A stylometric approach to the interdiscursivity of professional practice

Genre theory's shift towards contextualization emphasizes the role of text-internal and text-external resources in shaping discourse. Interdiscursivity, the appropriation of semiotic resources across genre, professional practice, and culture, is crucial for understanding professional discourse conventions. Writer identities, understood as a hierarchy of roles a writer adopts, are reflected in stylistic features. While previous research has explored writer identity through stylistic indicators, the link between stylistic variations, identities, and interdiscursive relations remains under-investigated. This article aims to bridge this gap by using a stylometric approach to uncover how stylistic presentations construct writer identities and contribute to interdiscursive performance in professional settings. The research contributes by extending stylistic analysis beyond literary settings to the professional world and by pioneering a stylometric approach to observing interdiscursivity, a key factor in discourse construction. This methodology enhances quantitative discourse study by linking contextual information (interdiscursive relations) to textual presentations (stylistic features).

Interdiscursivity originates from Bakhtin's concept of heteroglossia, highlighting the mixing of conventions beyond the textual surface. Research has explored interdiscursivity through various analytical lenses, including intertextuality, discursive hybridity, and interdiscursivity itself. Studies in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have shown how writers in professional settings appropriate discourse resources, creating hybrid discourses. V.K. Bhatia's work exemplifies this by analyzing how litigation practices influence arbitration discourse. Existing research has explored interdiscursivity through linguistic resources (lexis, semantics, syntax) and rhetorical organization, demonstrating their correspondence with professional actions. However, the stylistic approach to interdiscursivity, while noting the intertextuality of all texts, largely focuses on text-internal resources and often ignores the link between stylistic variations and the appropriation of text-external resources such as professional practices and culture.

The study employs a stylometric approach, which assumes that stylistic features mark identity and reflect the interplay between text organization and writer involvement. Style in professional contexts is contextualized, requiring an examination of text-external factors. The methodology involves three stages: (1) Identity recognition informed by ethnographic perspectives on professional discourse. Analysis of journal articles from business and related fields helps identify identities shaping MD&A discourse. (2) Stylistic analysis at global and local levels: global stylistic features are examined ethnographically while local features specific to MD&As are identified through factor analysis of lexicogrammar. This uses factor analysis of grammatical markers, positional adverbs, functional words, and 3-gram colligations to identify stylistic variations (e.g., cautiousness, generalization, frankness). Automatic tagging of lexicogrammatical markers (using the Multidimensional Analysis Tagger) and manual stylistic analysis are employed. (3) Identity quantification and measuring interdiscursive relations: Mapping local stylistic features onto global ones reveals identity distribution in MD&As. Identities are measured by counting the frequencies of lexicogrammatical markers associated with each stylistic pattern. Interdiscursivity is measured using a model adapted from Juilland's D, where a higher index indicates stronger interdiscursive relations. The data consists of a corpus of 118 MD&A texts (approximately 2 million words) from Fortune Global 500 companies. MD&A is chosen due to its importance, representativeness, and the involvement of multiple parties (management, publicists, analysts).

Three identities were identified in the MD&A discourse: public relations specialists, auditors, and financial analysts. Each identity exhibited distinct stylistic features. Public relations specialists employed humanistic references (frequent use of 'we'), elegant variation in sentence length, and semantic highlighting (emphasizing successes, obscuring failures). Auditors demonstrated plain wording, seamless transitions between sentences, and salient voice (clear, unambiguous expression of sentiment). Financial analysts used tense highlighting (distinguishing between past, present, and future actions), interspersed narration with comments, and information density (complex sentences, abbreviations). Factor analysis revealed seven stylistic factors: confirmative-negative style, synchronic-chronologic style, supplementary-definitive style, subject-object style, explanatory-informative style, paralleled-subordinated style, and conclusive-specific style. These stylistic factors were mapped to the three identified professional identities. The analysis revealed an asymmetric distribution of identities, with financial analysts having the largest proportion in most texts, reflecting the central role of financial analysis in MD&As. Auditors generally had a larger presence than public relations specialists, although this varied across texts. A mathematical model was used to quantify the interdiscursive relations between the identities, resulting in a high interdiscursivity index (0.834), indicating a strong interaction between the three identities in shaping MD&A discourse.

The findings demonstrate the successful application of a stylometric approach to quantifying interdiscursivity in professional practice. The identification of distinct stylistic features associated with each professional identity highlights the impact of professional practices on discourse. The high interdiscursivity index confirms the significant interaction among the three identities in shaping the MD&A discourse. The asymmetric distribution of identities reflects the hierarchical importance of the different functions within MD&As, with financial analysis being the dominant focus. The variation observed in the relative contributions of auditors and public relations specialists suggests the influence of socio-pragmatic factors in shaping discourse.

This study introduces a novel stylometric approach to measure the interdiscursivity of professional practice, successfully quantifying the interaction between different professional identities within MD&A discourse. The findings highlight the importance of considering professional practices and writer identities in understanding discourse construction. Future research could explore different types of interdiscursivity (mixing, embedding, bending) using this methodology and expand the analysis to other professional genres and languages.

The study is limited to MD&A texts from Fortune Global 500 companies, potentially limiting the generalizability of the findings to other contexts. The reliance on automatic tagging and manual analysis of lexicogrammatical features could introduce some subjectivity. Future research could explore the influence of other factors such as company size, industry, and cultural background on the identified stylistic patterns and interdiscursive relationships.