A Critical Discourse Analysis On CSR Reports

Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA)has been counted as a research method in the field of linguistics.Inspired by Halliday's systemic functional grammar,the British linguist Norman Fairclough proposed a three-dimensional mode of CDA in order to connect language with society as a close system under which discourse should be analyzed in accordance with the specific social context.This thesis resorts to Fairclough's three-dimensional model of CDA to make a descriptive and explanatory analysis of twenty-one CSR reports published by SONY(China),Intel(China)and Samsung(China)from 2011 to 2017 from three levels respectively.The research questions involved in this thesis include:(1)What are the features of generic structures of these twenty-one CSR reports?(2)How do three companies respond to the stakeholders' interests according to these twenty-one CSR reports?(3)How do three companies conform their CSR performances with the social context according to the selected CSR reports?The tentative results illustrate: First,each CSR report has a legible generic structure.Second,attention paid to the concerns of stakeholders varies from company to company,but all the selected CSR reports attach the most importance to the information disclosure about the environment and education.Third,the institutional context exerts a distinctive influence on the contents,especially manifested in the following three aspects: obedience to the laws and regulations,compliance with industry and self-formulated norms and standards for CSR and CSR reports and consistence with CSR initiatives.Although the results are concluded based on the critical discourse analysis of twenty-one CSR reports published by three multinational companies in China,the results of this study can provide some reference and guidance for the domestic companies in China in terms of CSR reports writing.