Corporate communications: accounting, linguistics and semiotics

Corporations tend to make many communications about their activities, some of which are required by law and others of which are informative. Needless to say, these corporations wish to make their activities appear in the best possible light. They are therefore carefully crafted to this effect. It is therefore necessary to interpret these corporate communications to get behind the actual words and data reported in order to understand actual implications. Although technical expertise is required to understand the actual financial information being provided, these are always surrounded by words, pictures etc. and this chapter is intended to show how an understanding of appropriate linguistic concepts and the basics of semiotics enables a much fuller understanding of what is being communicated, regardless of the intentions of the corporate representatives creating the communication.