Does the Name Matter? Ways of Conducting Communication of Public Relations Agencies with the Public on the Basis of Quantitative-Corpus Research on Language

Abstract

The current article presents the results of a study conducted using the quantitative-corpus analysis of discourse (CADS) based on the theory of social constructivism and the linguistic picture of the world (henceforward LPW). The research examined two text corpora, constructed from available self-presentation texts posted on 415 public relations (PR) agency websites in Poland (this is the largest such study in the country). K1 corpus, where the agency’s name is aimed directly at the communication/PR area, and K2 corpus, where there is no such link in the company name. In the course of the analysis, the authors focus on reconstructing the agency’s self-description and self-presentation (frequency and cross-section through the lexical structure of the corpora) in the context of the communication and demographic profile of the studied PR agencies. The lexical analysis of the corpora also made it possible to identify elements that—in the eyes of market practitioners—are considered essential to professional PR, and thus form the basis of the PR industry’s professional identity.