Pragmatic uses of person pro-forms in intercultural financial discourse: A contrastive case study of earnings calls
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Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli
Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli is Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Pisa. Her research focuses on business discourse in both academic and corporate settings. She has published in leading journals, including Journal of Pragmatics, Discourse & Communication and English for Specific Purposes. She is the author of “The Language of Business Studies Lectures” (John Benjamins, 2007). She has taught business communication courses for universities based in Italy, the US and the UAE.
Abstract
The important role of person pro-forms in establishing interpersonal relations has long been recognized. During interaction, person pro-forms act as indexicals whose referents are determined by the context in which they are used. This study focuses on the pragmatic functions of first and second-person pro-forms in earnings calls, now the primary channel for oral financial reporting in the corporate world. Earnings calls consist of presentations by company executives followed by question-and-answer sessions with financial analysts who participate via teleconferencing. A contrastive case study based on the earnings call of an Italian company and a US company was undertaken to provide insights into how person pro-forms are used in ICT-mediated financial discourse when English is used as a common language. Text analysis software was used to descriptively analyze person pro-forms. In addition, the two datasets were manually examined to identify pragmatic functions that could shed light on interpersonal relations and participant roles. Overall, person pro-form usage was closely aligned with the distinct objectives of the participants as either “information seekers” or “information providers.” However, some interesting differences suggest that the Italian executives had a more interpersonal approach to the interaction compared to the American executives. This could be influenced by the importance of relationships in the Italian culture, but could also reflect strategic choices to achieve professional goals. The findings can be used to help both corporate professionals and students of management and finance acquire a better understanding of the pragmatics of person pro-forms, and thus become more effective communicators in intercultural contexts.
About the author
Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli is Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Pisa. Her research focuses on business discourse in both academic and corporate settings. She has published in leading journals, including Journal of Pragmatics, Discourse & Communication and English for Specific Purposes. She is the author of “The Language of Business Studies Lectures” (John Benjamins, 2007). She has taught business communication courses for universities based in Italy, the US and the UAE.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Munich/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Black as night or as a chimney sweep? Color words and typical exemplars
- Pragmatic uses of person pro-forms in intercultural financial discourse: A contrastive case study of earnings calls
- Request patterns by EFL Canarian Spanish students: Contrasting data by languages and research methods
- Evaluating while justifying intercultural requests
- Forum
- Interculturalism, multiculturalism, and intercultural studies: Questioning definitions and repositioning strategies
- Preference structure in L2 Arabic requests
- Book Reviews
- Book Review
- Book Review
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Black as night or as a chimney sweep? Color words and typical exemplars
- Pragmatic uses of person pro-forms in intercultural financial discourse: A contrastive case study of earnings calls
- Request patterns by EFL Canarian Spanish students: Contrasting data by languages and research methods
- Evaluating while justifying intercultural requests
- Forum
- Interculturalism, multiculturalism, and intercultural studies: Questioning definitions and repositioning strategies
- Preference structure in L2 Arabic requests
- Book Reviews
- Book Review
- Book Review
