Journal of Literature and Art Studies, February 2022, Vol. 12, No. 2, 195-201抓药
doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2022.02.011被动句是什么意思
A Corpus Rearch of the Corporate Identity
—Bad on the Sustainability Report of China Mobile and
Annual Report of AT&T
FANG Xiao-ting
Department of Foreign language, Wuhan University of Technology, Hubei, China, 430070
Bad on the English version of the Sustainability Report of China Mobile and the Annual Report of AT&T
published in 2019 to 2020, this paper us discour analysis framework Discour-Historical Approach. It
explains and analys the identity of China Mobile and AT&T and discuss the ideological factors behind their
images through the analysis of referential strategy, strategies of perspectivation and strategies of intensification
and mitigation. By combining the u of corpus, this paper also analys the identity of China Mobile and AT&T
from the perspective of the u of high-frequency content words, modal verbs and their concordance. By doing so,
the rearch shows that the identity created by the English version of China Mobile’s Sustainability Report is
mainly authentic and practical, focusing on management and sustainable development as well as the development
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of technology. While the identity of AT&T is people-friendly, concerning about equity of female, male and black
people, and focusing on diversity and inclusion.
Keywords:corpus, corporate identity, discour analysis, discour-historical approach
1. Rearch Background
Corporate image, which is originated in the 1950s, refers to the sum of knowledge, beliefs, feelings, ideas, impressions and values of corporate entities (Williams & Moffitt, 1997). The international academic
community has carried out rearch on corporate identity since the 1990s, but most of the relevant rearches
have been carried out from the perspective of management and marketing. There are relatively few empirical
紫苤蓝
rearches bad on linguistic theories and methods, and the domestic linguistic community pays less attention
to corporate identity (Shi & Cheng, 2021, p. 171). Corporate discour, as an important carrier to highlight the
ideas, culture and operation of enterpri, plays an important role in the construction of corporate identity. The
sustainability report usually introduces the sustainable development strategy, policy, management and
performance adopted by the enterpri from the economic, social and environmental aspects, so as to strengthen
the communication between the enterpri and the outside world and improve the corporate image (Hu &
Sheng, 2020, p. 95). The annual report published by the company also reprents what the company has done
during the whole year. Therefore, bad on Wodak’s discour-historical approach and lf-building corpus,
FANG Xiao-ting, Master of Art, Master Student, School of Foreign Language, Wuhan University of Technology.
A CORPUS RESEARCH OF THE CORPORATE IDENTITY
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this paper analyzes the sustainability report of China Mobile and annual report of American Telephone &
Telegraph (AT&T), which were issued in 2019 and 2020 from the perspective of the analysis of high-frequency
content words, collocations and the concordance lines showed in the corpus tool AntConc3.2.4w. By doing so,
the language features of the English version of Sustainability Report and the Annual Report, as well as the
corporate identity it constructs can be revealed, in order to clarify the role of discour in building corporate
identity.安徽省太湖县
2. Literature Review
Rearch on the identity of domestic institutions is mainly focud on legal discour and news discour.
Some scholars pay attention to the identity of universities, and few scholars study the identity of enterpris.
The rearch on corporate identity is mostly focud on three aspects: the relationship between corporate publicity translation and corporate image, the comparative study of Chine and foreign corporate image and
the analysis of corporate image. Among the three aspects, most papers are about the analysis of corporate
identity, which promotes the rearch on corporate image and deepens the academic understanding of the
esnce and characteristics of corporate image.
Among the rearch of the relationship between corporate publicity translation and corporate image, Mou Yiwu and Wu Yun (2021) have explored the path of constructing Chine corporate image in enterpri
hypertext publicity translation, to display the new Chine corporate image by using the nonlinear, multimodal
and interactive characteristics of hypertext. Xu Jun and Zi Zhengquan (2020) through the lf-built
Chine-English parallel corpus of corporate profiles, using USAS and taking Beijing companies as a rearch All Rights Rerved.
point, have investigated the hidden corporate image in the corporate publicity translation.
There are some rearches of the comparative study of Chine and foreign corporate image. For e
xample, Zhao Yonggang (2021) has investigated the construction of Chine corporate image in news reported by China
Daily and the New York Times. Shi Xingsong and Cheng Xia (2020), from social constructionism, combined
电梯应急预案with the discour-historical analysis, and with the help of the corpus tool Wmatrix, have compared the
commonness and individuality of the construction of identity in the overview of Chine and American banks
from three levels: macro theme, discour strategies and micro language characteristics. Wu Nan and Zhang
Jingyuan (2019) have taken the 2017 annual reports of Huawei and Apple as the corpus, adopting
discour-historical approach, and comparing the implementation methods and language characteristics of
discour strategies of Chine and American corporate identity.
Most rearches are about corporate image analysis. For example, Hu Kaibao and Sheng Dandan (2020) have adopted Fairclough’s critical discour analysis theory and its three-dimensional discour analysis model.
By using corpus, from the perspective of the application of high-frequency content words, keywords and modal
verbs, this paper describes the language features of the English translation of Huawei’s Sustainability Report
(2008-2017) and the image of Huawei, and discuss the ideological factors behind the image of Huawei.
Bad on the analysis framework of Van Demieroop, Li Yi and Xu Haiping (2021) have analyzed the English
company profile of Chine enterpris, and discusd how enterpris realize the construction of institutional
identity through discour construction strategy in the background of overas market.
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3. Design of Rearch
3.1 Rearch Materials
The two companies lected are from 2021 Fortune Global 500. One is China Mobile (ranking 56) and the other one is American Telephone & Telegraph (ranking 26). Both companies are about communications. The
corpus ud in this study comes from the English translation of the Sustainability Report of China Mobile and
the Annual Report of AT&T which were published in 2019 and 2020 on the official website. The total number
of tokens of China Mobile is 50348 and the sum of types is 6087. The total sum of tokens of AT&T is 36291
and the types are 6667.
3.2 Theoretical Framework
This paper analyzes the reports of China Mobile and AT&T bad on the discour-historical approach that has been propod by Ruth Wodak. Discour-historical approach analysis methods include five analysis
strategies: referential strategy; strategies of prediction; strategies of argumentation; strategies of perspectivation;
and strategies of intensification and mitigation.
The referential strategy realizes the construction of identity within or outside the enterpri group. The strategies of prediction realize the construction of enterpri vision and factual identity. The strategy of
perspectivation realizes the construction of enterpri’s subjective and objective identity. The strategies of
intensification and mitigation realize the construction of enterpri’s arbitrary or negotiated identity (Wu &
Zhang, 2019, p. 223)
3.3 Rearch Steps
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According to Wodak’s discour-historical approach, this paper analyzes the corporate identity created in the English version of China Mobile’s Sustainability Report and AT&T’s Annual Report from the referential
strategy, strategies of perspectivation and strategies of intensification and mitigation.
Firstly, taking high-frequency content words, concordance lines and collocations as the rearch objects, this paper reveals the corporate identity of China Mobile and AT&T created in their respective report.
High-frequency content words can usually reflect the key issues concerned by enterpris, describe the
measures often taken by the speaker, and involve the thoughts, words and actions of the speaker, which can be
directly applied to the shaping of the image of the speaker (Hu & Sheng, 2020, p. 97)
Then this paper makes discour analysis of the reports from the referential strategy, the strategy of perspectivation and the strategies of intensification and mitigation. The paper also reveals the ideological
factors behind the image of China Mobile and AT&T.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 The Analysis of Text
4.1.1 High-Frequency Content Words
Bad on the corpus analysis software AntConc3.2.4w, the lected corpus is sorted by high-frequency content words. The top ten high-frequency content words of the two companies are shown as follows:
A CORPUS RESEARCH OF THE CORPORATE IDENTITY
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Table 1
Top Ten High-frequency Content Words
AT&T Frequency Rate China Mobile Frequency Rate
our 480 23.1% we 601 17.8%
we 387 18.6% G 425 12.6%
办图employee(s) 191 9.2% China 403 11.9%
their 174 8.4% our 351 10.4%
women 169 8.1% mobile 348 10.3%
diversity 165 7.9% management 293 8.7%
best 136 6.5% employee(s) 280 8.3%
member(s) 133 6.4% development 264 7.8%
people 130 6.3% number 217 6.4%
black 116 5.6% information 197 5.8%
Total 2081 100% 3379 100% The lf-referential words “we” and “our” refer to company. Using the first-person narrative to refer to the company can shorten the distance with the audience and have more affinity. At the same time, “China” in the
Sustainability Report ranks third by frequency. However, when referred to the concordance of “China”, it can
be en that the word “China” often appears with the word “mobile”. “China Mobile” has appeared 257 times,
highlights the authoritative position of state-owned enterpris and tends to make relationship with the national
government policy. “G” ranks cond on the list. “G” means 5G in the text. which means that the company
pays much attention to technology and aims to make great u of 5G. The word “management” comes next,
which shows China Mobile puts management at the forefront. From the high-frequency content word list, it is All Rights Rerved.
easy to find China Mobile cares about its employees and us number to highlight the asts of the enterpri
and emphasizes its own ability, making the report more convincing.
In AT&T’s report, “employee(s)” appears frequently after the lf-referential words “our” and “we”. It is obvious that this company pay much attention to its staff. The word “women” ranks fifth and “black” ranks
tenth on the list, which means the enterpri wants to make a balance between men and women and races. The
word “diversity” appears frequently on the report, which reflects American multi-culture. Instead of using
numbers to show what AT&T has done, it us “best” to show what awards it has got.
4.1.2 Concordance and Collocations
After analyzing the concordance and collocations of the high-frequency content words, it is found that: In China Mobile’s report, by analyzing the concordance of “management”, it is found that “management” is
mostly matched with “approach and action”, “system”, “risk”, “quality” and “environment”, indicating that
China Mobile emphasizes management methods and systematic management, as well as the sustainability of
management. The word “development” is mostly matched with “high-quality”, “social” and “sustainable”,
which shows that China Mobile concerns about sustainable development and the development of quality. It is
related to Chine long-term orientation culture. By analyzing the concordance and collocation of
“employee(s)”, it shows that China Mobile cares about the life, needs of employees and female employees.
The concordances build caring for employee development-oriented company identity. The word
“information” is frequently matched with “technology”, “curity” and “rvice”, which are all the concerning
problems of customers. The frequent application of the words shows that China Mobile emphasizes practical
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issues directly related to the company’s development, such as rvice, management and development
(sustainable development and 5G development), and shapes a practical identity.
In AT&T’s report, the word “employee(s)” is most frequently collocated with “our”, which greatly shortens the distance of the company and employees. The word “diversity” is frequently collocated with
“inclusion”, “supplier” and “equity”. It constructs people-friendly identity by using the words, which is in
line with American culture. The word “people” appears frequently with “of color” and “disability”. It means
that AT&T aims to ea racial conflicts and concerns about the disable people.
4.2 Analysis of Discour Strategy
By analyzing the discour, it is found that the two companies u referential strategy, strategy of perspectivation and strategy of intensification and mitigation to build their own identity.
4.2.1 Referential Strategy
Referential strategy in discour-historical approach refers to how to name and refer to social actors, objects, phenomena, events, process and behaviors in discour from the perspective of linguistics.
香螺怎么做好吃(1) Self Reference of the Enterpri
In the two reports, the first-person pronoun “we” and the posssive pronoun “our” are more widely ud to refer to the enterpri itlf than the collocation “China Mobile” and “AT&T”. The first-person pronoun is a
discour strategy commonly ud by enterpris in external publicity to personalize the discour, which helps
to reduce the distance between enterpris and readers (Degano, 2010, p. 257). Therefore, China Mobile’s and
AT&T’s reports focus on building the identity clod to the people, highlighting harmony and friendship. By
using “we” and “our”, readers can feel they are in a group with the company.
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(2) Reference of Employee
The word “employee(s)” is often ud to refer to staffs in the report, which regards employees as an
other subject independent of the enterpri, clearly constructs the employees’ out-group identity. In Chine culture,
there exists high power distance between superiors and subordinates. China Mobile us “employees” to
highlight the social distance and power relationship between enterpris and employees, and highlight the
enterpri’s authoritative identity, which is in line with the power distance in Hofstede’s cultural dimension
theory. While in AT&T’s report, although it also us “employees”, the report puts “our” in front of it. By
adding this word, the in-group identity of employees is constructed. It not only cares for the psychological至始至终什么意思
feelings of employees, enhances their n of belonging and psychological identification with the enterpri,
but also narrows the social distance between enterpris and employees, and shapes people-friendly image of
the enterpri. According to Hofstede et al.’s (2010, p. 61) power distance theory, China has a high-power
distance, while the power distance in America is low. Hence, in AT&T’s report, it can be en that it tries to
build people-friendly identity.
4.2.2 Strategies of Perspectivation
There are two ways of quotation: direct and indirect speech. In the two reports, the direct speech is widely adopted. In AT&T’s report, the direct speech is from its employees and suppliers. While in China Mobile’s
report, the direct speech is from its customers.
