A Discourse-Historical Analysis of Microsoft’s Identity Construction in Corporate Social Responsibility Reports
Abstract
With the increase of the public’s brand awareness, the display of corporate identity functions as a crucial tool to retain old customers and attract new ones. For this study, it digs into the discourse-historical construction of the corporate identity of Microsoft in letters to shareholders of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports (CSRR), investigating: 1) the key linguistic resources used in the texts at three different stages; 2) the discursive strategies formed by the choice of linguistic resources at each stage; 3) the similarities and differences of the identities constructed by the discursive strategies at the three stages. It turns out that Microsoft’s development promotes the identity transfer of itself at different stages.
Keywords: Discourse-historical analysis, Microsoft, identity construction, letters to shareholders of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports (CSRR), discursive strategies
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