Abstract
Management foreword is an unedited qualitative section of Corporate Annual Reports (CARs). It is also considered as the most widely read section of CARs which may reveal the financial condition of the company. So far, only few language studies have embarked on analysis of this section and they have mainly focused on the genre content of management foreword rather than its genre structure. Nevertheless, the few genre studies conducted had several shortcomings in the model proposed. Besides, none of the previously move analysis studies on management foreword have considered corpus analysis tools in their procedure of analysis. Accordingly, the present study is aimed to bridge the gap in previous studies by describing the genre structure of management forewords. To that aim, a qualitative genre analysis study was conducted on 64 samples of management forewords of Asian companies using AntConc software. The analysis revealed six moves and nineteen move-strategy combinations. Most of the identified moves and strategies were also identified in previous move analysis studies on management forewords and other types of business reports and hence verified. The proposed move analysis model defined move boundaries and provided the most frequent words and verbs that represent each move. Additionally, the proposed moves consist of predictable strategies which are bound to their moves and do not appear within the boundary of more than one move. The findings of the present study could be useful for ESP practitioners as teaching material and raise awareness among business ESP students about the genre conventions of this genre.
Highlights
Management foreword (MF) which is called letter to shareholders is one of the narrative sections of corporate annual reports (CARs)
According to Plung and Montgomery (2004), a survey was conducted by Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) which revealed that management foreword is the most widely read section of CARs and most of the readers go through this section first in search of information as it contains a report of the company’s past financial and non-financial accomplishments plus future plans (Conaway & Wardrope, 2010; Crombie & Samujh, 1999; De Groot, Korzilius, Ickerson & Gerritsen, 2006; De Groot, 2008; Hyland, 1998; Jamson, 2000; Kohut & Segars, 1992; Thomas, 1997)
The management foreword samples were extracted from the annual reports of companies listed in the financial sector and as the original text was in pdf format they were converted to word document for analysis purposes
Summary
Management foreword (MF) which is called letter to shareholders is one of the narrative sections of corporate annual reports (CARs). The importance of management foreword as a subject for genre analysis studies comes from several sources They usually function as the introductory section of CARs. In addition, according to Plung and Montgomery (2004), a survey was conducted by Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) which revealed that management foreword is the most widely read section of CARs and most of the readers go through this section first in search of information as it contains a report of the company’s past financial and non-financial accomplishments plus future plans (Conaway & Wardrope, 2010; Crombie & Samujh, 1999; De Groot, Korzilius, Ickerson & Gerritsen, 2006; De Groot, 2008; Hyland, 1998; Jamson, 2000; Kohut & Segars, 1992; Thomas, 1997). Presenting the public with an efficient management foreword could be an opportunity for any company to communicate its performance and gain the trust of the members of this particular discourse community (Plung & Montgomery, 2004)
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