1,720,991 research outputs found
Textual Voices in Corporate Reporting: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Chinese, Italian, and American CSR Reports
No full textThis article investigates direct quotations in a corpus of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports in Italian, Chinese, and English. The corpus is composed of 60 CSR reports published by Italian, Chinese, and American companies in the banking and energy sector. The study aims at exploring what types of textual voices are involved in the discourse of CSR reporting and how different sources of voices are represented, using the framework of social actor representation proposed by Van Leeuwen. The results show that the voices presented in direct quotations are often "orchestrated" by companies into "symphony" rather than "polyphony." Most of the sources of direct quotations are represented as individuals with specified names. The comparative analysis shows that companies from different cultural backgrounds present different preferences in selecting and representing the various sources. The Italian and American CSR reports present more voices from managers, while the Chinese CSR reports show a clearer preference for voices from employees and clients
The Generic Structure of CSR Reports in Italian, Chinese, and English: A Corpus-Based Analysis
No full textBackground: This study examines the generic structure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, which are becoming standard practice for corporate communication of social and environmental performance beyond financial disclosure. Literature review: Genre theories provide a framework for exploring genres contextualized in different cultures. Based on the English for Specific Purposes approach of genre analysis, this study compares the move structure of CSR reports in Italian, Chinese, and English from a corpus-based perspective. Research questions: 1. What are the main moves used in CSR reports? 2. Are there any cross-cultural similarities or variations in terms of generic features? Methodology: Combining genre theories with concepts from Systemic Functional Linguistics, we designed an observational framework for move identification. Based on a 15-move scheme, we annotated 18 CSR reports for comparative analysis. Results and conclusions: The CSR report is characterized by rhetorical recursivity and hybridity of speech acts: beyond “reporting” and “presenting,” it is also “demonstrating,” “evaluating,” and “committing.” As a globally established genre, it presents noticeable generic similarity in different languages, suggesting that the communicative purposes of CSR reports are recognized by different cultures. The top six moves in the Performance-reporting section of the CSR reports present identical trends in terms of extensiveness ranking in all three languages. Cross-cultural variations mainly involve the use of optional moves, such as the dominant use of the move “Presenting individual cases” in the Chinese sample. The observational framework for move identification may also be transferable to other genres. The limitations of this study include the sample size and the absence of an author survey. Future research could investigate the CSR report from a diachronic perspective, to explore how its genre structure has developed over time
CSR between guidelines and voluntary commitments
No full textThe paper focuses on how the legal status of CSR is reflected in EU communication. We look at the range of documents available on the issue on the EU website and – focusing on a policy document and a guidebook - we study how the discursive practices of policy-making and public communication are shaped to reconstruct and transform the representation of social actors. The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents a critical reading of relevant institutional documents produced by the European Commission and Parliament on CSR. Section 3 introduces the corpus for analysis. Section 4 provides data on specific aspects of the analysis (multimodality/hypertextuality, polyphony and modality) and Section 5 draws some conclusions
The generic structure of CSR reports: dynamicity, multimodality, complexity and recursivity
No full textThis paper examines the CSR report as a corporate communication genre characterized by dynamicity, multimodality, complexity and recursivity. Its socially recognized communicative purpose is to disclose the company’s economic, environmental and social performances which are relevant to its internal and external stakeholders. The study uses a comparative approach to explore the generic features of CSR reports.The paper examines CSR reports in Italian, Chinese and English and provides an account ofn the similarities and variations regarding its generic structure, with a particular focus on the self-presentation section. The analysis investigates five textual aspects of the CSR reports: the part-genres, the two sections of the main report, the lay-out formats, and the rhetorical moves, with a focus on the self-presentation section. The conclusions sum up the results in a discourse-analytic and cross-linguistic perspective
Can GPT-4 learn to analyse moves in research article abstracts?
No full textOne of the most powerful and enduring ideas in written discourse analysis is that genres can be described in terms of the moves which structure a writer’s purpose. Considerable research has sought to identify these distinct communicative acts, but analyses have been beset by problems of subjectivity, reliability and the time-consuming need for multiple coders to confirm analyses. In this paper we employ the affordances of GPT-4/Copilot to automate the annotation process by using natural language prompts. Focusing on abstracts from articles in four applied linguistics journals, we devise prompts which enable the model to identify moves effectively. The annotated outputs of these prompts were evaluated by two assessors with a third addressing disagreements. The results show that an 8-shot prompt was more effective than one using two, confirming that the inclusion of examples illustrating areas of variability can enhance GPT-4’s ability to recognize multiple moves in a single sentence and reduce bias related to textual position. We suggest that GPT-4 offers considerable potential in automating this annotation process, when human actors with domain-specific linguistic expertise inform the prompting process
Developing local grammars of speech acts in Italian: The case of apology
No full textThis study explores the viability of applying the local grammar approach to speech act studies beyond English by
developing a local grammar of apology in Italian. Drawing on data taken from the spoken Italian corpus of KIPTO,
we identified nine functional terms that are commonly associated with the semantics of apologies in Italian. We subsequently
used these terms to analyse instances of apologies from a local grammar perspective, leading to the identification
of 18 local grammar patterns of apology, with the pattern “Forgiveness-seeking” being the most prominent one. We
further discussed the opportunities (e.g., facilitating cross-linguistic speech act studies) and challenges (e.g., corpus
availability, identification of speech act instances in corpora) of using the local grammar approach to account for speech
acts in languages other than English. Overall, our argument is, and our study shows, that local grammars can be a
viable approach to speech act studies in and across various languages
“I Highly Commend Its Efforts to Ensure Power Supply”: Exploring the Pragmatics of Textual Voices in Chinese and English CSR Reports.
Full text linkThe study explores the use of quoted voices in a corpus of CSR reports in English and Chinese. The article provides first an overview of literature regarding polyphony in CSR, previous studies discussing functions of direct quotations, and a brief discussion of the Appraisal theory proposed by Martin and White (2005). Next, Section 3 outlines the methods and procedures employed for the analysis. The following two sections discuss the results regarding the functions and attitude language used in direct quotations in the CSR report, with particular attention on a comparative perspective. Finally, the last section seeks to provide some interpretative conclusions related to the research question
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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