Using Huawei annual reports as data sources, this study examines rhetorical strategies in business discourse for the construction of corporate identity. A socio-pragmatic framework is proposed for analysing such strategies, incorporating a textual analysis of rhetorical strategies, a discourse analysis of pragmatic functions and discursive tendencies, and a social analysis of the construction of corporate identity. The research concludes that, among other strategies, allusion and reference demonstrate the discursive tendency of commodification, while parody and metaphor highlight the discursive tendency of democratisation. In terms of the constructive functions, allusion, reference, parody, and metaphor are used to construct the commerciality, legitimacy, approachability, and entrepreneurship of an enterprise, respectively. This study highlights the importance of rhetorical strategies for the construction of corporate identity and the necessity for annual report writers to employ rhetorical strategies for better corporate communication.
{"title":"Rhetorical strategies for the construction of a corporate identity","authors":"Nan Wu, Meichun Liu, Jingyuan Zhang","doi":"10.1075/ps.20076.wu","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20076.wu","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Using Huawei annual reports as data sources, this study examines rhetorical strategies in business discourse for\u0000 the construction of corporate identity. A socio-pragmatic framework is proposed for analysing such strategies, incorporating a\u0000 textual analysis of rhetorical strategies, a discourse analysis of pragmatic functions and discursive tendencies, and a social\u0000 analysis of the construction of corporate identity. The research concludes that, among other strategies, allusion and reference\u0000 demonstrate the discursive tendency of commodification, while parody and metaphor highlight the discursive tendency of\u0000 democratisation. In terms of the constructive functions, allusion, reference, parody, and metaphor are used to construct the\u0000 commerciality, legitimacy, approachability, and entrepreneurship of an enterprise, respectively. This study highlights the\u0000 importance of rhetorical strategies for the construction of corporate identity and the necessity for annual report writers to\u0000 employ rhetorical strategies for better corporate communication.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42755586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper details the use of parentheses as pragmatic strategies in Chinese network socialization. The data were collected from Weibo, Wechat, QQ and other online social platforms, and analyzed from the perspective of Cyberpragmatics. We consider the pragmatic features and functions of parentheses as an indivisible part of the whole unit in relation to emojis or graphicons. As pragmatic strategies, parentheses aid speakers in indirectly performing various pragmatic intentions, like adding supplementary information to the interaction, isolating different topics, and contrasting content between the text outside and within parentheses. Further pragmatic functions realized by parentheses include indirectly conveying intention, relieving communicative awkwardness and adjusting interlocutors expectations. We conclude that using parentheses as pragmatic strategies in network socialization is the result of the evolution of the Internet language, and varies from the use of other emojis, which directly convey intentions and meaning.
{"title":"Parentheses used as pragmatic strategies in Chinese online socialization","authors":"Jie Li, Yanling Lin","doi":"10.1075/ps.20058.li","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20058.li","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper details the use of parentheses as pragmatic strategies in Chinese network socialization. The data were\u0000 collected from Weibo, Wechat, QQ and other online social platforms, and analyzed from the perspective of Cyberpragmatics. We\u0000 consider the pragmatic features and functions of parentheses as an indivisible part of the whole unit in relation to emojis or\u0000 graphicons. As pragmatic strategies, parentheses aid speakers in indirectly performing various pragmatic intentions, like adding\u0000 supplementary information to the interaction, isolating different topics, and contrasting content between the text outside and\u0000 within parentheses. Further pragmatic functions realized by parentheses include indirectly conveying intention, relieving\u0000 communicative awkwardness and adjusting interlocutors expectations. We conclude that using parentheses as pragmatic strategies in\u0000 network socialization is the result of the evolution of the Internet language, and varies from the use of other emojis, which\u0000 directly convey intentions and meaning.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44228044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While much has been written on the transition of organizational life into the New Work Order (NWO) and the effects this has had on employees in language-centered economic spaces, few studies have attempted to tease out how these NWO-expectations have affected less language-centered workplaces. In this article, I focus on such a workplace, namely a medical lab, and I tease out processes of what I call ‘identity gatekeeping’. With this term I refer to the fact that NWO-employees are expected to be knowledge-workers whose identities need to be aligned with organizational expectations. As such, these identities become a crucial object of intra-organizational gatekeeping. Focusing on three performance appraisal interviews and using a social-realist discourse-analytical approach, I demonstrate how the superior’s interactional identity negotiations either mold or silence dissident identities depending on the employee’s future professional aspirations. Finally, the implications of these interactional negotiation processes for NWO-ways of working are discussed.
{"title":"Identity gatekeeping in New Work Order organizations","authors":"Dorien Van De Mieroop","doi":"10.1075/ps.20039.van","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20039.van","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While much has been written on the transition of organizational life into the New Work Order (NWO) and the effects\u0000 this has had on employees in language-centered economic spaces, few studies have attempted to tease out how these NWO-expectations\u0000 have affected less language-centered workplaces. In this article, I focus on such a workplace, namely a medical lab, and I tease\u0000 out processes of what I call ‘identity gatekeeping’. With this term I refer to the fact that NWO-employees are expected to be\u0000 knowledge-workers whose identities need to be aligned with organizational expectations. As such, these identities become a crucial\u0000 object of intra-organizational gatekeeping. Focusing on three performance appraisal interviews and using a social-realist\u0000 discourse-analytical approach, I demonstrate how the superior’s interactional identity negotiations either mold or silence\u0000 dissident identities depending on the employee’s future professional aspirations. Finally, the implications of these interactional\u0000 negotiation processes for NWO-ways of working are discussed.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43855921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Is the use of the first-person singular becoming more prevalent in journalistic writing, like often claimed, and what is it used for? In order to tackle these questions, we analysed 11,775 articles published between 1960 and 2010 in the cultural sections of ABC and El País (Spain), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), Le Monde (France), and The Guardian (UK). Our analysis focuses on the variation and change in the frequency and functions of first-person singular pronoun and verb forms over time and between different newspapers. We provide a logistic regression analysis of the whole dataset, as well as a qualitative analysis of the 1,077 articles containing at least one first-person singular. The analyses reveal a considerable amount of variation in first-person singular usage between each newspaper. The findings, however, converge to reveal that the frequency of first-persons singulars increases over time while its narrative uses become predominant at the expense of the evaluative and epistemic ones.
{"title":"From evaluative authorities to involved narrators","authors":"Pekka Posio, Riie Heikkilä","doi":"10.1075/ps.20062.pos","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20062.pos","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Is the use of the first-person singular becoming more prevalent in journalistic writing, like often claimed, and what is it used for? In order to tackle these questions, we analysed 11,775 articles published between 1960 and 2010 in the cultural sections of ABC and El País (Spain), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), Le Monde (France), and The Guardian (UK). Our analysis focuses on the variation and change in the frequency and functions of first-person singular pronoun and verb forms over time and between different newspapers. We provide a logistic regression analysis of the whole dataset, as well as a qualitative analysis of the 1,077 articles containing at least one first-person singular. The analyses reveal a considerable amount of variation in first-person singular usage between each newspaper. The findings, however, converge to reveal that the frequency of first-persons singulars increases over time while its narrative uses become predominant at the expense of the evaluative and epistemic ones.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44771756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study takes as its analytic topic the identification of different sequentially organized phenomena endemic to initiation of reason-for-the call action in Farsi mobile calls. Using Conversation Analysis, through fine-grained analysis of participants’ observable orientation to the formulation of the reason for the call, it documents the trajectory of talk and the sequential phenomena associated with the statement of the reason for Farsi mobile phone calls. The findings suggest callers routinely perform the task of warranting their calls either by overtly announcing the reason, using the discourse marker of ‘migam’ (I meant to say) and its permutations or non-overtly, by positioning the reason for initiating the contact in anchor position, enabling their co-participants to pinpoint the warrant prompting the call out of various things said by callers and to relevantly respond to it. In addition, location enquiries figure in the reason-for-the-call, if seeking geographic information has localization purposes.
{"title":"Initiating reason-for-the-call action in mundane mobile phone conversation","authors":"A. Kazemi","doi":"10.1075/ps.19030.kaz","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.19030.kaz","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study takes as its analytic topic the identification of different sequentially organized phenomena endemic to initiation of reason-for-the call action in Farsi mobile calls. Using Conversation Analysis, through fine-grained analysis of participants’ observable orientation to the formulation of the reason for the call, it documents the trajectory of talk and the sequential phenomena associated with the statement of the reason for Farsi mobile phone calls. The findings suggest callers routinely perform the task of warranting their calls either by overtly announcing the reason, using the discourse marker of ‘migam’ (I meant to say) and its permutations or non-overtly, by positioning the reason for initiating the contact in anchor position, enabling their co-participants to pinpoint the warrant prompting the call out of various things said by callers and to relevantly respond to it. In addition, location enquiries figure in the reason-for-the-call, if seeking geographic information has localization purposes.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48934997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Expanding the research investigating compliments in CMC genres, this study explores reciprocal compliments from consumers and service-providers on Airbnb, a major tourism platform. Specifically, the study examines distribution of compliments in both guest reviews of Online Experiences (a virtual tourism service) and hosts’ responses to those reviews, focusing on compliment topics, their syntactic realizations, and their associated intensification strategies. Despite some similarities with prior research on CMC compliments with respect to the overall frequency and general expression of compliments, we also identified several differences related to compliment reciprocity as well as a greater tendency toward more formal language use in this professional digital context. These differences are likely related to the different relationships among participants, as well as different user goals when communicating on commercially-oriented sites versus social networking sites, demonstrating the need to expand the scope of CMC compliment research to include a broader range of platforms.
{"title":"“Jerry was a terrific host!” “You were a brilliant guest!”","authors":"Irene Cenni, Camilla Vásquez","doi":"10.1075/ps.20059.cen","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20059.cen","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Expanding the research investigating compliments in CMC genres, this study explores reciprocal compliments from\u0000 consumers and service-providers on Airbnb, a major tourism platform. Specifically, the study examines distribution of compliments\u0000 in both guest reviews of Online Experiences (a virtual tourism service) and hosts’ responses to those reviews, focusing on\u0000 compliment topics, their syntactic realizations, and their associated intensification strategies. Despite some similarities with\u0000 prior research on CMC compliments with respect to the overall frequency and general expression of compliments, we also identified\u0000 several differences related to compliment reciprocity as well as a greater tendency toward more formal language use in this\u0000 professional digital context. These differences are likely related to the different relationships among participants, as well as\u0000 different user goals when communicating on commercially-oriented sites versus social networking sites, demonstrating the need to\u0000 expand the scope of CMC compliment research to include a broader range of platforms.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45383923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Commercial advertisements are considered informative discourse, whereas the manipulative effects of their verbal and visual strategies have been ignored. According to van Dijk (2006), manipulation in mass media is performed by drawing the audience’s attention to information A rather than to B, by providing irrelevant or incomplete information, and by playing emotional games. Since the analysis of manipulative effects of semiotic features used in advertisements is scarce, the present research project investigates the potential manipulative effects of semiotic aspects used in Persian printed advertisements, and the influence of the Iranian sociocultural context on designing these visual messages. A corpus of 160 Persian printed advertisements was analyzed; the results revealed that their semiotic features, especially those which are meaningful based on the sociocultural context of Iran, tend to inculcate relevant information and meaning in consumers, in order to control their minds and subsequently their purchases. The findings of this study include six theme-based categories of semiotic manipulation strategies: Celebrity images, Creative images, Punctuation marks, Natural images, Seasonal images, and Cultural images. The results are discussed along the lines of research methodology in discourse and semiotic analysis.
{"title":"Semiotic manipulation strategies employed in Iranian printed advertisements","authors":"Khadijeh Mohamadi, H. Weisi","doi":"10.1075/ps.20005.moh","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20005.moh","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Commercial advertisements are considered informative discourse, whereas the manipulative effects of their verbal and visual strategies have been ignored. According to van Dijk (2006), manipulation in mass media is performed by drawing the audience’s attention to information A rather than to B, by providing irrelevant or incomplete information, and by playing emotional games. Since the analysis of manipulative effects of semiotic features used in advertisements is scarce, the present research project investigates the potential manipulative effects of semiotic aspects used in Persian printed advertisements, and the influence of the Iranian sociocultural context on designing these visual messages. A corpus of 160 Persian printed advertisements was analyzed; the results revealed that their semiotic features, especially those which are meaningful based on the sociocultural context of Iran, tend to inculcate relevant information and meaning in consumers, in order to control their minds and subsequently their purchases. The findings of this study include six theme-based categories of semiotic manipulation strategies: Celebrity images, Creative images, Punctuation marks, Natural images, Seasonal images, and Cultural images. The results are discussed along the lines of research methodology in discourse and semiotic analysis.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41904905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The present article focuses on certain points in the semantics/pragmatics debate. Among these, one of the most interesting is the possibility of reconciling, independent of the context, certain aspects of meaning which have always been the subject of discussion in formal semantics, with the view that meaning is socially and situationally conditioned. Recent new insights concerning the importance of pragmatics for enriching the propositional content of the utterance should not lead to a radical contextualism that denies the assignment of any role at all to semantics. Instead, it is possible to argue that both dimensions, semantics and pragmatics, along with their constituent parts, offer fundamental contributions to the transmission and understanding of the overall meaning of a (spoken or written) text.
{"title":"On the nature of pragmatic constituents","authors":"Roberto Graci","doi":"10.1075/ps.21001.gra","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.21001.gra","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The present article focuses on certain points in the semantics/pragmatics debate. Among these, one of the most\u0000 interesting is the possibility of reconciling, independent of the context, certain aspects of meaning which have always been the\u0000 subject of discussion in formal semantics, with the view that meaning is socially and situationally conditioned. Recent new\u0000 insights concerning the importance of pragmatics for enriching the propositional content of the utterance should not lead to a\u0000 radical contextualism that denies the assignment of any role at all to semantics. Instead, it is possible to argue that both\u0000 dimensions, semantics and pragmatics, along with their constituent parts, offer fundamental contributions to the transmission and\u0000 understanding of the overall meaning of a (spoken or written) text.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42349014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Xie, Yus & Haberland (2021): Approaches to Internet Pragmatics: Theory and practice","authors":"Shaopeng Li, Yongxiang Yang","doi":"10.1075/ps.00060.li","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.00060.li","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48786575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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