
Hong Kong
Received 30 August 2019; received in revised form 21 March 2020; accepted 23 March 2020
Available online 5 June 2020
Abstract
This study explores hedging and boosting as impression management strategies in the discourse of Chinese and U.S. corporations.
The analysis has been conducted on the CEO's letter to shareholders of 100 Chinese and 100 U.S. corporations to reveal pronounced
variations in the frequencies and pattern of use in the two resources. First, substantially more hedges and boosters are used in the U.S.
discourse in comparison to the Chinese, thus, demonstrating a greater effort invested in persuasion in the U.S. texts. Second, the U.S.
texts use significantly more boosters than hedges, whereas the Chinese texts show a roughly balanced use of the two resources. Lastly,
the two sets of texts have authorial stances that project distinctly different impressions. While the U.S. discourse conveys conviction and
certainty, the Chinese discourse imparts more caution and tentativeness. These findings are attributed to a number of dissimilarities in the
belief systems of the Western and Chinese cultural models. The results point to possible implications on the effectiveness of the CEO's
letters in cross-cultural business contexts.
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Hedges; Boosters; Metadiscourse; Impression management; CEO's letters; Cross-cultural communication
1. Introduction
In 1992, the Chinese Communist party, during its Fourteenth Party Congress, announced that a principal goal it would
pursue would be the transformation of the country's economy from a ‘‘socialist planned economy’’ into a ‘‘socialist market
economy’’. This major conceptual change was symbolic of the Party's departure from Maoist socialism which espoused
China as a self-sufficient entity, to a more market-based system that needed certain links to the outside world (Sigley,
2006, p. 495). Representative of this seismic shift in ideology, the Party recognized the need for its domestic companies
for international capital to grow, thrive and modernize. To facilitate this, the government has over the years advanced a
series of initiatives to enable the channeling of international capital to its domestic companies. One key initiative
introduced is allowing domestic companies to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange to obtain much-needed funds from
global investors and institutions.
To attract capital, a crucial text used by corporations to communicate their viability as sound investments is the CEO's
letter to shareholders (henceforth ‘‘CEO's letter’’). The CEO's letter is a high profile text prominently placed at or near the
beginning of the company annual report. Stakeholders consider this text as an important piece of communication because
it comes from the CEO who, as head of the company, is perceived to be its foremost authority (Poncini and Hiris, 2012).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2020.102872
0024-3841/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
The CEO's letter is a message that provides a narrative summary of the firm's financial performance, company strategy,
and business prospects (Nickerson and De Groot, 2005) and the discourse plays a vital role in the decision making
process of investors (Bartlett and Chandler, 1997). In fact, the CEO's letter can often play a disproportionately large role in
investors’ decision-making process because it is easier to understand due to its non-technical nature compared to the
other more specialist accounting discourses (Bhatia, 2010).
The CEO's letter is, therefore, a high stakes piece of communication and an important determinant of whether
corporations successfully attract much needed capital from potential investors. The significance of the discourse, to both
corporations and stakeholders, has led to extensive research by scholars in business disciplines. Such studies have
typically found corporate authors engaging in ‘‘impression management’’. In a corporate reporting context, impression
management is defined as ‘‘efforts to manipulate the impression conveyed to users of accounting information’’ (Clatworthy
and Jones, 2001, p. 311) done to create favorable impressions to stakeholders (Hooghiemstra, 2000, p. 60). Numerous
impression management studies have explored how the annual report and other financial disclosures attempt to persuade
and positively influence stakeholders’ perceptions of the company in terms of its image, credibility, financial performance,
and prospects, among others. Studies have identified two fundamental impression management strategies used by
corporate authors: ‘‘positive bias’’ and ‘‘attribution bias’’ (Merkl-Davies and Brennan, 2007, p. 11). ‘‘Positive bias’’ is a
tendency to stress the positive, which can also be done in combination with the obfuscation of the negative (e.g.
Abrahamson and Park, 1994; Clatworthy and Jones, 2003; Patelli and Pedrini, 2014). ‘‘Attribution bias’’, on the other
hand, is the tendency for companies to attribute good outcomes internally and bad outcomes externally (e.g. Aerts, 2005;
Bettman and Weiz, 1983; Hooghiemstra, 2008). A better understanding of impression management and how discourse is
used to influence and persuade stakeholders is essential in the competition for scarce capital resources (Merkl-Davies
and Brennan, 2007).
Even though research into the CEO's letter has been extensive, numerous issues remain warranting further
investigation. First, despite the importance of Chinese companies on the global stage and their growing appetite for
international capital today, research has been Western-centric and studies investigating the CEO's letters of
Chinese companies limited. Second, business and management researchers have focused on the ‘‘ideational’’
elements of ‘‘positive bias’’ and ‘‘attribution bias’’ in impression management research and have generally neglected
the ‘‘interpersonal’’ element. In other words, such investigations have typically focused on the ‘‘content’’ while
overlooking the ‘‘rhetorical elements’’ (Hyland, 1998b, p. 225). According to Halliday (1994), the ideational function
of language is one's expression of experience, events, and ideas; while the interpersonal function relates to the
interactive component of language which encodes our attitudes, judgements, feelings, and evaluation toward the
ideational material. Also, the interpersonal element of CEO's letters is clearly crucial for the development of a more
comprehensive understanding of impression management in the genre. Lastly, a prominent framework for analyzing
the interpersonal element of discourse is the metadiscourse model. Metadiscourse is identified as a ‘‘central
pragmatic construct which allows us to see how writers seek to influence readers’ understandings of both the text
and their attitude toward its content and the audience’’ (Hyland, 1998c, p. 437). However, as Hyland (2017) recently
highlighted, the sphere of metadiscourse studies is saturated with academic genres while business discourse is still
very much neglected. To my knowledge, two metadiscourse studies (Huang and Rose, 2018; Liu, 2017) have
examined Chinese CEO's letters, but both studies explore a relatively small sample of one industry---the financial
sector.
Given the issues raised above, the present study undertakes a cross-cultural analysis of the use of hedges and
boosters as metadiscourse markers in the English CEO's letters of Mainland Chinese and U.S. corporations from a
comprehensive range of industries. A cross-cultural study comparing the Chinese discourse to that of the U.S. is
conducted for both commercial and theoretical reasons. With the largest financial markets in the world, the U.S. is
considered the global benchmark, therefore, insights gained from a comparison with the U.S. would be highly useful
commercially. Theoretically, a cross-cultural study helps to highlight differences that might be overlooked in studies solely
focused on one individual culture (Crismore et al., 1993, p. 41). The English versions of the Chinese CEO's letters are
examined because in the fight for international capital, Chinese corporations must communicate in English due to its role
as the global business lingua franca (Charles, 2007). Lastly, the metadiscourse framework facilitates the exploration of the
interpersonal element of the discourse overlooked in the majority of impression management literature. Specifically, the
study explores the use of hedges and boosters which are complementary strategies used to balance conviction and
caution---crucial to the construction of the writer's authorial stance, and hence, the impression projected to readers. The
present study is guided by two research questions:
1. What are the differences or similarities in the use of hedges and boosters between the CEO's letters of Chinese and U.
S. corporations?
2. How are hedges and boosters used as impression management tools and what impressions are created in the CEO's
letters of Chinese and U.S. corporations?
W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
3
2. Hedges and boosters as metadiscourse
Impression management in the present study is analyzed using the metadiscourse model constructed by Hyland
(2005a), who (1998b) highlighted CEOs’ strategic use of metadiscourse markers to influence readers and manage the
impressions projected of themselves and their companies. Metadiscourse is defined as ‘‘the cover term for the selfreflective expressions used to negotiate interactional meanings in a text, assisting the writer (or speaker) to express a
viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community’’ (2005a, p. 37). Prominent metadiscourse
scholars have traditionally categorized metadiscourse devices into ‘‘textual’’ and ‘‘interpersonal’’ to align with Halliday's
(1994) textual and interpersonal metafunctions. However, Hyland (Hyland, 2005a; Hyland and Tse, 2004) abandoned this
view and proposed that all metadiscourse is interpersonal. The model categorizes metadiscourse devices into two types:
‘‘interactive’’ and ‘‘interactional’’. The interactive dimension relates to the management of information flow and text
organization, whereas the interactional dimension is the explicit encoding of the writer's interaction with the reader and
their perspectives on the propositional information. Metadiscourse research has been dominated by studies of academic
genres and in particular, research papers and interest in business genres has been limited (Hyland, 2017). In spite of the
comparative lack of interest in business genres, a few studies have been undertaken which explore the CEO's letter.
Hyland (1998b) explored metadiscourse use in a corpus that contained a mixture of U.S., U.K., and Hong Kong
companies while Gillaerts and Van de Velde (2011) took a diachronic approach to the analysis of metadiscourse in Fortis,
the now defunct Belgian bank. Two cross-cultural studies (Huang and Rose, 2018; Liu, 2017) have been conducted that
contrast Chinese companies with Western ones; however, both focus narrowly on the financial sector. Moreover,
description of the constituent companies is vague in Liu's (2017) study as the only information disclosed is that they were
from the ‘‘world top 500’’ (2017, p. 235), while the sample used in Huang and Rose (2018) ranges from 1997 to 2008,
which is a period that witnessed significant advancements in China's economy. The authors, thus, recognize that Chinese
CEO's letters are likely to be written differently today (2018, p. 170).
As two resources within the interactional category of metadiscourse markers, hedges and boosters are crucial
interpersonal communicative strategies for expressing doubt, certainty, detachment, and commitment. Scholars
have used the term ‘‘hedges’’ (or ‘‘hedging’’) fairly consistently except for Holmes (1982) who has also used the
term ‘‘downtoners’’. ‘‘Boosters’’, on the other hand, has been less homogeneously labeled. It has also been referred
to as ‘‘emphatics’’ (Crismore, 1983; Hyland, 1998b; Vande Kopple, 1985), ‘‘certainty markers’’ (Crismore et al.,
1993) and ‘‘intensifiers’’ (Biber et al., 1999). Hedges and boosters have been identified together as ‘‘evidentiality’’
(Biber and Finegan, 1989) and ‘‘validity markers’’ (Vande Kopple, 1985, p. 84), categorized with other resources
under ‘‘stance’’ (Biber and Finegan, 1988, 1989; Hyland, 2005b) and subsumed, in addition to the metadiscourse
model, under frameworks such as ‘‘Stance and Engagement’’ (Hyland, 2005b) and ‘‘Appraisal’’ (Martin and White,
2005). The two resources have been studied independently (e.g. Holmes, 1982, 1990; Hyland, 1998a) and often as
elements within the broader metadiscourse framework (e.g. Fu and Hyland, 2014; Hu and Cao, 2015; Hyland,
2005b; Hyland and Tse, 2004). Hedges are used to reduce the force of claims by qualifying commitment and
introducing uncertainty through linguistic expressions such as perhaps, possibly, could. When applied in facethreatening or negative messages, hedges can help enhance rapport between the communicator and audience by
softening the intensity of the negativity, and thus, help reduce the social distance between the two parties (Alavi-Nia
and Jalilifar, 2013). In contrast, boosters increase the force and certainty of claims with expressions such as
obviously, definitely, must. They can be used to make one sound confident and assertive (Vassileva, 2001) and
‘‘allow writers to express their certainty in what they say and to mark involvement with the topic and solidarity with
their audience’’ (Hyland, 2005b, p. 179). The importance of hedges and boosters within the interactional
metadiscourse framework and the pivotal role they play in texts can be indicated by the fact that, together, they
typically constitute the largest proportion of interactional resources. For example, they make up 74.7% and 56.8% of
all interactional markers in the studies of Hyland (1998b) and (2005b).
Hu and Cao (2011, p. 2796) liken hedges and boosters to two sides of the same coin and point out that the two
resources are complementary strategies. A writer's mastery of the use of hedges and boosters is crucial to the
construction of the writer's desired authorial stance, and thus, the impression imprinted on readers’ minds. Hyland (2005b)
explains that the balance between the two metadiscourse signals in any given piece of text is critical (Hyland, 1998b,
2005b), because usage tipped in favor of hedges displays an author's desire to convey caution, uncertainty and generally
a more tentative stance toward the proposition. Conversely, the greater proportional use of boosters demonstrates a
writer's choice to appear more certain and committed. Their fundamental role as tools of influence and persuasion in the
CEO's letter is highlighted by Hyland (1998b) who explains that, on one hand, boosters enable the CEO to realize positive
self-representation and project confidence and decisiveness, and on the other hand, hedges facilitate the demonstration
of modesty and humility. Thus, both hedges and boosters are used together in an effort to create a positive image and
build credibility of the CEO and the company.
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Table 1
Industry composition (Global Industry Classification Standard) of the Hang Seng 100 index
companies.
Industry
Number of companies
Consumer Discretionary
Consumer Staples
Energy
Financials
Health Care
Industrials
Information Technology
Materials
Telecommunication Services
Utilities
Total
12
10
7
28
6
11
8
7
3
8
100
3. Methodology
3.1. Construction of Chinese and equivalent U.S. corpora
To construct a Chinese sub-corpus representative of the types of Chinese companies readily accessible for investment
by international investors, and also one that contains a broad range of industries, the English CEO's letters of the one
hundred constituent companies of the Hang Seng Mainland 100 Index were chosen. The index is considered to be a
comprehensive benchmark for gauging Mainland Chinese companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and
covers a comprehensive range of industries (see Table 1). It is compiled by the Hang Seng Indexes Company Limited, the
compiler of the well-known Hang Seng Index. The CEO's letters from annual reports released in the year 2014 have been
used. Creating a parallel U.S. sub-corpus equivalent to the Chinese one is of utmost importance to ensure the highest
levels of comparability. In order to achieve this, one hundred U.S. companies were identified from the New York Stock
Exchange (NYSE) or the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market (NASDAQ) that
matched exactly the industry composition of the Chinese sub-corpus. This was done through matching each company
according to the Global Industry Classification Standard---a taxonomy widely used by finance professionals---developed
by Morgan Stanley Capital International and Standard & Poor's, which are two leading global financial organizations. The
total number of words in the two sub-corpora are as follows: Chinese CEO's letters -- 176,644, U.S. -- 186,280.
3.2. Identification of hedges and boosters
Hedges and boosters are two of five resources in Hyland's interactional category of metadiscourse markers. Table 2
shows the five resources.
Informed by the taxonomy proposed by Hu and Cao (2011) and the markers outlined by Hyland (2005a, pp. 221--224),
the markers are further classified into the subtypes shown in Table 3.
Using Wordsmith Tools (version 6), both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied in the analysis. In the initial
stage of quantitative analysis, the concordance function was used to produce all occurrences of the inventory of hedges
and boosters provided by Hyland (2005a, pp. 221--224). In addition to Hyland's (2005a) inventory, a word list was
generated from the two sub-corpora to be scrutinized for potential signals that maybe specific to the genre being
investigated. While this latter procedure proved to be particularly important for other interactional markers, especially
Table 2
Interactional Metadiscourse.
Category
Function
Examples
Hedges
Boosters
Attitude markers
Self-mentions
Engagement markers
Withhold commitment and open dialog
Emphasize certainty or close dialog
Express writer's attitude to proposition
Explicit reference to author(s)
Explicitly build relationship with reader
Might; perhaps; possible; about
In fact; definitely; it is clear that
Unfortunately; I agree; surprisingly
I; we; my; me; our
Consider; note; you can see that
Note: Table adapted from Hyland (2010 p.129).
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W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
Table 3
Subtypes of hedges and boosters.
Category
Subtype
Examples
Hedges
Epistemic adjectives and adverbs
Epistemic lexical verbs
Modal auxiliaries
Miscellaneous
Epistemic adjectives and adverbs
Epistemic lexical verbs
Modal auxiliaries a
Miscellaneous
Perhaps, likely, mainly
Seem; assume; suggest
Might; could; would
In general; to a certain extent
Actually; always; clearly
Demonstrate; show; prove
Must (possibility)
It is well known (that); the fact that
Boosters
Note: Table adapted from Hu and Cao (2011, p. 2800).
a
The current study follows the more restrictive criteria adopted by Hyland (2005a), only the modal ‘‘must’’ when used to express possibility is
counted as a booster.
attitude markers, no clear additional signals of hedging and boosting were uncovered. In the second qualitative stage,
each potential instance of hedging and boosting were individually examined in order to determine whether they do, in fact,
perform such a function in context. In the cases of compound hedging or boosting, for example, ‘‘I would suggest’’, or ‘‘I
firmly believe’’, both would be counted as two signals in the frequency lists.
The log-likelihood test was used to test for statistical significance in the differences in frequencies of hedges and
boosters between the two sub-corpora of CEO's letters. McEnery and Hardie (2012) maintain that the log-likelihood test is
preferred for the testing of significance in the differentials in frequency data across two corpora. This is because unlike
other popular tests, such as chi-square, the log-likelihood test does not assume that the data follows a normal distribution,
which is the case with language data which tends to follow positively skewed distributions (McEnery and Hardie, 2012).
4. Results
Table 4 shows two major differences in the use of hedges and boosters between the Chinese and U.S. texts. First, the
U.S. texts have significantly more hedges and boosters overall in comparison to the Chinese texts -- 9.59 per thousand
words versus 6.45 (LL = 111.21, p < 0.0001). Second, the U.S. texts use significantly more boosters than the Chinese
texts (LL = 133.97, p < 0.0001). U.S. usage of boosters is almost double that of the Chinese texts (5.94/1000 words vs.
3.33). Meanwhile, the difference in the frequencies of hedges between the two is not significant at the same 0.01% level
(LL = 7.41, p < 0.05). Lastly, the differential in the frequencies means that a divergent hedge to booster profile is produced.
While the use of hedges and boosters is roughly balanced in the Chinese discourse (48% to 52%), the U.S. texts lean
more heavily toward the use of boosters (62%) than hedges (38%).
Tables 5 and 6 show a similar pattern in the use of the different subtypes of hedges and boosters in the Chinese and U.
S. texts. The bulk of hedging is performed through the use of epistemic adjectives and adverbs, followed by modal
auxiliaries. Similarly, for boosters, epistemic adjectives and adverbs constitute the highest proportion of boosters;
however, the use of epistemic lexical verbs is also an important boosting strategy and only used slightly less than
adjectives and adverbs. For the subtype of modal auxiliaries, applying Hyland's (2005a) criteria and only considering the
use of ‘‘must’’ in expressing possibility yields only one instance of its use in the Chinese texts and none in the U.S.
Table 4
Variations in the overall use of Hedges and Boosters.
China
Hedges
Boosters
Total
U.S.
Total occurrence
Freq. per 1000 words
%
Total occurrence
Freq. per 1000 words
%
551
589
1140
3.12
3.33
6.45
48
52
100
679
1106
1785
3.65
5.94
9.59
38
62
100
6
W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
Table 5
Variations in the subtypes of hedges.
China
Epistemic adjectives and adverbs
Epistemic lexical verbs
Modal auxiliaries
Miscellaneous
Total
U.S.
Total occurrence
%
Total occurrence
%
462
16
57
16
1140
83.8
2.9
10.3
2.9
100
445
52
174
8
1785
65.5
7.7
25.6
1.2
100
Table 6
Variations in the subtypes of boosters.
China
Epistemic adjectives and adverbs
Epistemic lexical verbs
Modal auxiliaries
Miscellaneous
Total
U.S.
Total occurrence
%
Total occurrence
%
312
258
1
18
589
53.0
43.8
0.2
3.1
100
529
518
0
59
1106
47.8
46.8
0
5.3
100
4.1. Using hedges to project uncertainty, tentativeness and withhold commitment
A key function of the CEO's letter is to report on the performance of the business and to communicate to stakeholders
what CEOs believe are to be the prospects for their industry beyond the reporting year. Hedges are commonly used to
reduce the force of positive claims as demonstrated in example (1) and (2) below:
(1) Generally speaking, the construction machinery industry will continue to maintain its trend of modest recovery in
2014. (China)
(2) The company's premium income maintained a relatively rapid growth. (China)
The company in (1) is a leading manufacturer of construction machinery in China and during the reporting period, the
Chinese construction industry had been experiencing a cyclical downtrend. Through this statement the CEO attempts to
inject a glimmer of hope for the prospects of the industry which implies greater sales and profits for the company, but
withholds total commitment by introducing it with ‘‘generally speaking’’, and thus, adds a hint of uncertainty and ambiguity.
By not stating the claim as a categorical fact, the writer is less accountable, should the industry not recover and profits for the
next accounting year be less desirable. Similarly, in (2), which is the CEO's message of an insurance company, the writer
softens the force of the claim of ‘‘rapid growth’’ by adding ‘‘relatively’’ which makes the statement more cautious. As Hyland
(1998b) points out, through showing caution with hedges, the CEO can project the impression of a person ‘‘who can be
relied on to make honest assessments of future possibilities and who takes few risks with investors’ capital’’ (1998b, p. 237).
Similar to findings in academic writing (e.g. Hyland, 1994), modal verbs (e.g. could, may, might, should, would) -collectively as a group -- feature prominently as a hedging resource. They are considered hedges when used to indicate
possibility and are generally used to qualify the likelihood of various assertions. Typically, they are used to weaken
proclamations of positive expectations in case they are not realized or in the words of Hyland (1998b, p. 237), they serve as a
‘‘prudent insurance against overstating an assertion which later proves to have been in error’’. In the CEO's letters, a wide array
of propositions, such as the expected performance and industry trends or any phenomena associated with the portrayal of
favorable future prospects of the company, are often hedged with modal verbs. This is demonstrated in (3), and (4) below.
(3) This effort should produce an excellent outcome: greater tenant diversification and break-even financial results (U.S.)
(4) As the global supply of tissue wood pulp will begin to rise in 2014, the management expects that upward pressure of
raw materials could be eased in the second half of 2014. (China)
W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
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Another usage of hedges in both the Chinese and U.S. discourse is to modify the precision of numbers and figures.
Frequently used are expressions such as ‘‘approximately’’ (5), ‘‘about’’ (6) and ‘‘around’’ (7) shown below.
(5) Capital expenditures totaled approximately $280 million, a record level. (U.S.)
(6) We contributed about $1 billion in products and cash and supported over 500 community programs in more than 60
countries. (U.S.)
(7) It is the Group's plan to increase the annualized production capacity by around 360,000 in the second half of 2014. . .
(China)
4.2. Using boosters to project confidence, assertiveness and increase certainty
Boosters are often used to indicate the confidence and conviction of the corporation toward a wide variety of business
issues such as corporate strategy, corporate processes, and industry trends, among many others. This is illustrated in (8)
and (9) below:
(8) We believe this streamlined approach gives us a market advantage to operate more efficiently and effectively in
smaller and mid-sized markets. (U.S.)
(9) We believe the liberalization of natural gas pricing will push forward it utilization. (China)
In the CEO's letters, the use of boosters to project competence and resolve is evident in the dialog with stakeholders.
Example (10) below is taken from an insurance company, and ‘‘never’’ here is used to convey the determination of the
management and the company. It helps to create the impression that the firm shows strong leadership, which is a clear
attempt to instill confidence in the readers of the company's capability. Meanwhile, we can see in (11) ‘‘always’’ is used to
heighten the commitment of the company.
(10) ‘In the past decade, we encountered trials and hardships, but we never compromised. (U.S)
(11) As always, the Group will make every endeavor to deliver quality products and services for customers and
generate greatest returns for our shareholders. (China)
Interestingly, Hyland (2005a, p. 69) refers to the strategy of using a hedge to soften a booster as one similar to ‘‘the iron
fist in the velvet glove’’, in which he cites the writing of Darwin in (12) below:
(12) I think we are driven to conclude that this greater variability is simply due to our domestic productions having been
raised under conditions of life not so uniform as. . . (Hyland, 2005a, p. 69)
In the current study, however, this strategy is seldom used. Instead, we often find commitment elevated through the
use of a compound booster structure to produce a more committed and confident message (13).
(13) We firmly believe that good service is the core of our banking business, and is the only way for us to win customers.
(China)
Example (13) above is an excerpt from the CEO's letter of a bank. The CEO here exudes confidence and conviction
that the bank provides good service which is linked to maintaining and increasing its customer base. The underlying
message appears to be that by providing good service and winning customers, the bank is in a position to build and grow
its business, to create greater profitability and ultimately greater benefits for the shareholders and potential investors.
5. Discussion
The results have revealed that hedges and boosters are foundational features of both the Chinese and the U.S. CEO's
letters. They are used strategically as impression management tools in order to manage readers’ interpretation of
performance, future expectations and to project the writer's desired authorial stance and associated impression. The overall
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W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
results corroborate the findings of Hyland (1998b). Exploring a sample of CEO's letters and director's reports of a mixture of
Hong Kong and Western companies, Hyland (1998b) maintains that metadiscourse is a ubiquitous feature and an important
instrument used by the CEO to influence their readers. The overall frequencies found in the two sub-corpora of the current
study are slightly higher than the frequency reported by Hyland (1998b). While Hyland (1998b) reports a total frequency of
5.9 hedges and boosters (hedges: 4.6, boosters: 1.3) per thousand words, in the current study the total frequency of the two
resources is 6.45 (hedges: 3.12, boosters: 3.33) for the Chinese CEO's letters and 9.58 (hedges: 3.65, boosters: 5.94) for
the U.S. sample. Although the total frequency is comparable between the current study's Chinese sub-corpus and Hyland's
(1998b) study, it is worth noting that the proportion of hedges in Hyland's (1998b) sample is much higher in comparison. The
author explains that the dominance of hedges in his corpus is partly the result of companies using hedging strategies to
dampen the negative impact of the announcement of poor performance (Hyland, 1998a, p. 238), thus, one possibility is that
there could have been a large proportion of underperforming companies in the corpus.
Although hedges and boosters are integral to both the Chinese and U.S. CEO's letters, the results reveal two
fundamental differences between the two sets of texts. First, the overall frequency is significantly higher in the U.S. texts
which demonstrates a greater effort invested in persuasion by extensively showing their stance toward the proposition.
Similar results were reported in the cross-cultural study of Huang and Rose (2018), which found higher frequencies in the
CEO's letters of U.S. banks in comparison to their Chinese counterparts (U.S.: 9.72/1000 words, Chinese: 5.27).
Interestingly, this finding is mirrored in the cross-cultural study on academic writing undertaken by Hu and Cao (2011). In
their comparative analysis of the abstracts of English and Chinese medium journals, they report significantly higher
usages of hedges and boosters in the English journals in comparison to the Chinese ones. The second notable
divergence is the proportional use of hedges and boosters in the Chinese and U.S. discourses which establish distinctly
different authorial stances and impressions. With the proportion of hedges to boosters at 38--62%, the U.S. texts show a
clear preference to convey certainty, conviction, and confidence. Again this result corroborates Huang and Rose (2018),
who report, for their Western sample, a proportion of 46% hedges to 54% boosters. The skew toward boosters is extreme
in the results of Gillaerts and Van de Velde (2011): they found a proportional use of 5% hedges to 95% boosters in their
analysis of the CEO's letters of Fortis bank. In contrast, more caution and tentativeness emanate from the Chinese texts
through the use of a markedly higher frequency of hedges (hedges: 48%, boosters 52%), which results ultimately in a
delicate balance of the two resources. A rough balance in the use of hedges and boosters was also evident in the study of
Huang and Rose (2018), with a proportion of 51--49% reported for their sample of Chinese CEO's letters. This more
balanced authorial stance is also found in academic writing in Chinese journals; in the Chinese and English abstracts of
Chinese journals (Hu and Cao, 2011), a proportion of 52% hedges to 48% boosters is reported. Cultural psychologists
have repeatedly pointed to the polarity in many aspects of Chinese and Western culture and their effects in driving
differences in behavior and cognition (Nisbett et al., 2001). In the paragraphs below, support is presented attributing the
variations between the U.S. and Chinese texts to possible underlying cultural influences.
5.1. Density of hedges and boosters
The higher frequencies of hedges and boosters -- both indispensable tools of argument -- found in the U.S. discourse
corresponds with the strong Western tradition of debate and argument and the greater efforts invested in persuasion.
Debate and argument as a cultural heritage in the Anglosphere and much of Europe is commonly ascribed to Ancient
Greece where it held a revered status. Nisbett et al. (2001, p. 292) explain that the basis of the Greek sense of individuality
and personal freedom is derived from the tradition of debate, which was already entrenched in Greek society by the eighth
century. Cromer (1993, p. 74) asserts that the institution of debate is what made Greece an exceptional nation. Moreover,
he points out that Homer, the acclaimed Greek poet, emphasized that the two most essential skills a man should possess
are that of a warrior and debater, and that the importance of argument transcended social classes with every individual
having the right to debate. This venerated tradition reverberates in both Anglo-American academic and business
discourse. Hu and Cao (2011, p. 2804) maintain that ‘‘rhetorical and discursive practices in English academic discourse
have its basis in Socratic and Aristotelian philosophical traditions which value engaging in debate and formal
argumentation as a canonical form of knowledge construction’’. While in contemporary U.S. business communication
guides, it is asserted that a key tenet of effective business communication is to ‘‘offer compelling, persuasive arguments’’
(Thill and Bovee, 2013, p. 4) and that a fundamental method for persuasion in corporate communication to stakeholders is
to make claims based on rational arguments rooted in logic (2013, p. 300). The crucial role of hedges and boosters in
argument is highlighted by Hyland (1998b, p. 229) who maintains that they are essential to the management of the force of
claims espoused, while Cheng and Steffensen (1996, p. 149) explain that their use enhances the quality of a text. In light of
this, the extensive use of these devices demonstrate the U.S. authors’ determination to intrude into the text more
extensively in order to construct a strong augmentative position that will be credible and persuasive in the eyes of the
readers.
W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
9
Conversely, a traditional distain in Chinese ideology for argument and persuasion through language can be found and
this may be a factor in the lower utilization of hedges and boosters seen in the Chinese texts. Peng and Nisbett (1999)
point out that the Chinese are less likely to engage in debate and formal argumentation since they believe that ‘‘verbal
debate and argumentation are not meaningful tools for understanding truth and reality’’ (1999, p. 747). Evidence of this
possible aversion to argument presents itself in two pillar Chinese philosophies--- Confucianism and Taoism. In the
records of Confucius's teachings, he is said to disapprove of silver-tongued speakers who are able to produce clever
speech or flattering arguments. Ding (2007, p. 154) explains a number of Confucius's teachings advise that ‘‘cunning
arguments may result in conflict and hatred and that relations with cunning speakers may result in danger’’. A similar
contempt for rhetoric and argument can also be found in the Taoist classic Tao Te Ching, in which the following advice is
given: ‘‘A good man does not argue; he who argues is not a good man. . .’’1 (Becker, 1986, p. 79). The antipathy for
argument can be traced to a desire to avoid conflict in order to maintain harmony. Nisbett et al. (2001, p. 293) explain that
the treasured in-group harmony encouraged by the Chinese collectivist agency discouraged debates, as it is seen as a
form of confrontation that could potentially disturb the harmonious relationships within cohesive interdependent groups.
This notion is echoed by Becker (1986, p. 78), who declares that from the collectivist Chinese viewpoint, the necessity of
two people taking opposite sides in a debate creates conflict and rivalry which damages harmony. This distaste for
argument was even institutionalized in Japan in the articles of the constitution adapted from China in 604 A.D. for the
unification of the country which leans heavily on Confucianism and Taoism and which remains a subject of study in
Japanese schools today (Becker, 1986, p. 79). Thus, Becker (1986) maintains that unlike their western counterparts, the
Chinese and, in general, East Asians who share a common Confucian heritage, have ‘‘never developed a ‘spirit of
controversial language’ nor a ‘tradition of free public debate’’’ (1986, p. 78) and argument is generally viewed in a negative
light.
Another factor that may have inhibited the use of hedges and boosters in the Chinese discourse could be because the
preferred mode of persuasion in Confucian philosophy is through action and not skillful rhetoric, which relegates the
importance of language and the proposition in discourse. In the Analects, the foundational text of Confucianism, emphasis
is placed on persuasion through one's virtuous actions and exemplary conduct. Instead of through words or persuasive
speeches, the sage advises one to be ‘‘quick in action yet cautious in speech’’2 and that a person should ‘‘always puts his
ideas into action before speaking about it’’3 (Ding, 2007, p. 147). Moreover, Becker (1986, pp. 75--76) reasoned that
Confucius's teachings almost completely forestalled the use of persuasive speech and showed a distrust for the skillful
rhetoric so valued in the Western cultural model. Confucius in the Analects proclaims that he detests ‘‘that crafty mouths
have overturned states and households’’4 (Eno, 2015, p. 97) and that ‘‘Those of crafty words and ingratiating expression
are rarely ren.’’5 (Eno, 2015, p. 97). Ren (仁) can be defined as a comprehensive ethical virtue which encompasses
humaneness, goodness, and benevolence (Eno, 2015, p. vi). Confucius advocated that persuasiveness emerges from
such virtuous conducts and not from one's words. On this premise, a person who embodies virtue through his/her actions
has no use for persuasive words as their virtue itself is convincing and from such a person plain words suffice in moving
people to action. Thus, language should be used to ‘‘achieve an accurate representation of reality’’ (Ding, 2007, p. 148)
and ‘‘language becomes a tool for persuasion only when it corresponds with and reinforces one's conduct’’ (Becker, 1986,
p. 156). This view has in effect marginalized the importance of the propositional truth in the thought system of the Chinese
(Becker, 1986, p. 75) and therefore adjusting the illocutionary force or the truth value of propositions with hedges and
boosters takes on less significance in Chinese discourse. As Becker (1986, pp. 78--79) explains, in the Chinese political
tradition, ‘‘truth is taken to mean a quality of manhood, not the accuracy of propositions alone’’, and therefore, emphasis is
placed on a ‘‘true person’’ whose actions are in line with his/her commitments and way of speaking.
5.2. Authorial stance
The higher proportional use of boosters to hedges in the U.S. discourse produces an authorial stance that is distinctly
positive reflecting the greater need of people with an individualist orientation to maintain a positive self-view and to selfenhance. The use of boosters, as Hyland (1998b, p. 236) declares, is a crucial tool with which the author can ‘‘build an
ethos through an appropriate presentation of the self by accentuating the positive and stamping authority on the text’’. This
characteristic of the U.S. CEO's letters is consistent with the position found in the literature from social psychology which
maintains that the independent cultural model prevalent in North America and Europe view an ideal person as orientated
1
善者不辯,辯者不善 (Tao Te Ching: 81).
敏於事而慎於言 (Analects 1:14).
3
先行其言 (Analects 2.13).
4
惡利口之覆邦家者 (Analects 17:18).
5
巧言令色,鮮矣仁 (Analects 17:17).
2
10
W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
primarily toward independent success and achievement (Fiske et al., 1998, p. 920). This ideal strongly motivates people
to maintain and enhance their positive self-views which they affirm in private (Heine, 2010, p. 1437) and express in public
(Heine et al., 1999, p. 770). Heine et al. (1999, p. 770) note that ‘‘The culturally sanctioned self-evaluation in North America
is unambiguously positive, and those who diverge from this well-worn path must do so with caution’’. Low self-esteem and
its associated negative self-views are loathed in North American culture which Baumeister (1993, p. 201) labels as
‘‘Uncertain, fragile, protective, and conflicted’’, thus individuals are driven to accentuate the positive and minimalize or
even deny the negative. Maintaining a positive self-view can be achieved with a number of self-enhancement strategies
which Heine and Hamamura (2007, p. 4) note is commonly realized as: a propensity to emphasize positive information
relative to negative information; a tendency to recall successes more than failures; thinking of oneself as better than
average, and associating oneself more strongly with positive words than negative words and causal attribution. This
psychological inclination has firmly entrenched itself in the corporate context and corporate communication. Thill and
Bovee (2013) in their business communication guide not only assert that the key ingredient to good persuasive claims in
business is a confident and positive tone (p. 303), but also that communication in business should emphasize the positive
(p. 125) and indeed being positive just in itself is persuasive (p. 295).
Apart from projecting a positive impression through the predominant use of boosters, this authorial stance in the U.S.
discourse expresses conviction and consistency, which are treasured personality traits in the Western cultural model.
Fiske et al. (1998) explain that North Americans have been socialized to stick by their convictions or principles, and to do
otherwise would be to risk inconsistency and inauthenticity. Moreover, the ideal self is stable and whole, and expressing
a contrary view ‘‘tends to be interpreted as a failure to have the courage of one's convictions’’ (1998, p. 921). Further
evidence of this desire to express conviction and consistency in western discourses arises from an unlikely but familiar
quarter---metadiscourse studies on Anglo-American academic writing (e.g. Hyland, 2005b; Mur-Dueñas, 2011). While
the predominance of boosters assists the U.S. CEOs to display conviction and consistency in excelling at different
business affairs, the predominance of hedges in academic genres from social sciences permits scholars to express
conviction and consistency -- adhering to the principles of the Anglo-American social science and humanities discourse
community -- to show tentativeness and uncertainty when making claims. In the Socratic and Aristotelian philosophical
traditions of the social sciences and humanities, value is placed on ‘‘questioning one's own as well as others’ ideas and
beliefs’’ (Hu and Cao, 2011, p. 2804). Thus a crucial way to gain acceptance in this discourse community is through
hedging to ‘‘qualify knowledge claims, withhold full commitment to assertions, and assume a tone of circumspection or
tentativeness’’ (Hu and Cao, 2011, p. 2805). If the notion of showing conviction through the display of doubt seems
paradoxical or incongruent with Western ideals of holding positive self-views and self-enhancement, perhaps the spirit of
the practice is best encapsulated in a claim made by Socrates, who is reported to have said that he felt ‘‘his questioning of
his own beliefs made him superior to others because he at least recognized his own ignorance’’ (Tweed and Lehman,
2002, p. 91).
The Chinese texts, on the other hand, adopted an authorial stance that conveyed more uncertainty and tentativeness,
which may be linked to the treasured cultural traits of cautiousness, humbleness, and modesty. In cross-cultural studies,
cultural psychologists have often found that East Asians with a shared Confucian heritage (i.e., China, Japan, and Korea),
in comparison to North Americans and the West in general, have a lower tendency to self-enhance (e.g. Heine et al., 1999;
Markus and Kitayama, 1991) and also feel less need to accentuate the positive (Fiske et al., 1998). While the higher
frequency of boosters in the U.S. texts has been attributed to the need to maintain a positive self-view and to self-enhance,
the comparative restrained use in the Chinese texts could be illustrative of the lesser need in East Asians. In the Chinese
context, the desire to project a more modest and cautious impression is entrenched in Confucian and Taoist principles.
Confucius ‘‘warns of the danger of boastful speeches, both because of the ‘difficulty to keep a promise made in a boast’6
and because of the disgrace brought by ‘promising a lot and doing little’7’’ (Ding, 2007, p. 148). In a similar vein, Taoism
advocates what is known as the ‘Three Treasures’, the principles of which are: compassion, moderation, and humility
(LaFargue, 1992, pp. 8--9; Waley, 2005/1934, p. 225). These principles have been embedded in the expectations of one's
conduct. The vital role of Confucianism as a guide to Chinese business leaders has been highlighted by Gallo (2011, p.
43), a number of those he interviewed indicated their aspiration to follow guidelines in leadership espoused by Confucius.
Furthermore, Gallo (2011, p. 47) points out that a common expectation of Chinese leaders is that they are strong but low
key. Hedging is a strategy which allows the Chinese texts to achieve this. As Hyland (1998b, p. 237) explains, the use of
hedges in the context of the CEO's letter allows the writer to project ‘‘a reassuring image of a modest, trustworthy and
cautious steward of the company’’ (1998b, p. 237).
A more uncertain authorial stance in the Chinese texts compared to the U.S. may also reflect a higher tolerance of
uncertainty in life in the Chinese psyche. This greater acceptance of uncertainty is supported by psychological studies
6
7
其言之不怍,則為之也難 (Analects 14:20).
君子恥其言而過其行 (Analects 14:27).
W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
11
of self-efficacy, defined as ‘‘people's beliefs about their capabilities to control their own level of functioning and the
events that affect their lives’’ (Kwan et al., 2010, p. 283). Kwan et al. (2010) found that the Chinese tend to have lower
general self-efficacy. This may be ascribed to the fact that Chinese and East Asians feel themselves to be in less control
because they see life as complex (Nisbett, 2003, p. 97) and that outcomes in life are controlled by powerful external
forces such as fate, luck or chance (Leung, 2010, p. 223). In line with these beliefs, studies have found that the Chinese
placed more emphasis on situational factors with a tendency to attribute outcomes to the context and external factors,
whilst Americans were the opposite and tended to focus on personal disposition and possessed a tendency to attribute
outcomes to the actor and internal factors. (Ji et al., 2010, pp. 157--158). One underlying basis of the belief in an
uncertain world in the Chinese cultural model can be traced to Buddhism, which proclaims the core tenet of
interdependent causality. This is the premise that any phenomenon that arises is dependent upon multiple causes and
conditions. No outcome is the result of a single cause and nothing exists as a single independent entity. Causality also
transcends the past, present and the future, therefore, an outcome today can be caused in part by something from the
past or future. Thus, people's control of their lives is limited, as anything that happens is not only dependent on their
actions alone but also on a multitude of other possible interdependent external causes from the past, present and
future.
Even though the Chinese texts displayed a more tentative authorial stance, what is apparent is a rough balance in
the use of hedges and boosters which conveys an impression that is more neutral---neither certain or confident nor
uncertain or cautious. This characteristic resonates a central ethos in Taoism---the pursuit of balance in all facets of life,
achieved through the balance of two contradictory forces. This ethos is encapsulated in the Yin-Yang principle which
advances the idea that a harmonious state is realized through the balance of two contrary forces. The yin-yang
philosophy of Taoism promotes the principle that the ‘‘opposite of a state of affairs can exist simultaneously with the
state of affairs itself’’ (Nisbett et al., 2001, p. 294). In essence, it champions the idea that a balance of opposites is
necessary to produce an optimal state, so that, for example, heat and cold; man and woman, the balance of these two
opposites produces respectively the desired states of warmth, and human union (LaFargue, 1992, pp. 8--9; Waley,
2005, p. 225). This philosophy has driven Chinese thought to seek the ‘‘middle way’’ between extremes. The Chinese
inclination to seek the middle way is also apparent in the balanced authorial stance found in academic writing. Hu and
Cao (2011) in their cross-cultural study of academic abstracts of Chinese and English medium journals report a
proportion of 47% hedges to 53% boosters in Chinese journals against a proportion of 70% hedges to 30% boosters in
their English journals. Thus, it appears that cultural influences transcend discourse community influences in the
Chinese discourse and irrespective of business or academic discourse domains, the ‘middle way’ prevailed and a
balance was favored in the Chinese texts.
Before drawing the discussion to a close, note that because the study examines the corporate discourse of two
countries, it has therefore leaned on national cultures. This study therefore resembles a ‘‘large culture’’ approach,
which has been argued to promote overgeneralization and essentialist notions (Holliday, 1999). Today, it is
recognized that national cultures are neither static nor homogeneous, but are instead, dynamic and heterogeneous
in nature (Connor, 2002). First, we must bear in mind that cultures are continuously evolving and influenced by both
internal and external factors. For example, an internal factor that may have induced sociocultural changes in China
is the implementation of the nationwide one-child policy in 1980. Research undertaken by social psychologists on
Chinese university students in Shanghai and Beijing born after the policy's implementation has found that they are
more narcissistic and have a greater tendency to behave in an individualistic manner than even their western
counterparts in U.S. and Canadian universities (Cai et al., 2012). Though the possible sociocultural changes
induced may prove to be temporary, as the one-child policy was officially scrapped in 2016. Externally, globalization
has in the past decades influenced, to differing extents, countries around the globe; however, even this powerful
influence is subject to change, as it has been pointed out that 2019 witnessed the beginning of possibly the opposite
process in action---deglobalization (Moyo, 2019). Second, while the study ascribes findings to national cultural
characteristics, it must be emphasized that the study does not promote the notion that all ‘‘Chinese’’ or ‘‘Americans’’
are the same, instead it is essential to understand that within any given national or ethnic culture there will be
meaningful heterogeneity. For example, while I have made the case that persuasion through rhetoric may be less
important in the Chinese cultural model, this does not mean all types of Chinese discourse are void of persuasion.
An example of a persuasive genre in classical Chinese writing is the policy essay (You and Liu, 2009). The policy
essay is one of the three imperial civil service exam essay genres and its objective is to persuade the reader of the
writer's position on issues that concern the governing of the country. You and Liu (2009, p. W61) point out that in the
sample texts they analyzed, they could identify a number of persuasive strategies used by writers and in some
samples a complete argument structure can be found. Furthermore, not only are there variability within a national
culture, ‘‘transculturality’’---the display of traits from multiple cultures---is becoming a more common phenomenon,
as advanced communication technologies connect people more closely to numerous cultures around the world
today (Dooly and Vallejo Rubinstein, 2018).
12
W.W.L. Lee / Lingua 242 (2020) 102872
6. Conclusion
The analyses undertaken has established the crucial role of hedges and boosters as impression management tools in
both the Chinese and U.S. CEO's letters; however, two distinct differences have emerged. First, there is a markedly higher
density of the two resources in the U.S. texts in comparison to the Chinese, which has been attributed to the tradition of
debate and argument valued by the West but generally frowned upon in the Chinese cultural model. Second, distinct
authorial stances are established in the U.S. and Chinese texts which project divergent impressions. The U.S. discourse
uses more boosters to convey a ‘‘confident, decisive and commanding image’’ (Hyland, 1998b, p. 236) consistent with the
greater need in the west to maintain positive self-views, to self-enhance and show conviction and consistency. While the
Chinese texts use more hedges to present a ‘‘reassuring image of a modest, trustworthy, and cautious steward of the
company’’ (Hyland, 1998b, p. 237) consistent with the treasured cultural traits of cautiousness, humbleness and modesty
and the higher tolerance of uncertainty in the Chinese belief system. Moreover, even though the Chinese texts use more
hedges compared with the U.S.’s, ultimately the roughly balanced use of the two resources resonates the ‘‘middle way’’, or
moderation in all facets of life, an idea central to the three pillars of Chinese thought---Confucianism, Taoism and
Buddhism.
The findings have both commercial and pedagogical implications. From a commercial perspective, the texts from one
cultural model may possibly appear culturally marked in the eyes of the other. On one hand, the more cautious and
tentative stance conveyed by the Chinese CEO's letters may create a less favorable impression and be less persuasive to
readers who are accustomed to Anglo-American styles of rhetoric that show more confidence and conviction. On the other
hand, the U.S. texts may be less persuasive to readers who are more familiar with the tentativeness of the Chinese texts.
Perhaps such readers may find the U.S. texts over-confident and lack the cautiousness necessary in a complex and
unpredictable global market. Furthermore, as Chinese companies become more prominent in global business, it is
increasingly in the interests of Western and other international investors and stakeholders to develop an understanding of
Chinese rhetorical styles. The findings from the study would also be particularly useful from a pedagogical perspective.
Business communication courses in tertiary education and corporate training largely lean on Western models, as the
research area is dominated by Western and, in particular, U.S. scholars. The present study highlights possible variations
in the preferred rhetorical styles of corporate writers from the two countries, an awareness of these different
communication styles and strategies would be beneficial to students and professional preparers of corporate
communication materials.
Although the examination of the English L2 versions of the Chinese CEO's letters allows us to develop a better
understanding of how Chinese corporations communicate to global audiences through the global business lingua franca;
however, a fuller understanding of the cultural nuances of the genre is likely to be obtained through the examination of the
L1 Chinese texts. In spite of this, value remains in attributing possible cultural differences through the second language
writing of the Chinese companies. This is because L2 writers of business writing in English have been found to transfer
rhetorical patterns and strategies from their L1 language and culture to their L2 communication (Connor, 2002). Finally,
despite the valuable findings, a number of areas warrant further research. First, as just mentioned, the investigation of the
Chinese versions of the Chinese CEO's letters will yield a more complete picture of the associated cultural influences
embedded in the discourse. Second, hedges and boosters are only two of the five components of the interactional
category of Hyland's (2005a) metadiscourse model; to understand more fully how corporate authors use linguistic
resources in the CEO's letter to manage impressions and influence perceptions at the interpersonal dimension, further
studies analyzing the other three components -- attitude markers, self-mention, and engagement markers -- are therefore
justified. Third, the CEO's letter is one sub-genre within the annual report ‘‘genre set’’ (Ditlevsen, 2012), it would be
beneficial to understand how hedges and booster maybe used in the other components of the annual report.
Funding source
The research work conducted and described in this paper was substantially supported by a grant from the Research
Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project No. PolyU 5440/13H).
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