Text & Talk 2022; 42(5): 647–670
Jihua Dong* and Louisa Buckingham
Identity construction and its collocation
networks: a cross-register analysis of the
finance domain
https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2020-0094
Received June 11, 2020; accepted February 8, 2022; published online March 11, 2022
Abstract: This study investigates the use of explicit manifestations of authorial
identity (namely self-mention pronouns) and their collocation networks in
academic and workplace written texts. Based on a purpose-built corpus of research
articles and the Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus (HKFSC), this study used
Antconc and Graphcoll to extract and analyze the pronouns and their collocation
networks. The statistical analysis shows that the academic register contains
significantly more self-mention pronouns than the workplace corpus, which can
be attributed to a stronger tendency towards self-positioning. We also identified
significant register-specific semantic features of the collocation networks of selfmention pronouns. These findings contribute to our understanding of how selfmention pronouns operate in tandem with their surrounding context in registerspecific discourse. Pedagogically, the findings can be useful for workshop-based
training for finance students and early-career professionals in this domain to
support the development of the discipline-specific writing skills needed for careers
in academia and industry.
Keywords: academic discourse; collocation networks; self-mention pronouns;
semantic domains; workplace discourse
1 Introduction
The topic of authorial identity has attracted considerable attention from
researchers (e.g., Matsuda and Tardy 2007; Mur Dueñas 2007; Sheldon 2009;
Tang and John 1999). Authorial identity constitutes “a key aspect of persuasion”
(Mur Dueñas 2007: 144) and contributes to “creating a self-promotional tenor”
*Corresponding author: Jihua Dong, The School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Shandong
University, 5 Hongjialou, Jinan, Shandong, 250000, China, E-mail: dongjihua@sdu.edu.cn
Louisa Buckingham, The School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, The University of
Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, E-mail: l.buckingham@auckland.ac.nz
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(Harwood 2005a: 1207). By explicitly manifesting their presence and navigating
readers through the text, writers establish a particular persona in alignment with
community conventions. This persona constitutes an essential element of writers’
authorial positioning in discourse construction (Ivanic 1998), that is, the way
writers construct themselves in relation to their subject and the anticipated
audience (Matsuda and Tardy 2007; McGrath 2016; Mur Dueñas 2007).
Among the various possible materializations of writers’ identity, authors’
self-mention pronouns constitute the “most visible manifestation of a writer’s
presence” (Tang and John 1999: 23). By utilizing self-mention pronouns, writers
are able to display “their professional credentials and their familiarity with
disciplinary (or community) practice” (Sheldon 2009: 251) and establish a relationship with envisaged readers and with their discourse community (Hyland
2001; Kuo 1999).
In this study, we explore how authorial self-positioning is constructed in the
finance industry workplace and the academic field of finance. As a discipline,
finance encompasses both theoretical, or ‘pure’, and applied strands; research
typically follows a quantitative paradigm (Becher and Trowler 2001) and draws on
data related to “material and financial goods” (Bazerman 2010: 14).
In this study, we first investigate the overall occurrences of self-mention
pronouns in the two registers, and we then explore the collocation networks of the
identified self-mention pronouns. Our study addresses the following two
questions:
(1)
What are the register-specific uses of self-mention pronouns in the two
different registers?
(2)
How do the two registers vary in terms of the collocation networks of the
self-mention pronouns?
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a general review
of the relevant studies in workplace written texts (Section 2.1), self-mention pronouns (Section 2.2), as well as previous studies conducted on collocation networks
(Section 2.3). Then Section 3 describes the corpora and the methods used to retrieve
the self-mention pronouns and their collocation networks, including the specific
approach to statistical comparison. In Section 4, we present and discuss the results
in terms of the frequency of self-mention pronouns and their functional uses
(Section 4.1), as well as their specific collocation networks (Section 4.2). In Section
5, we summarize the main findings and the contributions of the present study,
discuss the limitations, and provide suggestions and directions for future research.
Identity construction and its networks
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2 Literature review
This section provides a general review of the previous studies conducted on
workplace written texts, self-mention pronouns and collocation networks.
2.1 Workplace written texts
Workplace communication, in particular written texts, has gained growing
attention from researchers in English for specific/academic purposes interested in
exploring transitions and strengthening linkages between the academy and the
workplace. Both ethnographic and corpus-based studies have contributed to an
understanding of different types of workplace communication, and their findings
have facilitated the development of courses tailored to meet the needs of specific
work contexts. Moore and Morton (2017) acknowledge the important connections
between workplace written texts and university curricula, and have pointed to
discrepancies between the features of written discourse in the workplace and in
academia. For instance, workplace writing is shaped by an “action orientation”
(Moore and Morton 2017: 603) and is characterized by a distinctive “need for
brevity and concision” (598). The analysis of profession-specific corporate identity,
therefore, can reveal the particular “social and environmental activities” (Breeze
2013: 166) and “identity values” (Mattioda and Vittoz 2014: 241) underlying the
discursive practices of a community.
The construction of identity has been a focus of previous research on workplace discourse. Studies of this type have explored various aspects of identity,
including gender identity (Baxter 2010; Mullany 2007), and team identity (Djordjilovic 2012). In their explorations of the complexities of identity, these studies
noted that identities are in a continual process of construction through linguistic
resources (Hymes 1984: 44). Despite wide recognition of the role of linguistic
markers in conveying identity, only very few studies have attempted to explore
the linguistic features that contribute to identity construction in written registers
of the workplace. For instance, Blitvich (2010) undertook an analysis of the
rhetorical construction of corporate identity portrayed in the corporate value
statements of 15 American corporations, with a particular focus on self-reference
markers. The author discusses the manner in which the corporations’ identity
construction is oriented towards their anticipated audiences and, as such, serves
the dual purposes of public self-promotion and workplace internal socialization.
Self-mention pronouns contribute to identity construction and, through these,
differentiations between individual and group identity become salient. In the case
of written texts, self-mention pronouns enable distinctions to be made between
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individual, shared and collective authorship. Within particular industry domains
(such as finance), corporate identity is important and the contribution of individual company representatives to shaping company discourse cannot usually be
identified (Balmer 2008). This is different in domains such as technology, for
instance, where personal communication from individuals (e.g., Steve Jobs or Elon
Musk) can be an important feature of company brand marketing. With the objective of uncovering community practice norms, we undertake a contrastive analysis
of this feature of authorial positioning in the workplace and academic registers of
the finance domain.
2.2 Self-mention pronouns
The use of self-mention pronouns represents how writers “construct a credible
representation of themselves and their work, aligning themselves with the socially
shaped identities of their communities” (Hyland 2002: 1091), and represents a
useful rhetorical strategy to “promot[e] a competent scholarly identity and gain
accreditation for research claims” (Hyland 2001: 223). These pronouns are a feature
of authorial self-positioning which has attracted considerable attention from researchers (i.e., Harwood 2005a, 2005b, 2006; Kuo 1999; Matsuda and Tardy 2007;
McGrath 2016; Mur Dueñas 2007; Sheldon 2009; Tang and John 1999).
Cross-disciplinary analyses of the self-mention pronouns in academic
discourse have revealed discipline-specific features. For instance, Hyland (2001)
explored the use of self-mention pronouns in eight disciplines, and found that
social science texts contain a higher frequency of first-person pronouns than
texts in the hard sciences (biology, physics, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering). Harwood (2005b) identified discipline-specific features
of the use of I and inclusive and exclusive we in research articles (RAs) in
business and management, computing science, economics and physics. Moving
beyond a purely text-based analysis, Harwood (2006) investigated the perspectives of experienced writers with regard to the appropriate or inappropriate
use of self-mention pronouns (I and we) in political science writing. Harwood
(2007) then took one step further by exploring academic writers’ motivations for
using the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’ (and the perceived textual effects) in political
science through both qualitative interviews. Previous studies on academic
discourse have also suggested that the use of we is able to stimulate readers’
receptive attitude toward the writer’s claims (Harwood 2005b), and create a
sense of shared space between writers and readers (Hyland 2001). Despite the
extensive work undertaken to date on self-mention pronouns and their functions
Identity construction and its networks
651
in academic discourse, their use in written workplace communication remains
underexplored.
Another important line of inquiry into authorial identity has centered on
register-specific variation (Barbieri 2015; Biber 2006a, 2006b; Biber and Conrad
2009; Dong and Jiang 2019). A register is composed of “the linguistic features which
are typically associated with a configuration of situational features—with particular
values of the field, mode and tenor” (Halliday and Hasan 1976: 22). According to
Biber (1998), registers can be distinguished by their linguistic features (among other
factors), and the shared knowledge and use of such features within a specific
register contribute to the identity of a given discourse community (Roberts and
Sarangi 1999). Within this perspective, Molino (2018) investigated corporate identity
construction through self-references in Vodafone’s sustainability reports, and found
a high reliance on the first person plural pronoun (we) in this register. Using the
metadiscourse framework, Ho (2018) identified that self-mention markers (i.e., I, we,
our, and me), when compared with other types of metadiscourse markers, are most
frequently used in workplace emails.
Previous studies have typically been conducted from the perspective of the
frequency of occurrence in a particular register. Few attempts have been made to
tease out the semantic environments, that is, how self-mention markers are used
in relation to the surrounding linguistic contexts. This study embraces this
perspective by exploring how self-mention markers co-occur with specific semantic environments, that is, collocation networks. Such knowledge can add an
additional layer of understanding to analyses of register variation.
2.3 Collocation networks
Collocation-related studies investigate the relationship between a lexical item and
its surrounding context. In addition to relative collocational strength, previous
studies have focused on semantic prosody and semantic preference (Cortes and
Hardy 2013; Partington 2004), and collocation networks (Brezina et al. 2015; Hoey
2005; Phillips 1989). The concept of collocation network, a term proposed by
Phillips (1985, 1989), concerns the examination of the contextual interconnectedness of lexical items and their surrounding environment. This concept places a
special emphasis on the conceptual relationship between linguistic items, and it
thus allows us to map out how linguistic items co-occur with their surrounding
contexts and how they contribute to constructing coherent texts.
The software GraphColl (Brezina et al. 2015) was specifically designed to
facilitate the creation and analysis of collocational networks. This tool clusters the
collocates of a given node in a network. The collocates are retrieved by pre-set
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criteria based on collocational strength. The resulting visual display enables a
thorough inspection of collocational relationships and collocational strength,
which is indicated through the relative length of the line connecting the node with
the collocate. This principled approach to identifying collocates can contribute to
revealing possible “latent patterns” (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975: 125), which may
not be salient when manually sifting through concordance lines.
Drawing on this concept, previous studies have identified notable collocational patterns for particular linguistic items (Brezina et al. 2015; Gablasova et al.
2017) and phrases in cross-disciplinary academic discourse (Dong and Buckingham 2018). These studies have enriched our understanding of the semantic
relatedness between linguistic features used by writers to construct their ideational and rhetorical objectives.
3 Data and methods
3.1 Corpora
Our cross-register analysis employs a self-built academic discourse corpus and the
Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus (HKFSC). The finance academic corpus
(FAC) consists of 120 research articles published in ten high-ranking peer-reviewed
journals, which were selected by considering the nomination of disciplinary experts, and contains 1,627,958 tokens. The list of the journals is presented in the
Appendix. The HKFSC consists of 25 sub-registers including annual reports, brochures, bank service charges, etc., which represents the most common workplace
discourse in the financial services industry in Hong Kong (Li and Qian 2010). This
corpus has been used previously to explore lexical items used in written texts of the
finance workplace (Li and Qian 2010). The corpus is periodically updated, and the
version we employ comprises 7,341,937 tokens; additional information regarding
the corpus is presented in Table 1.
Information regarding the authors of the workplace texts is not accessible for
ethical reasons. According to the compilers of HKFSC (personal communication,
March 2019), these texts circulated in the professional workplace and represent the
common or shared community practices in the workplace setting of the finance
business. To strengthen the comparability of the workplace and the academic
discourse corpora with respect to authorship, we randomly selected the articles for
the academic discourse corpus in order to reflect common authorship practices,
rather than purposely controlling for single-authored and co-authored papers.
Furthermore, to take into account important differences between written and
spoken texts (Biber 2006a, 2006b; Biber and Barbieri 2007), we limited our analysis
Identity construction and its networks
653
Table : Components of the HKFSC.
Corpus
Annual reports
Brochures
Bank service charges
Codes
Corporate announcements
Circulars
Fund descriptions
Fund reports
Factsheets
Guidelines
General meetings
Insurance policies
Interim reports
Insurance product descriptions
Investment product descriptions
Model agreements
Media releases
Ordinances
Procedures
Principles
Prospectuses
Rules
Results announcements
Standards
Speeches
Size
,,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,,
,
,
,
,
to written texts in the workplace corpus. This meant omitting the text type
‘speeches’ from the HKFSC. This reduced the size of the HKFSC to 6,731,965 tokens,
and 3,438 text samples.
3.2 Retrieval of the self-mention pronouns
To identify and extract instances of the first person pronoun (singular and plural),
we followed Hyland (2001) and Tang and John (1999), who looked at the first
person pronouns we, us, I, me, our, my,1 ours, and mine, but we also included the
1 Although “my” is not a personal pronoun in grammatical terms (but rather a possessive adjective), we followed the previous practices and included this in the analysis to better represent the
use of self-mention.
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Dong and Buckingham
pronouns ourselves, myself to ensure that the exploration was as comprehensive
as possible. This step was carried out by using the advanced search function of
Antconc (Anthony 2018) to retrieve all occurrences of the aforementioned pre-set
list of pronouns. Subsequently, we undertook a manual examination of the
concordance lines in order to ensure the results were limited to personal pronouns.
For example, the results included cases such as I in Experiment I, Investigator I, and
mine (noun) in the Luanchuan mine has an estimated annual production capacity of
90,000 tonnes of iron ore. Examples such as these were excluded.
3.3 Collocate retrieval
To address Research Question 2, the retrieval of the collocates and the collocation
networks of the self-mention pronouns was carried out using Graphcoll (Brezina
et al. 2015). In this study, we used the parameter of both Mutual Information (MI)
and frequency to measure the collocational networks. The MI value was set at >3 (in
line with Gablasova et al. 2017 and Brezina et al. 2015), and frequency was set at >5
instances per million words on each side of the node words for broad coverage of
the collocates for our analysis. The two measures have been generally viewed as
robust approaches to calculating collocational strength (e.g., Ellis et al. 2008;
McEnery 2006).
We limited the collocational span to five words on each side of the selfmention pronouns following McEnery (2006) and Brezina et al. (2015). The collocational span permits us to investigate both immediate and non-immediate
collocates (Sinclair et al. 2004: 42), namely the collocates that are adjacent and nonadjacent to the node words or phrases, which is adequate to identify and analyze
the collocational patterns of self-mention pronouns under scrutiny in this study.
3.4 Analytical procedure
In order to report the general features of these collocation networks, we used
Wmatrix (Rayson 2008) to tag the collocates and assign a semantic label to the
collocates retrieved. This semantic analytical tool is generally accepted as “a
robust tool for automating semantic field” (Lu 2014: 148). In the analysis, we
loaded the collocates retrieved by GraphColl to the online Wmatrix analyzer, and
this analyzer assigned the semantic tagger to each collocate. Wmatrix assigns
semantic labels to words according to their dictionary meanings; as a result, some
collocates are assigned multiple meanings.
Identity construction and its networks
655
For cases with multiple semantic labels, we examined the concordance lines to
identify the appropriate labels. For example, the item present was tagged with
three labels: ‘Time’, ‘Social actions, states, and processes,’ and ‘General action’.
We manually selected the category ‘Time’ for examples such as our present study;
for the example we present a model, we assigned the category label ‘General
action’. With respect to the acronyms labeled by Wmatrix, we examined the
concordance lines to identify their original full meanings and subsequently
assigned a tag. For example, CLP was identified to be a company name as in ‘CLP
Holdings Limited’, an investment holding company. This was tagged as a proper
noun, which falls under the general category of ‘Z’ (‘Names and grammatical
words’).
To ensure the reliability of the identification of multiple semantic labels, the
first author first went through all the collocates and identified the semantic labels
for each collocate, and then 30% of the collocates were tagged by referring to the
labels given by Wmatrix by the second author. We measured the two ratings using
Cohen’s kappa, and the coefficient was 0.92 (p < 0.001), which indicates a high
agreement on the semantic labels used in this study.
When comparing the register-specific features, a Chi-square test of group
independence was employed to compare both the occurrences and the collocation networks of the self-mention pronouns in the two corpora. Following
recommendations in Young and Karr (2011) for multiple tests, p values were
corrected as follows. In the first case (a series of 10 tests), the alpha value was
corrected to 0.05/10 = 0.005; in the second case (a series of 13 tests), the alpha
value was corrected to 0.05/13 = 0.0038. We used Cohen’s w (Cohen 1998) to
calculate the effect size for the Chi-square test and the results were interpreted
following Cohen’s (1998) magnitude guidelines, that is, a value of 0.1 and below
is considered a small effect, between 0.1 and 0.5 a medium effect, and values of
0.5 and above a large effect.
4 Results and analytical findings
4.1 Frequency of self-mention pronouns and functional uses
The overall frequency comparison of the self-mention pronouns is presented in
Table 2. As shown, the overall occurrences of the first person pronoun plural – we,
us, our, ours and ourselves – are much higher than the occurrences of the first
person pronoun singular (I, me, myself, mine, and my), with an occurrence of
9,879.24 and 128.99 per million respectively for the collective and individual
self-mention pronouns in the academic corpus. This preference for expressing
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Table : Comparison of the academic and workplace written texts.
Pronouns
Academic
norm (raw) freq
Workplace
norm (raw) freq
Chi-square
Sig
Effect
size
Mine
Me
Ours
Myself
We
Us
Ourselves
My
Our
I
. ()
. ()
. ()
. ()
,. (,)
. ()
. ()
. ()
,. (,)
. ()
. (.)
. (.)
. ()
. ()
,. (,)
. (,)
. ()
. ()
,. (,)
. ()
.
.
.
.
,.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
,.
(,)
,. (,)
,.
.
.
Total
To match the calculated p value as discussed in Section ., we present the results with three decimal places in
the sig column.
the self in collective terms can be explained by the tendency towards co-authorship
in the finance RAs. This finding is in line with Mur Dueñas (2010), who also identified
a prevalence of co-authorship in the adjacent discipline of business management.
A similar preference for first-person plural pronouns is manifested in the
workplace texts from the finance sector: the overall frequency of collective and
individual self-mention pronouns is 5,497.28 and 47.24 per million respectively.
As previously noted in Blitvich (2010), Bernard (2015), and Molino (2018), the
collective reference is a dominant form of corporate identity construction in
business workplace discourse. Examples (1) and (2)2 illustrate scenarios where
the collective self is used in the workplace written texts to express corporate
identity in undertaking the stipulated activity exceeded our earnings objective,
and conduct our audit. Such combinations allow the writers to present themselves
as competent community members, and thereby engage with readers in a
community-appropriate manner.
(1)
We exceeded our earnings objective, with core earnings per share of $3.92,
a 7% increase. This includes a 4% headwind from foreign exchange.
(AR-HKFSC)
2 The examples were randomly selected to illustrate the meanings described.
Identity construction and its networks
(2)
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At the same time, we have made significant progress in our efforts to
improve corporate governance. (RA-HKFSC)
The examples above show that individual self my is often presented together with
expressions showing a collective group identity, i.e., my colleague, as in Example
(3). This provides further evidence for the importance of the collaborative self in
the workplace written texts. By associating the individual self with the collective
self, writers make explicit their group identity.
(3)
The achievement of this strategy requires the effective management by my
colleagues and I, under the direction of the Board, of a number of key
implementation issues. (AR-HKFSC)
Aside from this similarity, the two registers were also found to display significant
differences in the frequency of almost all the self-mention pronouns, except I,
mine, and myself. They proved to be significantly more frequent in the academic
corpus, with a frequency approaching two times that of the workplace written texts
(p < 0.001), and with a large effect size (w = 0.59). This indicates that the difference
in frequency of the use of self-mention pronouns can, to a large extent, be
explained by the difference in registers. That is, finance academic texts are much
more likely to contain an explicit manifestation of authors’ presence than
workplace texts. The pronouns we, our, and us were the top three most frequent
self-mention pronouns in the two registers. However, in many instances, considerable differences between the two registers were found in the frequency of the ten
different types of self-mention pronouns under analysis.
The pronoun we occurred more than three times more frequently in the
academic corpus than in the workplace written texts; this difference was
significant (p < 0.001) and the effect size was large (w = 1.18). This indicates that
difference in frequency can to a great extent be attributed to register specificity.
Example (4) illustrates the writer’s agentive role in performing an action, namely
analyze spam-related SEC enforcement action. The combination of cognitive
involvement in tandem with the collective self (we) allows writers to make
explicit their active involvement in terms of analyzing spam-related SEC
enforcement action.
(4)
To provide insights into the motivations for operating a stock spam scheme
and the costs and benefits involved, we analyse spam-related SEC
enforcement action. (FAC)
In contrast, we identified a significantly higher rate of occurrence of our in the
workplace written texts, with a frequency of 3,241.81 and 2,671.44, respectively, in
the workplace and academic registers (p < 0.001), but the magnitude of variation
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Dong and Buckingham
was very small (w = 0.08). In (5), our is used to express the collective self in
conjunction with nouns such as ability, growth, level of success, and gold mines.
Through the reiterated use of possessive adjective self-mention pronouns, writers
are able to underscore their presence in the text.
(5)
Our ability to achieve our growth objectives is dependent on our level of
success in discovering or acquiring additional gold resources and further
exploring our current gold mines. (Pro-HKFSC)
The pronoun us was found to occur significantly more frequently in workplace
discourse (p < 0.001), and the large effect size (w = 1.14) points to the magnitude of
this variation in the two corpora. An in-depth analysis of the concordance lines of
us in the workplace corpus shows that this self-mention pronoun is used to perform
the following three main discourse functions: namely ‘us’ used as an indirect
object (e.g., provide us with sufficient evidence); ‘us’ used as a prepositional
complement (e.g., there has been no impact on us); and ‘us’ used as a direct object
(e.g., our commitment to education enables us to provide our customers with
industry-leading products and services). Of these, the use of ‘us’ as an indirect object
is the most dominant form, accounting for 72.95% of all usages. In contrast, the use
as a prepositional complement and direct object accounted for 21.2% and 5.93% of
all uses respectively. This shows that the workplace written texts are more likely to
present authors in the beneficiary or receiver role when compared to findings from
the academic corpus. For instance, in Example (6) us is used as the recipient of the
information and representation provided by the company.
(6)
We have no reason to doubt the truth, accuracy and completeness of the
information and representation provided to us by the Company.
(HKFSC-Cir)
4.2 The collocation networks of self-mention pronouns
Figures 1 and 2 depict the collocation networks of self-mention pronouns in the
academic and workplace corpora respectively.
In these two figures, the central dots represent the self-mention pronouns, and
the surrounding dots show the collocates of self-mention pronouns. The distances
between the stance nodes and each collocate indicate the strength of the collocational bond. That is, the shorter the distance between two collocating items, the
greater the collocation strength, and vice versa. The positioning of the stance
nodes (i.e., market, samples, and businesses) in relation to one another is random
in these figures.
Identity construction and its networks
659
Figure 1: The collocation network of self-mention pronouns in the academic register.
Figure 2: The collocation network of self-mention pronouns in the workplace written texts.
The graph presented in Figures 1 and 2 was obtained by adopting a higher threshold (namely
MI > 3, Normalized frequency > 150) than the one adopted for the statistical analysis of the data in
order to facilitate the visual display of data in this figure.
Table 3 displays the statistical comparison of semantic categories that appear
in the networks of self-mention pronouns in the two registers.
A significant variance was found for all thirteen categories in the two corpora.
More notable, however, is the magnitude of variance. Five categories were found to
have large effect sizes, six categories were at a medium level of significance, and
. (,)
,. (,)
. (,)
. (,)
,. (,)
. ()
,. (,)
. (,)
. (,)
,. (,)
. ()
. (,)
,. (,)
,. (,)
,. (,)
,. (,)
,. (,)
. (,)
,. (,)
. ()
,. (,)
,. (,)
,. (,)
,. (,)
. ()
,. (,)
,. (,)
,. (,)
Linguistic actions, states, or process
Number and measurement
Psychological actions, states, and process
Government
General actions or entities
Science and technology
Names and grammatical words
Movement
Substances and materials
Social actions, states, and processes
Emotion
Time
Money and commerce
Total
The categories discussed in the text are displayed in bold.
Workplace norm (raw) freq
Academic norm (raw) freq
Semantic categories
Table : Comparison of semantic categories in the academic and workplace written texts.
,.
,.
,.
,.
.
,.
.
,.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Chi-square
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Sig
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Effect size
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Dong and Buckingham
Identity construction and its networks
661
two were at a small level of significance. In all cases except two (‘movement’ and
‘social actions, states, and processes’), the semantic domains appeared more
frequently in the academic corpus.
Due to space constraints, we direct our focus to the notable collocational
patterns of the top five semantic categories (excluding the grammatical words),
which were identified by considering both effect size and total normalized
frequency.
4.2.1 General action and entities
As shown in Table 3, the ‘General actions or entities’ category occurs most
frequently in both corpora. The statistical comparison also shows that the
academic corpus contains a significantly higher use of this category in the surrounding context of self-mention pronouns (w = 0.73, p < 0.001). Aside from the
variation in frequency, we also found notable differences in the specific collocates
within this category. For instance, the academic discourse corpus was found to
contain significantly more research-related expressions, such as sample, results,
research, study, and results, co-occurring with the self-mention pronouns, particularly in conjunction with the possessive determiners (our). This is in line with the
role of self-mention pronouns in stressing the ownership of the work, a function
that has been identified by Hyland (2001) and Harwood (2005a).
Another notable type of collocate which occurs in the collocation networks of
the self-mention pronouns is action verbs, such as find, obtain, change. This type
of expression is found to frequently collocate with the personal pronouns
in nominal form. Examples (7) and (8) illustrate two such instances where the
authors explicitly manifest their presence in relation to the research-related
entity (results) and their activity ( find) to underscore their involvement in
research-oriented actions. Here, the juxtaposition of the pronoun with the two
research-related expressions allows the academic writers to claim their ownership of the results and active involvement in the upcoming claims. This active
involvement thus serves as evidential support for the knowledge constructed in
the following statement, and thus contributes to promoting the findings of their
study.
(7)
Taken together, our results suggest that while on the whole adherence to
the Codeâs voluntary recommendations has strengthened the monitoring
capacity of the boards of listed firms in UK, …. (FAC)
(8)
We find that all three variables have significant pricing effects, indicating
each conveys information content. (FAC)
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The collocation networks of pronouns in the workplace written texts, however, are
composed of a substantial number of workplace nouns including development,
quality, activities, production, and ‘general action’ verbs, such as continue, provide,
maintain. This shows that workplace writers tend to position themselves in relation
to workplace-related processes. Example (9) illustrates how the writers convey
the roles they perform by asserting we provide service to our customers; while (10)
illustrates how the writers signal the intrinsic positive value of their work (our
quality and reliability). By claiming the ownership of corporate banking customers
and quality and reliability, the writers are able to mark an explicit presence and
underscore their role in communication with envisaged readers.
(9)
In addition, we provide international settlement service to our corporate
banking customers. (Prospectus–HKFSC)
(10)
Through the implementation and regular review of the Quality
Management System, we strive continuously to improve our quality and
reliability, … (Annual Report–HKFSC)
4.2.2 Psychological actions, states, and processes
Another notable collocation network concerns the ‘Psychological actions, states,
and process’, which entails authors’ cognitive processing of the information. The
statistical analysis shows a significantly higher occurrence of cognitive markers in
the collocating networks of the academic corpus ( p < 0.001), and the large effect
size (w = 1.02) indicates the extent of the magnitude of this variance. Among the
most frequently occurring cognitive verbs, we find a substantial number of
cognitive expressions, such as examine, expect, estimate, assume, consider. According to Hyland (2017), cognitive verbs entail writers’ cognitive involvement in
constructing an argument and persuading readers. Example (11) illustrates this
collocational relationship between the collective self and the cognitive action
(analyze). By explicitly projecting themselves in juxtaposition with the cognitive
behavior (analyze), the writers are able to manifest their cognitive involvement in
processing the data, and thus gain credit for their involvement and contribution in
carrying out the analysis.
(11)
In addition, our unique hand-collected data on finite life and indefinite life
IIA allow us to further analyse the managerial discretion involved in the
classification of such assets. (FAC).
Apart from the frequency differences, the analysis of the category ‘Psychological
actions, states, and processes’ in the workplace written texts shows that the
Identity construction and its networks
663
writers tend to draw upon a different set of cognitive collocates. For instance,
expressions such as believe and expect are among the most frequent psychological expressions in this workplace discourse, as shown in (12). In this example,
the writers express a cognitive action believe the continuous deregulation of IPTV
undertaken by the collective self (we). This collocational pattern indicates that
the writers in the workplace corpus are more likely to position themselves as
‘opinion holders’, a function of self-mention pronouns identified by Tang and
John (1999).
(12)
We believe the continuous deregulation of IPTV will provide outstanding
opportunities for the Company to develop broadband applications and
content services, as well as drive the “PC+TV” and “charging for
access+content” broadband business model to a greater degree of
maturity. (RA-HKFSC) (Prospectus-HKFSC)
4.2.3 Social actions, states, and processes
As shown in Table 2, the expressions concerning ‘Social actions, states, and
processes’ also constitute a notable component of the collocation networks of selfmention pronouns of both corpora. The cross-corpora comparison shows that the
social expressions are significantly more frequently used in the workplace written
texts (p < 0.001), with a medium effect size (w = 0.36). That is, the variance in the
two corpora with regard to the use of social expressions can to a moderate degree
be explained by the difference in register. An inspection of the specific collocates
revealed that the workplace written texts contain more expressions related to
workplace entities and social actions. For example, management, services,
corporate, directors, and board are among the top collocates which occur in the
vicinity of self-mention pronouns. In Example (13), we see a case in which our is
associated with the social-oriented noun, management, and is preceded by further
social-related nouns (services and properties). This serves as a good indicator of the
social attachment found in the surrounding context of the possessive adjective
pronoun.
(13)
While the contribution from property management is not significant, the
Group is committed to providing top quality services to properties under
our management.
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4.2.4 Number and measurement
As shown in Table 3, the collocation networks of self-mention pronouns are
also composed of a substantial number of collocates denoting ‘number and
measurement’. The occurrence of this type is seen to be significantly higher in the
collocation networks of the academic corpus (p < 0.001), and the effect size
is large (w = 1.07). In the list of most frequent collocates, we see a high occurrence
of all, each, first, and measure. This shows that academic writers are more inclined to project their explicit presence in relation to the expressions denoting
number and measurement. In Example (14), we see the combination of the
number or measurement-related expressions, including calculate, average and
all, with we, and the two linguistic features collocate strongly. Clearly, we shares
a strong collocation with the measurement verbs (calculate and average). The
quantifier (all) occurred as a component in the noun phrase, all the unaffiliated
forecasts, which functions as the object of the self-mention subject (we). In the
workplace texts, we find a high occurrence of measurement expressions like,
total, more, most and in most cases these collocate with the self-mention pronouns. This is illustrated in (15) with our.
(14)
To calculate the consensus, we average all the unaffiliated forecasts for a
given firm issued within a calendar month and before the affiliated
analyst’s. (FAC)
(15)
Our total revenue reached a record high of RMB48.3 billion, representing
an increase of 47.2% as compared with the same period last year.
4.2.5 Linguistic actions, states or process3
In the collocation network of self-mention pronouns, we identified a high density
of linguistic expressions and actions, such as table, paper, discuss, and describe, as
illustrated in (16).
(16)
In this section we discuss the results of alternate specifications of the
portfolio time series regression tests reported in Sections V, VI, and VIII.
(FAC)
The cross-corpora comparison shows that the academic corpus contains a significantly higher occurrence of this category in the collocation networks of selfmention pronouns (p < 0.001) and the effect size is large (w = 1.54). This suggests
3 This category also includes entities or terms relating to written communication.
Identity construction and its networks
665
that finance academics are more inclined to manifest their presence through linguistic actions than the workplace writers. Also of note, we identified that this
category is primarily composed of reporting verbs (i.e., discuss, describe, express).
In contrast, the linguistic expressions in the collocation networks of the
workplace written texts occur less frequently and are composed of a different set of
reporting expressions, including report, statements, said, article, terms, advise.
Example (17) shows an instance where the writers juxtapose the self-mention
subject (we) in tandem with the linguistic action ‘report’, thereby making explicit
their involvement in the linguistic-oriented action.
(17)
We report on the unaudited pro forma financial information of Bank of
Communications Co., Ltd. (Prospectus-HKFSC)
Overall, both corpora also displayed significant differences with respect to the
semantic categories in the collocation networks of the self-mention expressions.
The cross-corpora comparison shows that the academic corpus contains a substantially higher use of general actions or entities, linguistic actions and number or
measurement-related actions, while the workplace corpus displays a higher use of
social expressions.
5 Conclusion
The analysis from the perspective of collocation networks enabled us to identify a
number of latent semantic patterns that co-occur with self-mention pronouns,
such as the psychological, social, and linguistic-related expressions. By mapping
out the self-mention pronouns and their collocation networks, we were able
to identify how professional writers in each register construct their textual
presence in alignment with their discursive community practices, the surrounding semantic contexts, and the communitive purposes embedded in the
discourse.
In a context of increasing student enrollments in this field, practitioners have
noted the need to develop students’ discipline-specific literacy skills for workplace
purposes (Bernheim and Garrett 2003; Kavanagh and Drennan 2008). The findings
thus have practical implications for our understanding of the meaning of both
academic and workplace communicative competence, and for shaping teaching
materials or curriculum design to prepare students for professional career paths
(Hyland 2015; Lam et al. 2019).
Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the findings in this study are limited to
just one aspect of the features of identity construction. As previous studies have
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Dong and Buckingham
noted (i.e., Coupland 2007; Dong and Buckingham 2020; Hyland 2015), identity
construction is a complex concept and process, and it can be embedded in a wide
range of linguistic devices other than pronouns (such as, ‘the authors of the
present work’ or ‘this organization’s leadership’). For a more comprehensive
treatment of this concept, future work may need to include other linguistic forms of
identity construction. In addition, the social attributes of writers or their anticipated readership may also shape the discursive construction of identity, as was
shown by Blitvich’s (2010) differentiation between external and internal oriented
discourse.
Finally, it is necessary to acknowledge that the workplace corpus consists of 25
sub-registers, and linguistic features may vary at the level of the sub-register. In the
comparisons undertaken in this study, we chose to group the self-mention
pronouns and their collocational patterns in each corpus. Although this
approach enabled us to obtain a general view of the self-mention markers and their
semantic collocational relationship with the surrounding texts, it is not conducive
to identifying possible variations in the frequency of specific pronouns, and in the
individual sub-registers or texts.
Research funding: This study received financial support from the Taishan Young
Scholar Foundation of Shandong Province (No. 201909048) and the Social Science
Foundation of Shaanxi Province (No. 2020K025).
Appendix
List of the journals used for the finance academic corpus.
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Journal of Finance
Journal of Corporate Finance
Journal of Financial Economics
Journal of Accounting and Economics
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Journal of Banking and Finance
Journal of Money Credit and Banking
Journal of International Money and Finance
Journal of Business Finance & Accounting
Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting
Identity construction and its networks
667
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Bionotes
Jihua Dong
The School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China
dongjihua@sdu.edu.cn
Jihua Dong is Professor, Taishan Young Scholar and Qilu Young Scholar in the Foreign Language
Department, Shandong University, China. She obtained her PhD degree from the University of
Auckland, New Zealand. Her research interests are Corpus Linguistics, Cross-disciplinary Studies,
and English for Academic/Specific Purposes (EAP/ESP). She has published in journals such as
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, English for
Specific Purposes, System, and Australian Journal of Linguistics.
Louisa Buckingham
The School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, The University of Auckland, Auckland,
New Zealand
l.buckingham@auckland.ac.nz
Louisa Buckingham lectures in Applied Language Studies at the University of Auckland. She has a
broad range of research interests which include the use of corpus linguistic discourse analysis.
She has published in various journals including TESOL Quarterly, System, Journal of English for
Academic Purposes, English for Specific Purposes, and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development.