УДК 657:81
Kozlova Maria O., PhD, Associate Professor
Zhytomyr State Technological University
LINGUISTIC DIMENSION OF ACCOUNTING AS A SPECIFIC
LANGUAGE: ITS SEMANTICS, SYNTAX AND PRAGMATICS
With the application of multi-disciplinary approach (accounting, linguistics,
pragmalinguistics, logics, philosophy) the accounting semantics, accounting syntax and
accounting pragmatics should be considered. The latest researches prove the validity of
the accounting recognition as the formal artificial normative language, since it meets all
the recognition criteria. Accounting as a language is a system of signs possessing
certain meaning and being used for storage, transformation and transmission of
accounting information to the users.
At the same time the problem of ignoring by Ukrainian scientists the necessity of
the theoretical grounding of validity and predictive consequences of accounting
recognition as a language is to be brougnt up and calls for the urgent solving. Theoretical
issues of accounting semiotics (i.e. semantics, syntax and pragmatics) as a language
remain not discussed by accounting scientists as the ones being just indirectly related to
the practice of accounting reflection of the business facts, at the same time the linguists
are exploring only “external” language issues related to accountants’ statements in
practice, or by carrying out the analysis of written texts (mostly scientific ones).
Relevance of accounting information may be positioned as a semantic description
of accounting as a language, the necessity of using the concept of pertinence of
accounting information as the issue of pragmatics has been grounded. The usefulness of
accounting information is considered as an integral component of the pragmatic slice of
accounting.
Retrospective consideration of the priority of certain linguistic aspects of
accounting as the language under different economic conditions allowed driving a
conclusion on groundless exaggeration of the syntactic component and ignoring the
semantic and pragmatic ones.
Under modern conditions the priority should be given to the pragmatic component,
followed by semantic and syntactic ones.
In syntactic aspect the accounting information is presented as the relations
between signs. Accounting entries are made by the unified methodology basing on the
chart of accounts. Therefore due to accounting the business events are transformed into
information flow. In semantic aspect accounting information enables to perform the
substantive interpretation of signs that represent the business events. In pragmatic
aspect the accounting information is considered as the basis for managerial decisionmaking. That means within the pragmatic aspect the quality of the mentioned information
is being established. The quality includes the appropriate level of information usefulness,
i.e. its ability to satisfy the certain informational need.
The semantic aspect of accounting concerns meeting the requirements towards
the financial reporting information. Today the context of basic financial reporting
elements (assets, liabilities, owners’ equity, revenues and expenses) as the semantic
accounting component is to meet the requirements of understandability and simplicity.
Simultaneously the aim of compiling the financial reporting and the aims of accounting as
a whole (pragmatic component of accounting as language) lie not only in the satisfaction
of the informational requirements of the state but moreover in satisfying the informational
needs of a wide range of interested users. In accordance with the current legislation of
Ukraine the aim of accounting is providing interested users with the unbiased, full,
relevant and truthful information on financial state, financial results and cash flows of the
enterprise. Thus in case the information in financial reporting satisfies the three
abovementioned criteria this information should be considered as qualitative information.
But in practice the quality of accounting information is caused by the degree of its
usefulness for the user (as the recipient of accounting message in the form of a report).
For instance the following the requirement of fullness may lead to the information
overload. The information will be prepared to the full extent but at the same time it will be
excessive. Regardless of its relevancy and truthfulness the costs of getting this
information may exceed its usefulness.
It should be taken into consideration that unbiased process of preparing the
accounting data doesn’t mean their relevancy for a user. Relevancy means that reporting
information assists and facilitates the attaining of goals by the user. The concept of
relevancy should be opposed to the concept of pertinence of accounting information.
Thus it is necessary to adjust the formulating the basic aim of accounting system
functioning towards extending it from communication f information to the interested
users towards achieving the maximum usefulness of the informational accounting
messages. Information user ids interested in getting the most useful data. Information
usefulness for external and internal users a priori will differ as it is the measure
depending on the subject. Also the usefulness will be different for different groups of
users and their purposes.
It should be emphasized that the identification and specification of interrelations
between the accounting methodology, accounting information and the decision making
process are being paid much attention of foreign scientists. A lot of leading international
(predominantly English-speaking) journals publish articles disclosing the research of the
way the accounting information influences the decisions and the way the changes in the
form and contents of information as well as in its qualitative and quantitative
characteristics influences the tactics and strategy of managerial decision-making.
Therefore the urgent but unsolved problem is the discrepancy of the semantic
dimension of financial reporting to the informational needs of the interested users. This
calls for the necessity of giving the dominant status to the pragmatic aspects of financial
reporting. At the modern stage in order to provide the effective and efficient performance
of businesses and their entering the international market the pragmatic aspect of
financial reporting should be positioned as the main one.