Promotion in Banks’ Annual Reports: An Integrated Analysis of Genre, Evaluative Lexis and Institutional Identity.

The book is a study of a complex, multi-faceted and multi-objective financial documents, Banks’ Annual Reports (ARs). From the perspective of genre analysis, Banks’ ARs are described as a composite and multi-layered macro-aggregate of genres. In an attempt to clear up and grapple with their problematic hybrid nature, function-related and textual complexity, several regularities in terms of textual structure, communicative purposes and intended audience are identified. In particular, in contrast with the common understanding of these documents as purely informative texts, the present analysis endeavours to demonstrate that ARs are not only factual but also promotional and self-promotional documents. In order to highlight this aspect of annual reports, the study is centred on an exploration of the evaluatively positive lexis used by banks to describe themselves in a very attractive way, to construct an admirable institutional identity and to project a strong corporate image. Differences and similarities in terms of frequency of occurrence and meaning of evaluative lexis are investigated and illustrated. In an attempt to further highlight the complexity and variety of positive items, evaluation is examined comparatively in its distribution across AR sections and in British vs. non-British Banks’ documents.