On Chairman's Statement In Annual Report From The Perspective Of Linguistic Adaptation Theory

This thesis offers a linguistic perspective upon Chairman's Statement of Fortune 2007 Global 500,which is an important part in corporate annual report.Annual report disclosing the operating performance over the financial year is the main source of corporate financial information;it is also an important means to project a favorable corporate image.However,due to imperfect quality of the annual reports of Chinese companies listed overseas,it is worthy of a significant study of Chairman's Statement with a view to providing suggestions on writing it.Based on Verschueren's Adaptation Theory,the thesis puts forward its own theoretical framework and explores what and how the Chairman's Statement adapts to various factors.It employs qualitative and quantitative analysis.It is found that Chairman's Statement is an adaptation to language-external and language-internal factors.First,it is adapted to contextual correlates,in particular,the mental world of chairmen and investors.With regard to the mental world of chairmen,it mainly refers to such mentality as expressing gratitude to employees,shareholders and management, building trust and credibility,while the mental world of investors refers to investors' desire for more corporate information and more dividends.Second,it refers to language structure.On the level of lexis,Chairman's Statement is characterized by wide use of technical terms which makes it possible to display the related data that is concerned by shareholders,first personal pronoun that strengthens the relations between readers and company,numerals that make the statement more objective and persuasive and hedges in forward-looking to the future that indicate confidence and commitment of the company;On the level of syntax,it features simple sentence and less use of passive voice.Simple sentences are easy to read so as to expose Chairman's Statement to more readers;by less use of passive voice the Chairman's Statement has become less formal,the interpersonal distance between the participants has become shorter and a friendlier atmosphere has been created. The thesis systematically investigates Chairman's Statement from the perspective of adaptation theory,which offers a complete and systematic perspective of language study.It will shed light on the study of statements from the macro-perspective of pragmatics;meanwhile it provides some suggestions on writing the statements for Chinese corporations listed overseas.