Title: Credibility-boosting devices in corporate annual reports
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2019, vol. 45, iss. 2, pp. [217]-236
Extent
[217]-236
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2019-2-11
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/142191
Type: Article
Language
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
Apart from their informative, representative, textual and interpersonal functions, annual reports of companies and institutions aim at enhancing the organisations' image and credibility. According to the theory of communicative action formulated by Habermas (1984), credibility is based on meeting four validity claims, namely truth, sincerity, appropriateness and understandability. Credibility as such can be boosted by presenting or proving two major components, expertise and trust. The paper analyses lexis of company annual reports, with a focus on a sub-genre referred to here as letters from executives (also Letter from a CEO, Chairman's statement, Chair's Message, Letter to Shareholders, etc.). These short texts attempt to persuade target readers about a competent management, strong visions, positive current situation and optimistic outlook of the business. Combining the more subjective trustworthiness and a more objectively based provision of credentials and achievements in order to prove expertise, these letters in annual reports aim to persuade readers rather implicitly than explicitly, by establishing contact through direct address, personal endorsement and involvement. The research was carried out on "executive letters" in the business documents subcorpus of the Corpus of English and Czech Specialised Discourses (CECSD 2017), with special emphasis on the selected verbs, nouns and adjectives, and their persuasive potential. It claims that positive and negative connotations of the lexis chosen by persuaders belong to the principal persuasive strategies employed in this genre of specialised discourse.
Note
This article is an output of the grant project 17-16195S "Persuasion across Czech and English Specialised Discourses", which is supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR).
References
[1] Biber, Douglas and Meixiu Zhang (2018) Expressing evaluation without grammatical stance: Informational persuasion on the web. Corpora 13 (1), 97–123. | DOI 10.3366/cor.2018.0137
[2] Bülow-Møller, Anne Marie (2005) Persuasion in business negotiations. In: Halmari, Helena, and Tuija Virtanen (eds.) Persuasion Across Genres: A linguistic approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 27–58.
[3] Carpenter, Christopher, Franklin J. Boster and Kyle R. Andrews (2013) Functional attitude theory. In: Shen, Lijiang and Dillard, James P. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion. EBSCO Publishing, 104–119.
[4] Dillard, James P. and Kiwon Seo (2013) Affect and persuasion. In: Shen, Lijiang and Dillard, James P. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion. EBSCO Publishing, 150–166.
[5] Dontcheva Navratilova, Olga (2011) Coherence in Political Speeches. Brno: Masaryk University.
[6] Fairclough, Norman (1995) Language and Power. London: Longman.
[7] Fowler, Roger (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.
[8] Garzone, Giuliana (2004) Annual company reports and CEO's letters: Discoursal features and cultural markedness. In: Candlin, Christopher N. and Maurizio Gotti (eds.) Intercultural Aspects of Specialized Communication (Linguistic Insights: Studies in Language and Communication 14). Bern: Peter Lang, 311–341.
[9] Habermas, Jürgen (1984) Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II.: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press.
[10] Halmari, Helena and Tuija Virtanen, T. (eds.) (2005) Persuasion Across Genres: A Linguistic Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[11] Hoey, Michael (2001) Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Routledge.
[12] Hunston, Susan and Geoff Thompson (eds.) (1999) Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[13] Hyland, Ken (1998) Exploring corporate rhetoric: Metadiscourse in the CEO's letter. Journal of Business Communication 35 (2), 224–245. | DOI 10.1177/002194369803500203
[14] Hyland, Ken (2005a) Metadiscourse. London: Continuum.
[15] Hyland, Ken (2005b) Stance and engagement: A model of interaction in academic discourse. Discourse Studies, 7 (2), 173–192. | DOI 10.1177/1461445605050365
[16] Hyland, Ken and Polly Tse (2004) Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal. Applied Linguistics 25 (2), 156–177. | DOI 10.1093/applin/25.2.156
[17] Marconi, Joe (2004) Public Relations: The Complete Guide. N.p.: Thomson Learning.
[18] Martin, James R. and Peter R.R. White (2005) The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[19] Östman, Jan-Ola (2005) Persuasion as implicit anchoring: The case of collocations. In: Halmari, Helena and Tuija Virtanen (eds.) Persuasion Across Genres: A Linguistic Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[20] Perloff, Richard M. (2017) The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the 21st Century. Sixth Edition. New York and London: Routledge.
[21] Schnitzer, Johannes (2017) The annual report. In: Mautner, Gerlinde and Franz Rainer (eds.) Handbook of Business Communication: Linguistic Approaches. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 197–218.
[22] Sperber, Dan, Fabrice Clément, Christophe Heintz, Olivier Mascaro, Hugo Mercier, Gloria Origgi and Deirdre Wilson (2010) Epistemic vigilance. Mind and Language 25, 359–393.
[23] Swales, John M. (1990) Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[24] Thomas, Jane (1997) Discourse in the marketplace: The making of meaning in annual reports. The Journal of Business Communication 34 (1), 47–66. | DOI 10.1177/002194369703400103
[25] Vogel, Radek (2018) Persuasion in business documents: strategies for reporting positively on negative phenomena. Ostrava Journal of English Philology 10 (1), 55–70.
[26] Yzer, Marco (2013) Reasoned action theory. In: Shen, Lijiang and Dillard, James P. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion. EBSCO Publishing, 120–136.
[27] Corpus of English and Czech Specialised Discourses_BUSINESS_English. Sketch Engine. Available at https://ske.fi.muni.cz.
[28] Corpus of English Executive Letters in ARs_BUS_2018. Sketch Engine. Available at https://ske.fi.muni.cz.
[29] Corpus of English Reviews in ARs_BUS_2018. Sketch Engine. Available at https://ske.fi.muni.cz.
[2] Bülow-Møller, Anne Marie (2005) Persuasion in business negotiations. In: Halmari, Helena, and Tuija Virtanen (eds.) Persuasion Across Genres: A linguistic approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 27–58.
[3] Carpenter, Christopher, Franklin J. Boster and Kyle R. Andrews (2013) Functional attitude theory. In: Shen, Lijiang and Dillard, James P. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion. EBSCO Publishing, 104–119.
[4] Dillard, James P. and Kiwon Seo (2013) Affect and persuasion. In: Shen, Lijiang and Dillard, James P. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion. EBSCO Publishing, 150–166.
[5] Dontcheva Navratilova, Olga (2011) Coherence in Political Speeches. Brno: Masaryk University.
[6] Fairclough, Norman (1995) Language and Power. London: Longman.
[7] Fowler, Roger (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.
[8] Garzone, Giuliana (2004) Annual company reports and CEO's letters: Discoursal features and cultural markedness. In: Candlin, Christopher N. and Maurizio Gotti (eds.) Intercultural Aspects of Specialized Communication (Linguistic Insights: Studies in Language and Communication 14). Bern: Peter Lang, 311–341.
[9] Habermas, Jürgen (1984) Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II.: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press.
[10] Halmari, Helena and Tuija Virtanen, T. (eds.) (2005) Persuasion Across Genres: A Linguistic Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[11] Hoey, Michael (2001) Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Routledge.
[12] Hunston, Susan and Geoff Thompson (eds.) (1999) Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[13] Hyland, Ken (1998) Exploring corporate rhetoric: Metadiscourse in the CEO's letter. Journal of Business Communication 35 (2), 224–245. | DOI 10.1177/002194369803500203
[14] Hyland, Ken (2005a) Metadiscourse. London: Continuum.
[15] Hyland, Ken (2005b) Stance and engagement: A model of interaction in academic discourse. Discourse Studies, 7 (2), 173–192. | DOI 10.1177/1461445605050365
[16] Hyland, Ken and Polly Tse (2004) Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal. Applied Linguistics 25 (2), 156–177. | DOI 10.1093/applin/25.2.156
[17] Marconi, Joe (2004) Public Relations: The Complete Guide. N.p.: Thomson Learning.
[18] Martin, James R. and Peter R.R. White (2005) The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[19] Östman, Jan-Ola (2005) Persuasion as implicit anchoring: The case of collocations. In: Halmari, Helena and Tuija Virtanen (eds.) Persuasion Across Genres: A Linguistic Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[20] Perloff, Richard M. (2017) The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the 21st Century. Sixth Edition. New York and London: Routledge.
[21] Schnitzer, Johannes (2017) The annual report. In: Mautner, Gerlinde and Franz Rainer (eds.) Handbook of Business Communication: Linguistic Approaches. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 197–218.
[22] Sperber, Dan, Fabrice Clément, Christophe Heintz, Olivier Mascaro, Hugo Mercier, Gloria Origgi and Deirdre Wilson (2010) Epistemic vigilance. Mind and Language 25, 359–393.
[23] Swales, John M. (1990) Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[24] Thomas, Jane (1997) Discourse in the marketplace: The making of meaning in annual reports. The Journal of Business Communication 34 (1), 47–66. | DOI 10.1177/002194369703400103
[25] Vogel, Radek (2018) Persuasion in business documents: strategies for reporting positively on negative phenomena. Ostrava Journal of English Philology 10 (1), 55–70.
[26] Yzer, Marco (2013) Reasoned action theory. In: Shen, Lijiang and Dillard, James P. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion. EBSCO Publishing, 120–136.
[27] Corpus of English and Czech Specialised Discourses_BUSINESS_English. Sketch Engine. Available at https://ske.fi.muni.cz.
[28] Corpus of English Executive Letters in ARs_BUS_2018. Sketch Engine. Available at https://ske.fi.muni.cz.
[29] Corpus of English Reviews in ARs_BUS_2018. Sketch Engine. Available at https://ske.fi.muni.cz.