A Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis of CEO Statements in CSR Reports——A Comparative Study of Huawei and Apple

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report is an effective way to promote the management of social responsibility and strengthen internal and external communication. CEO Statement, as the initial and prominent section in CSR reports, can give readers an overview of the whole reports. This paper selects Huawei and Apple as the data source and downloads the CEO statements in CSR reports from the official websites between 2017 and 2021 and build two corpora. The author uses Fairclough’s three-dimensional critical discourse analysis (CDA) mode as framework to analyze text, discourse practice and social practice of the CEO statements. By comparative analysis of CEO statements in Huawei and Apple CSR reports, we can find different features caused by different cultures. The study will provide practical suggestions for Chinese companies when compiling overseas CSR reports.