A Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Risk Section In Corporate Annual Reports

Given the increasingly complex global economic environment,corporate annual reports have drawn much attention as the main medium for enterprises to disclose the information and attract investments.The research on annual reports is gradually extended to incorporate the approaches and methods of linguistics.The previous linguistic studies mainly focus on the interpersonal meaning of shareholders’ speech and social responsibility reports,and there seem to be few studies on risks.For China’s enterprises which facing the trend of going global and listing,it is necessary to learn the international standard of writing annual reports,especially the disclosure of risks.Taking advantage of Fairclough’s three-dimensional analysis framework,and in accordance with the characteristics of the text,this thesis attempts to analyze the linguistic characteristics,causes,and functions of risk discourse through quantitative and qualitative methods.The corpus of this study is a collection of the texts of risk factors and risk management section taken from the corporate annual reports of the top 11 American banks.This thesis utilizes the corpus tool Ant Conc to analyze the discourse characteristics of risk disclosure in corporate annual report in the aspects of nominalization,semantic prosody,and modality,and explore how to transmit risks reasonably through discourse strategy to realize impacts on readers.The result shows that the use of nominalized suffixes is of high frequency mainly related to risk impacts on companies.Suffixes mainly express static states and processes,making the report more objective and normative.The phenomenon of semantic prosody is also prominent.The positive semantic rhyme is dominant,aiming to present a good development momentum and positive image of the company;the negative semantic rhyme objectively presents the risk facts and analyzes the cause of the impact;neutral semantic rhyme plays a neutral role,making the whole report of company’s risks more authentic and convincing.Apart from semantic prosody,modal verbs implicitly convey companies’ evaluation and attitude.The low-valued modal verbs are most frequently used,suggesting the existence of risks and the uncertainty of influence,which is beneficial to alleviate the negative impression and impact.The high-valued modal verbs of low frequency are designed to express companies’ clear responsibility,firm attitude towards risk management and control.Risk discourse conveys risks objectively and transfers the risk effects on enterprises skillfully to demonstrate the power of risk discourse,realizing the invisible influence on readers.The theoretical significance of this thesis lies in enriching the application of critical discourse analysis in business discourse and refining research on annual reports.The practical significance of this thesis is to promote the internationalization of Chinese enterprises,especially disclosing risks in the annual report.Moreover,it can provide practical references for the construction of a risk discourse system and hints for investors to better analyze and understand the risks in corporate annual reports,to make effective investments.In addition,this research brings ideas on business English teaching and research and provides practical references for the drafting and writing of such business reports.