Rudi Palmieri

Corporate Argumentation in Takeover Bids

This volume systematically investigates the role of argumentation in takeover bids. The announcement of these financial proposals triggers an argumentative situation, in which both the economic desirability and the social acceptability of the deal become argumentative issues for different classes of stakeholders (shareholders, employees, customers, etc.). The study focuses on the strategic maneuvers that corporate directors deploy in order to persuade their audiences while complying with precise regulatory requirements, designed to allow shareholders to make reasonable decisions. A conceptual reframing of takeovers as an argumentative context brings to light the different argumentative situations of friendly and hostile bids. The argumentative strategies that corporate directors adopt in the two situations are identified and analyzed on the basis of a corpus of takeover documents referring to offers launched in the UK market between 2006 and 2010. The argumentative reconstruction focuses in particular on the inferential configuration of arguments, which is accomplished by means of the Argumentum Model of Topics (AMT). This kind of analysis enables capturing the inherently argumentative processes through which information becomes a relevant starting point for investment decisions.

The Pragmatics of Financial Communication. Part 1: From Sources to the Public Sphere:

Research in financial communication has long been dominated by scholars in accounting and finance, who largely focused on the extratextual aspects of financial disclosures, such as the choice (not) to reveal information or the impact of new regulatory standards. In contrast, the past decade and a half has witnessed a significant shift of attention toward the linguistic and textual elements of financial communication. Finance scholars have started to develop text analysis approaches to investigate, in particular, market sentiment and its impact on stock prices. At the same time, accounting scholars have engaged in the so-called narrative turn by investigating the rhetorical aspects of voluntary disclosure. Recent developments in the field, however, dig deeper and are beginning to shed light on the crucial functions of language use in financial communication. There is a growing interest throughout the disciplines to analyze the interplay of micro and macro structure in financial communication, which has been clearly reflected in academic initiatives and rapidly evolving subject areas in recent years. Bringing together these initiatives on a higher level, the AILA research network in financial communication, set up in early 2018, enables scholars from all over the world to strengthen and elaborate on their research and its dissemination. The two parts of the special issue “The Pragmatics of Financial Communication” aim to reflect these recent developments and to foster current and future initiatives in the field.

The Pragmatics of Financial Communication. Part 2: From Public Sphere to Investors:

Research in financial communication has long been dominated by scholars in accounting and finance, who largely focused on the extratextual aspects of financial disclosures, such as the choice (not) to reveal information or the impact of new regulatory standards. In contrast, the past decade and a half has witnessed a significant shift of attention toward the linguistic and textual elements of financial communication. Finance scholars have started to develop text analysis approaches to investigate, in particular, market sentiment and its impact on stock prices. At the same time, accounting scholars have engaged in the so-called narrative turn by investigating the rhetorical aspects of voluntary disclosure. Recent developments in the field, however, dig deeper and are beginning to shed light on the crucial functions of language use in financial communication. There is a growing interest throughout the disciplines to analyze the interplay of micro and macro structure in financial communication, which has been clearly reflected in academic initiatives and rapidly evolving subject areas in recent years. Bringing together these initiatives on a higher level, the AILA (International Association of Applied Linguistics) research network in financial communication, set up in early 2018, enables scholars from all over the world to strengthen and elaborate on their research and its dissemination. The two parts of the special issue “The Pragmatics of Financial Communication” aim to reflect these recent developments and to foster current and future initiatives in the field.