The Immersion Stage in Summary
Genre 6: Business or Market Report
Academic literature on the genre of the business/market report is rare.
However, a number of the BP texts are of this type, and I set out here some observations based on the texts themselves. Business or market reports can be of rather diff erent kinds, ranging from those texts that are similar to news reports but aimed specifi cally at the business com- munity and characterised by markers of objectivity, to texts that serve to
synthesise information and arrive at an evaluative conclusion, to other texts that serve a more argumentative or persuasive purpose (e.g. busi- ness journal articles that may partially serve a selling function). Because of this, the genre of business or market reports may be better viewed as a collection of texts with a unifi ed audience, but which have stylistic features of other news genres. Th e complete text below resembles a news report, although it appears specifi cally on the business pages:
MIAMI—Carnival Corp., operator of Carnival Cruise Lines, is seeking compensation for damages and losses it incurred as a result of last April’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that caused a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Th e Miami Herald. Th e Miami-based cruise line fi led suit against BP Plc. and several other companies related to the oil rig’s operations. (Palm Beach Post [Florida], 27.4.2011)
Although the term “major oil spill” is somewhat negatively evaluative, the lexis is generally neutral, and some of the terms (“compensation”, “dam- ages and losses”, “fi led suit”) are drawn from a legal technical register.
Th ere are no modal items, and statements are expressed as unmitigated declaratives. Th ese are all features that, as in news reports, convey an impression of factual objectivity. Th e following text is rather diff erent in terms of grammatical choices, and belongs to the second type of business report I mentioned above, of synthesis and evaluation.
Th e situation may be further complicated by the approaching election in Russia, since a huge payment to the AAR billionaires for what used to be state assets is not something the incumbent administration will want to defend as it works to win support and secure another term in offi ce. A more modest settlement would suit BP, too, given its commitments in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster. (European Gas Markets, 27.4.2011)
Th is text is rich in modal expressions (“may be”, “will want to”, “would suit”), where, importantly, the writer is taking modal responsibility. Th e lexis in this text is more evaluative (“complicated”, “huge”, “disaster”), as the writer interprets, evaluates and directs the reader. Th e piece resembles an opinion piece. Th e fi nal example below is of the third type, which seeks ostensibly to inform, but also contains elements of persuasive language.
Whatever the reason, responsible companies and thoughtful boards must realize that no business, no matter how well-managed or low-profi le, is immune from a crisis. When it comes, it might not be as damaging and public as BP’s or Toyota’s, but that does not mean it can’t cause damage.
(Executive Counsel, 27.4.2011)
A number of features, such as the deontic expression “must realise” and lexis with high aff ect such as “damaging and public”, indicate an overt involvement by the writer that tends to be avoided in hard news reports.
Familiar or conversational language is shown in the contraction “can’t”, and rhetorical (persuasive) constructions appear in the repetition in “no business, no matter how well-managed or low-profi le”, and the argument structure of “it might not be…but that does not mean”. Th is text has the indirect purpose of selling consultancy services.
So, while some of the business or market reports do the work of a news report in updating the business community on the latest events in the BP story from a business perspective, the majority are doing the work of evaluative or opinion pieces that serve to place the events into other business contexts, such as the BP–Rosneft share swap deal in the second example above, and the BP events as signifi er of a business crisis in the third example.
In Summary
I have discussed generic features at some length, proposing that shifts in genres can explain patterns in language features, from those that con- struct a factual and objective picture of the BP story to those that relate to rhetorical acts of evaluation and persuasion. An analysis of the genres of the BP texts suggests the broad progression shown in Fig. 9.1 .
Deepwater Horizon
events
writing which describes
events
writing which evaluates
events
writing which evaluates other
texts about events Fig. 9.1 Notional progression of text types in BP data
Figure 9.1 positions the Deepwater Horizon events as the object of representation (and I will go on to discuss a more explicit understanding of the term “Object” in Chap. 13 ). Th e “writing which describes events”
is news reports and fi nancial reports (largely from 2010). Th e evaluation of events takes place in feature articles, editorials and blogs within the sample texts, but importantly also outside of the texts, in offi cial reports and artworks connected with the topic. Th ese are the subject of the fi nal genre shift to “writing which evaluates other texts about events”. Here the topic is less the events themselves than what has been written about them. In this way, the coverage becomes increasingly distanced from the events, not only temporally, but in terms of the closeness of the author to the object under discussion. Th is observation leads us to the importance of other texts in the BP story, and I turn to this in the following section.