While a lot of attention has been paid to online branding and the construction and communication of a company’s identity via its website, there is only very little research that looks at the processes involved in these activities from a discourse analytical perspective. This article aims to address this gap by conducting a case study of innocent, a UK producer of fruit juices. Combining corpus analytical tools with discourse analytical techniques and considering both text and multimodal features, we explore some of the strategies through which innocent creates a set of inter-related and closely intertwined identities on its website, thereby constructing the company’s brand image. However, our findings also reveal that some of the company’s identity claims (especially in relation to being an inclusive and welcoming ‘family’) are relativised and to some extent contradicted by the discursive processes through which these claims are articulated.
The various papers in this special section have offered a range of perspectives on the complex nexus of culture, context, and norms. One of the main aims of this special section was to gain deeper insights into the role of context and so we start by reflecting on this aspect.Stanley and Fischer (this issue), on the basis of their findings, suggest that situations may have an impact on norm effects. Moreover, as Hogan (2009, p. 249) and Rauthmann et al. (2014, pp. 698-699) both point out, the key issue is people's perceptions of situations and the facets that are perceptually salient to them. Four of the papers in this special issue have thrown light on this:
In this article we reflect on the ‘Interconnections between Culture and Behaviour: Interdisciplinary Perspectives’ conference. The event brought together renowned scholars from the fields of psychology and sociology to applied linguistics, who presented the conceptualisations made and methodological approaches taken to explore culture and behaviour in their respective disciplines. In table discussions the participants debated the commonalities and differences between their respective disciplines and reflected on their own approaches. In a final plenum discussion speakers and participants questioned the compatibility of approaches in order to explore opportunities for interdisciplinary research. No discipline denied that links between culture and behaviour exist, but that other constructs are needed to explore them further, such as norms. The contexts in which behaviours are observed were also highlighted as crucial by all speakers, although they operationalised it quite differently. All sides acknowledged the value of multi- or interdisciplinary approaches when researching the links between culture and behaviour. However, philosophical differences affecting practical issues, such as data collection methods and analytical tools, were also identified as impacting compatibility. Following the discussions at the event, speakers and organisers decided to further explore these ideas in a special issue, which is currently in preparation.
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