Koskela 2013 Same Same But Different Intertextual and Interdiscursive Features of Communication Strategy Texts
Koskela 2013 Same Same But Different Intertextual and Interdiscursive Features of Communication Strategy Texts
Koskela 2013 Same Same But Different Intertextual and Interdiscursive Features of Communication Strategy Texts
2013
DCM7410.1177/1750481313498655Discourse & CommunicationKoskela
Article
strategy texts
Merja Koskela
University of Vaasa, Finland
Abstract
This article examines the types of textual and discursive relations that can be found within a
genre system and across the borders of such a system. Based on the results, the need for and
possibility of drawing genre boundaries between texts with different genre labels is discussed.
The study is based on four communication strategy texts from two Finnish insurance companies.
Communication strategy texts, such as communication strategies, policies and plans, are used in
organizations to regulate the corporate communication function. The analysis is based on genre
theory and the model of intertextual analysis presented by Charles Bazerman. The results indicate
that the intertextual profile of the texts studied is relatively uniform, whereas the interdiscursive
profile tends to vary according to the company and the intended audience. The texts studied
form overlapping combinations of genres with multiple communicative purposes, which reflects
the somewhat labile character of strategy texts in general.
Keywords
Bazerman, communication policy, communication strategy, communication strategy texts,
corporate communication, disclosure policy, discourse analysis, genre, genre analysis, genre
system, interdiscursivity, intertextuality
Introduction
Intertextuality and interdiscursivity are often mentioned as important concepts for study-
ing professional genres. Intertextuality can be defined as a text-level phenomenon
describing how a text refers to other, prior texts, whereas interdiscursivity is understood
Corresponding author:
Merja Koskela, Communication Studies, University of Vaasa, PO Box 700, 65101 Vaasa, Finland.
Email: [email protected]
390 Discourse & Communication 7(4)
Kastberg, 2007). The many terms used may signal that a similar communicative func-
tion can be carried out in different ways in different organizations, which might lead to
separate genres or substantial variation in one genre. Alternatively, the different names
could imply that the genre is evolving and not yet established, or that it is not suffi-
ciently connected with a specific discernible professional activity.
Genre names that resemble each other, such as those listed, normally imply that the
texts share other features as well and that they may be seen as parts of a more or less
established network of texts. Such networks are formed in professional contexts when
certain recurrent communicative functions must be regularly carried out. In her seminal
oft-quoted study of how tax accountants use genres in their work, Amy Devitt (1991)
uses the term genre set to describe networks of texts that serve serial and established
communicative functions. In a similar vein, Bazerman (1994: 97–98) uses the term genre
system to describe genres that are dependent on and interact with each other in certain
situations. Bhatia (2004: 55) discriminates between the scope of Devitt’s (1991) genre
set and Bazerman’s (1994: 97–98) genre system. According to him, a genre set is indi-
vidual whereas a genre system is based on an activity. He characterizes a genre set as ‘a
class of typical professional genres that a particular professional engages in as part of his
or her routine professional activity’ and a genre system as ‘a complete set of discursive
forms that are invoked in a professional activity’ (Bhatia, 2004: 55). Both of these terms
represent tools of analysis applied in order to understand how texts work together. In this
article the term genre system is used because the analysis focuses on social action and not
on individuals. However, the study does not cover the genre system in its totality, but
concentrates on relationships between potential genres that function as parts of a
system.
characterized by more innovative mixing, embedding and bending of generic norms (Bhatia,
2010: 35). Therefore, it seems natural to assume that texts belonging to the same genre tend
to share similar types of intertextuality patterns. However, when it comes to interdiscursivity
the situation is more complicated, because interdiscursive appropriations can be exploited
by expert members of discourse communities ‘to achieve private intentions within the
framework of socially recognized purposes’ (Bhatia, 2010: 36). Nevertheless, when it comes
to professional texts, the question arises why the features of interdiscursivity would be less
conventionalized and standardized than features of intertextuality. This question is espe-
cially relevant for texts that are not written by one author, but are typically planned and
produced by teams, as are communication strategy texts (see Cornelissen, 2011: 81). In such
texts, the idea of ‘private purposes’ comes into an interesting light and might need to be
raised to the level of professional disciplines, such as marketing or accounting, or to the
organizational level emphasizing, for example, corporate values, image or branding.
interdiscursive analyses. Consequently, the analysis does not strive to reach quantitative
conclusions. Instead, the point is to describe typical connections between texts belonging
to a genre system, and on the basis of the results, discuss the possibility and the need for
drawing genre boundaries.
The four example texts have been chosen with heterogeneity in mind and with the aim
of covering a wide range of communication strategy texts. Consequently, the material
encompasses texts that represent the category of communication strategy texts but carry
different names. Based on these criteria, the material comprises an information policy, a
communication policy, a disclosure policy and a communication strategy written in
Finnish. The texts represent two insurance companies with banking activities functioning
in Finland, and the texts studied include both company-internal (Company 1: information
policy, communication strategy) and company-external (Company 2: communication
policy, disclosure policy) documents available freely on the Internet. Two texts from each
company are included because users of genres normally have a motivation for differing
between genres, for example by using different genre labels. Because company-internal
material is used, the names of both companies have been replaced by the label Company
in the analysis. From a genre system point of view, two companies within the same busi-
ness sector are represented in the material in order to avoid limiting the discussion to what
Bazerman (2004: 90) calls intra-corporate intertextuality, that is, the internal practices of
only one company. Instead, the material that represents one business sector exemplifies a
limited set of intrasystem intertextuality in which typically ‘corporate documents attend
to larger corporate policies, government law and regulations, documents of other compa-
nies’ (Bazerman, 2004: 90).
The research questions are:
Bazerman (2004: 88–89) also lists what he calls techniques of intertextual representa-
tion, which form the concrete objects of study referred to in phase 2 above (see also
Griffig, 2006: 93). The techniques have been listed in Table 1.
Koskela 395
In this article, intertextuality and interdiscursivity will be discussed under their own
sections. The first four techniques on Bazerman’s list will be discussed in connection with
intertextuality, whereas the last two will be treated as instances of interdiscursivity. The
reason for this is that intertextual analysis will here be limited to types of explicit intertex-
tual representations and types of sources, that is, the genres used. The last two items in
Table 1 represent more implicit clues and thus belong to interdiscursive analysis.
Because the analysis is based on the idea that the texts studied form part of a genre
system, genre is a central concept in both parts of the analysis. For the interdiscursive
analysis this means that all instances where an oral or written text, document, statement
or genre was mentioned were systematically gathered in a table. Because the material
concerns regulating the communication function of an organization, the instances listed
include both concrete, actual, texts that exist in the real world as well as classes of texts
or genres that might be used in certain situations for certain purposes. The next step was
to reorganize and categorize the lists according to the type of discourse they represented
(see Appendix Table 1). The categorization was based on earlier studies of typical busi-
ness discourses (see e.g. Bhatia, 2004). Because certain discourses tend to be connected
with specific social actors, the analysis was supported by identifying the central actors
presented in the documents, thus indicating the presence of the discourse in question or
a potential mixture of discourses (see Fairclough, 2003: 145–146).
The limitation of this type of genre-based operationalization of interdiscursivity is
that it can only account for texts that are explicitly mentioned. However, the assumption
that lexical mentions of genres invoke certain discourses in certain contexts is relatively
safe to make for professional texts, because their institutional nature tends to constrain
the number of influences that can normally be expected to be involved in the context. An
additional limitation of this type of analysis is that some important genres surrounding
the documents studied can be taken for granted and not mentioned at all. Nevertheless,
interdiscursive analysis is always subjective by nature, and the analysts can only make
sense of texts in relation to what other texts and discourses they are able to draw on when
interpreting them (see Fairclough, 1995: 61). Therefore, relying on explicit linguistic
mentions of (potential) genres, texts, documents or statements, and categorizing them
according to the discourses they typically represent, can reduce the subjectivity of the
analysis. In this way, a conceptualization of the textual world and genre system surround-
ing the four texts in the material can be created. However, not all interdiscursive influ-
ences can be traced, but the analysis can reveal interesting regularities in how discourses
and genres interact with professional practices and cultures.
396 Discourse & Communication 7(4)
Intertextual analysis
Genres tend to have their own intertextual patterns that reflect the type of social action
that the genre participates in. For example, Scollon (2004: 171, 173) has demonstrated
that intertextuality, or what he calls discourse representation, varies across genres.
According to him, journalistic writing is basically built on direct and indirect quotation,
whereas academic writing shows a more variable pattern including, among other types,
presupposition and assertion, and advertising typically refers to fictional speakers.
Comparably, Koskela (2008: 118) found three typical forms of explicit intertextuality in
administrative texts (a chain of texts concerning tax laws). The forms of intertextuality
found were a) mentioning another text without explicating the content of that text, b)
citing another text and giving the reference and c) referring to a law, a statute, a directive
or another administrative text.
In the communication strategy texts studied, the patterns of intertextuality were
more characteristic of administrative texts than journalistic or academic ones, or of
advertising. Of the techniques of intertextual representation presented by Bazerman
Koskela 397
(2004), direct quotation attributed to a source was not used in the material at all.
Additionally, an aspect characteristic of administrative texts was that no indirect quo-
tation was attributed to named people, but only to genres, documents and institutions
(see examples in Table 3). For considerations of space only the English translations of
the Finnish originals are presented in the analysis.
Lexical mentions of other texts without any explication of the content seemed to be a
pattern that communication strategy texts shared with administrative texts (see Koskela,
2008: 118). References to company strategy, values, vision, mission, reputation, profile,
culture and business goals reinforce the place of the communication strategy texts in the
hierarchical structure of the strategic management function of the organization and reveal
the importance of the genre system for the social action the documents are participating
in. Because these texts are constitutive of the company-internal context, it can be presup-
posed that the reader is familiar with the content and that there is no need to explicate it to
the reader. However, there seems to be a tendency for indirect quotation of company
external sources to be attributed explicitly to the source (see examples 1 and 2 in Table 2).
Of the four texts studied, the information policy, communication policy and commu-
nication strategy seemed to share an intertextual pattern where there was no direct quota-
tion, only some indirect quotation with attribution and many mentions of company-internal
documents without explicating the contents. The one text standing out from the others
with its intertextual pattern was the disclosure policy with fewer company-internal refer-
ences and more indirect quotation of company external sources. The main sources were
the Securities Markets Act (SMA), the regulations of the Financial Supervisory Authority
(FSA) and their recommendatory guidelines. These documents seemed to form a genre
system of their own: the genre system of stock market regulation. The sources were listed
at the beginning of the disclosure policy but not repeated in the text, indicating that the
398 Discourse & Communication 7(4)
readers should be familiar with their contents. Example 4 shows how the document
attributes its contents to the central sources. Example 5 is an indirect quotation of the
Finnish Securities Markets Act without explicit attribution to the source.
(4) In its disclosure policy, the Company follows Finnish legislation, rules of the NASDAQ
OMX Helsinki and, when applicable, other stock exchanges as well as regulations of the
Financial Supervisory Authority. (Disclosure policy (DP))
(5) The interim report contains both an explanatory statement section as well as a table section.
(DP)
Cf: The interim report shall contain an explanatory statement and a table section. (Securities
Markets Act 5 a §)
Judged by the intertextual patterns, the communication strategy texts shared many fea-
tures with each other, and many of these features were reminiscent of the intertextual
patterning of administrative texts. In other words, the ‘how’ (techniques) was shared,
whereas the ‘what’ (types of source) was necessarily not. The intertextual references also
highlighted the role of the texts as parts of the genre system of strategic management of
the company, or in the case of the disclosure policy document, seemingly as parts of
several genre systems simultaneously.
Interdiscursive analysis
The most dominant discourses the genres mentioned in the material reflected were
Strategic Management Discourse, Corporate Communications Discourse, Legal
Discourse and Stock Market Discourse. In addition, traces of Accounting Discourse as
well as Marketing Discourse could be detected (Appendix Table 1).
The discourse of strategic management has become dominant in the business world
over the past few decades (Greckhamer, 2010). In the material, strategic management
discourse was mingled with corporate communication discourse; or in Greckhamer’s
terms, corporate communication was being written into the umbrella of strategic man-
agement. For example, the texts studied revealed that long-term strategic goals for the
communication function were defined and its performance was analyzed in different
ways. As stated previously, communication strategy texts belong to a hierarchy of texts
within the realm of strategic management. Therefore, it is natural that the most important
interdiscursive resource shared by the texts studied was the discourse of strategic man-
agement. This discourse was easily recognizable by references to entities such as corpo-
rate strategy, mission, vision, image and profile. In this discourse, the management as
well as stakeholders and employees were mentioned, but the most actively functioning
subject was the Company. The Company was described as a rational entity that has
objectively set goals and knowledge of how these goals can be reached. As ways of
reaching these goals, different types of plans and policies were presented, resources and
performance were mentioned, together with ways of measuring the results. This ideo-
logical, even hegemonic background has made the documents possible: developing poli-
cies is a basic function of strategic management. The combination of strategic
management discourse with corporate communications discourse also reflects the
Koskela 399
(6) . . . the purpose of the disclosure policy is to ensure that everybody functioning on the
market has simultaneous access to adequate and correct information of the company and the
group for an informed assessment of the price formation of the Company stock, and to make
sure that the information is published without delay and fairly. (DP)
Example 6 shows how the disclosure policy resorts to the ‘voice’ of the FSA without
explicit attribution. However, the ‘voice’ of the FSA in turn reveals interdiscursive fea-
tures in relation to the SMA. The similarities in the voice become evident when the
description above is compared with the following text published on the website of the
Authority (2013):
400 Discourse & Communication 7(4)
The Securities Markets Act (SMA) obliges issuers of securities [. . .] to publish all its decisions
and all information on the issuer [. . .]. The information must be disclosed without undue delay.
The purpose of the disclosure obligation is to ensure the possibility of equal, equitable and
simultaneous access to information by the investors. The information must therefore be reliable,
comprehensive, timely and comparable. The objective is that the investors have access to
adequate information for an informed assessment of the issuers and their securities. (FSA,
2013)
Recognizable phrasings revealing interdiscursive influence have been marked with ital-
ics in the passage above. These phrasings attest to the presence of legal language in the
disclosure policy document. Simultaneously, the tight interdiscursive relations between
texts forming the genre system of stock market regulation are revealed.
From the point of view of genre systems, the interdiscursive features in the example
raise the question to what degree one genre participates in several inter-related genre
systems. For example, the disclosure policy document studied seemed to be a part of the
comprehensive genre system of stock market regulation. This genre system is hierarchi-
cal, with laws, regulations and recommendations at the top. These are again followed by
many sub-genres used by authorities, as well as by sub-genres used by listed companies,
disclosure policy being one of them. Because the disclosure policy document in the
material had been published on the company website, its function was not only to guide
the communication officers and other personnel involved in correct disclosure practices,
but also to convince outsiders, notably investors and supervisory authorities, of the fact
that the company was committed to following the law and prevailing practices of
the field. Nevertheless, the document also forms a part of the genre system regulating the
communication function within the company itself, and simultaneously a part of the
genre system of strategic management. Even though it is here studied as a part of
the genre system of communication strategy texts, the document has both external and
internal relevance and fulfils various communicative purposes. These multiple purposes
make it possible for the document to function as a part of several genre systems at the
same time.
Based on the views of over 2000 European communication professionals reported
in The European Communication Monitor 2012 (Zerfass et al., 2012), it can be stated
that the overlapping combinations of genres reflect the complex and constantly chang-
ing environment of corporate communication. For example, it seems that the idea of
integrated communication represented by, for example, communication strategies is
increasingly challenged by the complexity of today’s organizational reality. Because
organizations need to interact with a wide variety of stakeholders through several
channels in many directions, a preference for a unified organizational voice has been
replaced by a wide acceptance of polyphony (Zerfass et al., 2012). What is more,
communication professionals have been assigned new duties, among others reflective
communication management, which stands for the alignment of an organization’s
mission and the expectations of stakeholders. Nevertheless, the professionals note
that explaining the communication function to top management and proving the value
of communication for organizations is still a key challenge in their work in 2012
(Zerfass et al., 2012).
Koskela 401
genre and certain participants that form the target audience; they show regularities of
content, structure and linguistic and rhetorical choices; and have both temporal and loca-
tional restrictions (see Yates and Orlikowski, 2007). They also share patterns of intertex-
tuality and interdiscursivity as shown earlier. But where can and should the genre
boundaries be drawn? Figure 1 summarizes the interdiscursive profiles of the four
communication strategy texts.
The interdiscursive profiles of the documents seem to reflect company boundaries
(see Figure 1). This result seems logical in the light of the fact that genre systems regulat-
ing the communicative function tend to consist of different documents in different organ-
izations depending on the context. The texts representing Company 1 (information policy
and communication strategy, to the left in the figure) are based on strategic management
discourse and corporate communication discourse. This profile could be explained by
the company-internal character of the documents. In contrast, the documents from
Company 2 (communication policy and disclosure policy, to the right in the figure) seem
to focus more on stock markets and the legal regulation of the communication of listed
companies. The wider scope of discourses in these two documents could reflect the mul-
tiple communicative functions that these documents, which are freely available on the
web, have. In addition to regulating the communication function inside the company,
these documents have a stock-market related audience outside the company, that is, of
Koskela 403
potential investors and official bodies. Generally, it seems possible that the membership
of several genre systems is reflected in the interdiscursive profile of the genre.
In spite of the fact that the information policy and communication policy studied rep-
resent different companies, and thus their role in their respective company-internal genre
system varies, they still share so many features that the need to draw a genre boundary
between them comes into question. Based on the definition of genre applied in this arti-
cle, they seem to be similar discursive responses in situations where organizations seek
to regulate their communication function. The communication strategy comes very close
to these two documents, but its extensive content and presentation form lead to the idea
that this could be another part of the genre system by which corporate communication is
managed. It would be possible to see the information policy as a summary of the com-
munication strategy. However, the clearest case from the point of view of genre bounda-
ries is the disclosure policy. Even though it seems to have a role in the same genre
system, it has a somewhat different orientation. In the first place, the policy is a response
to the market authorities, investors and analysts, while simultaneously guiding the com-
munication function of the organization, thus sharing certain features with the other texts
studied.
Conclusion
By drawing on a genre-based intertextual and interdiscursive analysis of four communi-
cation strategy texts, this article has sought to illustrate the types of textual and discur-
sive relations that can be found within a genre system and across the borders of the genre
system. Further, the final goal was to discuss the need for and possibility of drawing
genre boundaries between communication strategy texts.
Based on the results of this study, it seems that intertextual and interdiscursive analy-
ses may offer some help for drawing genre boundaries between single texts. The inter-
textual profile of the four communication strategy texts studied is relatively uniform
when it comes to the techniques of intertextual representation. In contrast, some differ-
ences between the texts can be detected in the types of sources quoted. In both respects
the profile is most reminiscent of administrative texts, probably because the texts have a
management function. The interdiscursive analysis differs more clearly between the
texts. There are two interdiscursive profiles, so the texts representing the same company
tend to have similar interdiscursive relationships. However, in addition to intra-corporate
intertextuality and close interdiscursive ties with each other, this similarity may be the
result of the intended audience: the documents of Company 1 are company-internal,
whereas the documents of Company 2 are company-external. In this sense, the pairs of
texts form parts of different types of professional practices.
In spite of the relatively clear definitions of intertextuality and interdiscursivity
applied in this study, it is not always easy to distinguish between these phenomena. For
example, indirect quotations without attribution can be discussed under both categories
according to the analysts’ interpretation. However, the decisive factor is: from the point
of view of the text, these cases belong to intertextuality, while from the point of view of
professional practices they belong to the realm of interdiscursivity. Similarly, what
counts as a genre depends on the goal of the analysis. Genres have many levels and they
404 Discourse & Communication 7(4)
are intertwined with each other, like the communication strategy and PowerPoint
presentation.
The results of the analysis reflect the somewhat labile character of strategy texts in
general: strategy can be understood in many ways, and it can be either written down or
not. In addition, strategy texts have different status in different organizations and it
depends on the organization as to what kind of sequential actions are built around
strategy texts (see also Steyn, 2003). Consequently, the genre systems are different for
different companies as the results of this study indicate.
However, what the communication strategy texts studied have in common is that they
are sub-genres participating in the strategic management of the companies. The need for
drawing genre boundaries between communication strategy texts arises from two
sources: the professionals participating in designing these documents and the people
within organizations who need to follow the guidelines offered by the documents. It
seems that in professional practice the theoretical levels of management – the strategic,
tactical and operational – are not necessarily differentiated from each other, a situation
which can lead to misleading genre labels, at least for people who come from outside the
organization.
Funding
This research has received funding from Alfred Kordelin foundation.
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Author biography
Merja Koskela is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Communication Studies at
the University of Vaasa, Finland. Her research interests concern professional communication as
well as multilingual communication. She specializes in genre analysis, discourse analysis and text
linguistics. She has published articles in international journals and conference volumes in English,
Swedish and Finnish.
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