A Pragmatic Study Of Hedges In The “Risk Factors” Item Of Corporate Annual Reports

The corporate annual report is a periodic summary of the performance of a corporation. It is also the important source for the shareholders and investors to know the operating conditions of the corporation. The primary purpose of the annual report is to provide information, establish the corporate image, and persuade potential investors. One of the features of annual reports is the emphasis on the accuracy and authenticity of the information provided. The “risk factors” item, which is of great significance in annual reports, generally makes a detailed statement on the risks and uncertainties which probably occur in the investment of a company’s stock, and which investors should seriously consider before purchasing shares of the company. Accurately and faithfully stating the risks while at the same time preserving a good corporate image and good relationship with investors has become one of the significant tasks for annual report writers.Based on Hyland’s model and Grice’s cooperative principles, this study aims to analyze the application of hedges in the corpus RFE, comprised of 16 pieces of “risk factors” item extracted from 16 corporate annual reports, and seeks to answer the following three questions: Firstly, what is the frequency of each category of hedges used in the “risk factors” item in the selected annual reports? Secondly, how do the hedges observe or violate the cooperative principle? Finally, what are the pragmatic functions that hedges serve in the “risk factors” item in the annual report?Through the construction of corpus RFE and data analysis, several conclusions can be drawn. It is found that accuracy-oriented hedges are the most frequently used hedges in the corpus, accounting nearly three quarters of all the hedges, while the writer-oriented type is the least frequently used one. From the perspective of the cooperative principle, in order to make the statement more accurate and convincing and avoid being absolute and arbitrary, report writers usually employ hedges and observe the quality maxim. In order to convey information in an effective way and minimize the potential risks that the corporation may face, and to establish a rigorous corporate image, report writers employ hedges to violate the quantity maxim and observe the manner maxim.To sum up, hedges serve the following functions in the “risk factors” item in corporate annual reports: filling information blanks, making statements more accurate, minimizing potential risks that the writer and the corporation may face, and improving the image of the corporation.