Discourse connectives in genres of financial disclosure: earnings presentations vs. earnings releases

As multi-functional devices, discourse connectives have provided fertile ground for language researchers, regardless of theoretical orientation, methodological approach or context of analysis. This study investigates the use of selected discourse connectives in texts produced by companies for purposes of financial disclosure, representing a vital component of corporate communication. The analysis is based on two specially designed corpora of financial disclosure genres mediated by Information and Communication Technology (ICT): earnings presentations, i.e., oral presentations of financial results given by company executives to investment analysts via teleconferencing, and earnings releases, i.e., the written counterpart published on the Internet. Text analysis software was used to generate the quantitative profile of the discourse connectives, while follow-up qualitative analysis in the context of usage provided additional interpretive insights. Overall, the discourse connectives were found to be more frequent in the earnings presentations as compared to the earnings releases, even if they are more typically associated with written prose. Across both corpora, discourse connectives served a range of functions, often foregrounding the positive while attenuating the negative. These findings shed light on the pragmatic uses of discourse connectives by corporate speakers and writers as a way to influence the interpretation of the message, and thus succeed in achieving their professional aims.