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

Abstract

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.

Book Review: Leading With Care in a Tough World: Beyond Servant Leadership by DeKoch, B., & Clampitt, P. G.

“…These assessments offer springboards for scholars' research agendas and professionals' self-improvement and training/development designs. Many of these instruments align closely with vital, ongoing conversations in our field, particularly about inclusion, change, and financial communication (Aritz & Walker, 2014;Cardon et al, 2019;Palmieri et al, 2018;Ter Hoeven & Van Zoonen, 2020;Walker & Aritz, 2015). In addition, this book has a helpful appendix which includes performance discussion questions and pertinent items to consider.…”

On, for, and with practitioners

“…Furthermore, organizational development programs based on project findings have resulted in measurable improvement of the document cycling in many institutions in the financial industry. Finally, the results have impacted the public discourse about financial literacy and the academic reflection of this public discourse (Palmieri, Perrin, & Whitehouse, 2018).…”

Book Review: Neuroscience for Organizational Communication: A Guide for Communicators and Leaders by McHale, L

“…Consistently with the substantial prior work done by the author (e.g., Laskin, 2009Laskin, , 2011Laskin, , 2014, the book offers a contextual perspective to IR and FC framed as a communication domain similar and parallel to public relations. In the last 15 years, financial communication has been the object of important research within accounting and discourse studies interested in the linguistic, textual, and rhetorical-argumentative strategies and their manifestation in different genres of financial communication (e.g., Jack et al, 2013;Palmieri et al, 2018;Rocci et al, 2015). While these languagerelated approaches to FC are not part of Laskin's book, the latter represents a fundamental basis to familiarize readers with the field and to embark in more specific research from different perspectives such as accounting, finance, and discourse studies.…”