Volume 38, Issue 4 -

An earnings conference call is a hybrid genre of reporting and promotional discourses in which evaluation plays an important role. Using data from two self-built corpora, this study aims to explore the frequency and functions of evaluation in English earnings conference calls issued by Chinese companies and international companies. Using the computer software package Wmatrix, we carried out a key semantic domains analysis and keywords analysis of the data. The major findings of the analyses are as follows: First, the four parameters of evaluation receive different degrees of importance in earnings conference calls. Second, in earnings conference calls evaluation performs three inter-related functions: as an image promotion strategy, as a speaker identity indexing strategy, and as metadiscourse. Third, although there are similarities, speakers of Chinese companies deviate from their international counterparts in using evaluative language during the calls in aspects of parameters and word choice. Possible reasons for these similarities and differences are discussed with reference to the functions of evaluation in the call as a hybrid genre, genre awareness, and cultural influences.

This article investigates the conflictive construction of identities in Chinese interactions. We examine the way in which people build up their own identities as “experts” and negate others’ similar identities in Chinese televised debates with complex participation structure. Our datasets are collected from 120 Chinese televised debates. Using indexicality (Bucholtz, Mary & Kira Hall. 2005. Identity and interaction: a socio-cultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7[4/5]. 585–614) and Membership Categorization (Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation , vols I and II, edited by G. Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell) as analytic notions to capture the interactional co-construction of identities, we examine the ways in which identity co-construction in such conflict scenarios takes place, as interactants attempt to construct their own identities as experts, and negate the expert identities of others. This exploration fills an important knowledge gap: little research has been done on Chinese conflict talk, in particular from the perspective of the co-construction of identities. Our research models identity construction in conflict by identifying various routes or “strategies” through which identities can be worked out in conflict scenarios. Our focus is on revealing how interlocutors construct or promote their identity by making their membership category conform to their category-bound activity/attribute, and negate others’ identity by revealing others’ violation of category-bound activity/attribute.

The purpose of this study is to support early childhood teachers’ understanding of the diversity and sophistication present in young children’s storytelling to counteract singular and tacit conceptualizations of story. Drawing on the notion of genre, this study uses systemic functional linguistics to examine rhetorical patterns in the storytelling of a group of children in multilingual and multicultural classrooms. Stories were collected in the context of a small group storytelling activity called story circles. Participation in story circles resulted in 176 stories. Children’s stories were parsed into story stages and story genres based on functional purpose and known patterns in the grammar of language. Results show that the children told stories that varied not only in length and complexity, but in choice of story genres. Further, the majority of children employed different genres of story across the four weeks of the activity. The children in this sample used storytelling as a vehicle for giving significance to everyday experience, elevating ideas and establishing relationships in the classroom context.

Radio highlights the linguistic construction of institutional identity: it privileges presenter speech, as DJs use language to represent not only the self but also the show, and ultimately the station’s identity to the listening audience for commercial purposes. The relationship between show structure and stylistic practice in interaction offers insights into identity construction and audience relationships in institutional settings. This qualitative study investigates the linguistic construction of closing sequences in bilingual radio discourse, examining the relationship between DJ speech and the interactional construction of closing structures in 18 report- and chat-genre closings from 95.1 Latino Vibe. Findings indicate that closing structures are genre-specific, with the less-formal chat genre integrating elements of media and conversational closings. Code-switching is genre-sensitive and plays a multifaceted functional, relational, and representational role, ranging from constructing show structures to audience affiliation and a formulaic type of “verbal branding.” Ultimately, closing sequences and code-switching relate to broader institutional goals of station representation and audience engagement. The article sheds light on the relationship between interaction-level discourse moves, institutionalized identity construction, and the development of interactional structures through talk; and highlights the added dimensions that bilingual speech strategies contribute to these practices.

This paper examines the forms, frequency and pragmatic functions of direct quotations in Nigerian investigative public hearings on the Federal Capital Territory administration. The quotations are taken from 40 purposively selected investigative public hearings which are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively from a discourse-pragmatic approach to quotations as well as from the perspective of metapragmatic act theory. The quotations involve both written and spoken quotations, self- and other-quotations, as well as actual and hypothetical quotations. Direct quotations are used in the hearings by quoters to frame their discourse, support their claims, indicate different stances, depict victimhood, serve as reminders, correct misunderstandings, and model discourse. The forms, distribution and functions of these quotations indicate how speakers in the hearings frame their discourse in order to help hearers interpret their talk appropriately.