Credibility in business reports

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14410%2F18%3A00101109" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14410/18:00101109 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Credibility in business reports

Original language description

Corporate and institutional annual reports are supposed to enhance the image and credibility of an institution. Credibility is based on fulfilment of validity claims, specifically of truth, sincerity, appropriateness and understandability (Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas 1984). Expertise and trust are also qualities which boost credibility. The paper analyses a genre included in corporate annual reports, "letters from executives", which attempt to persuade readers about managerial competence, optimistic prospects, successful operations of the company and its ambitious goals. The classical rhetorical appeals of ethos, logos and pathos seem to correspond to various strategies of communicating trustworthiness, reliability, credentials, expertise and achievements. However, executive letters in annual reports strive to persuade readers rather implicitly than explicitly. The analysis is carried out on a subcorpus of English and Czech documents, mostly executive letters and reports from corporate ARs, which forms a part of the Corpus of English and Czech Specialised Discourses (CECSD 2017) compiled at Masaryk University. The quantitative study focuses on relative frequency and ranking of verbs, nouns and adjectives with a persuasive potential, obviously preferred by the authors with the aimn of supporting the companies´ credibility.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60203 - Linguistics

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA17-16195S" target="_blank" >GA17-16195S: Persuasion across English and Czech Specialized Discourses</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2018

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů