A stylometric approach to the interdiscursivity of professional practice

The study addresses how interdiscursivity in professional practice can be measured through stylistic features, focusing on writer identities in Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) discourse. Building on contemporary genre theory that situates genre as a socially embedded construct shaped by text-internal and text-external resources, the paper posits that stylistic features can reveal interdiscursive relations among professional identities. It identifies a research gap: despite attention to interdiscursivity in professional discourse, its quantitative measurement—particularly linking stylistic variation to identities and the strength of their interrelations—remains underexplored. The purpose is to develop a stylometric approach that uncovers which stylistic presentations construct writer identities in professional settings and how these features contribute to interdiscursive performance. The study extends stylometric analysis beyond literary contexts to professional discourse and is presented as the first stylometric investigation of interdiscursivity.

The review traces interdiscursivity to Bakhtin’s heteroglossia and distinguishes it from related notions such as intertextuality and discursive hybridity. In ESP research, interdiscursivity is conceptualized as the mixing and recontextualization of discourse resources across genres, practices, and professional cultures. Prior work (e.g., Bhatia) illustrates how one practice (litigation) permeates another (arbitration), producing hybrid discourse evidenced in lexico-grammar, rhetoric, and style. Studies have analyzed interdiscursivity via linguistic resources (lexis, semantics, syntax) and structural formats (moves, rhetorical structures) that reflect professional conventions and tensions. While stylistic approaches have been applied, they often focus on intertextual surface markers (quotations, citations) and text-internal resources, leaving underexplored the linkage between stylistic variation and the appropriation of text-external resources (professional practices, identities). This gap motivates a stylometric method to connect styles with identities and interdiscursive relations.

Design and approach: Stylometry is used to recognize identities via stylistic information. The approach assumes a style-identity resonance in professional contexts and proceeds in three stages: (1) Identity identification through an ethnographic perspective on professional discourse, reviewing business and related literature to establish identities relevant to MD&As. (2) Stylistic analysis at global and local levels. Global stylistic features of identities are identified from the literature and professional practice descriptions. Local features specific to MD&As are extracted via factor analysis of lexico-grammatical markers. The Multidimensional Analysis Tagger (MAT) is used to automatically tag 67 types across 16 grammatical categories. Factor analysis groups features into factors; manual interpretation of styles was conducted twice with 99.3% agreement. (3) Mapping local stylistic features onto global features to attribute stylistic patterns to identities, quantifying identity presence by frequencies of associated lexico-grammars. Interdiscursivity measurement: Interdiscursivity is operationalized as the evenness of identity dispersion within texts. An index I, adapted from Juilland’s D, is defined as I = 1 − σp = 1 − sqrt((1/n) Σ (xi − μ)^2), where n is the number of identities, xi is the distribution probability of identity i, and μ is the mean distribution. Higher I (closer to 1) indicates stronger interdiscursivity. Data: A synchronous corpus of 118 MD&A sections (2018) from American Fortune Global 500 corporations (~2 million words). Rationale: MD&As are widely read, predictive, and contextually hybrid, reflecting voices of management and other stakeholders, thus suitable for examining identity interdiscursivity.

- Three professional identities are present in MD&As: public relations specialists (public relations practice), auditors (regulatory practice), and financial analysts (financial practice). - Global stylistic traits by identity: • Public relations specialists: humanistic references (e.g., frequent we), elegant variation (short sentences with occasional long ones), and semantic highlighting/modification (amplifiers; hedges to obscure negative information). • Auditors: plain wording, seamless transitions (cohesive, logical flow), and salient voice (clear stances, explicit statistics, unmitigated negations). • Financial analysts: tense highlighting (past/present/future for temporal framing), narration interspersed with comments (data plus evaluation), and high information density (complex sentences, abbreviations). - Local MD&A stylistic factors (via factor analysis) clustered into seven styles: confirmative–negative; synchronic–chronologic; supplementary–definitive; subject–object; explanatory–informative; paralleled–subordinated; conclusive–specific. These map onto global features and identities (e.g., confirmative–negative and paralleled–subordinated to auditors; synchronic–chronologic, explanatory–informative, conclusive–specific to analysts; supplementary–indefinite and subject–object to public relations). - Identity distribution (corpus averages): public relations specialists 0.209, auditors 0.222, financial analysts 0.569. Analysts consistently dominate, reflecting MD&A’s analytical function; auditors generally outweigh public relations specialists, though some texts show higher public relations presence. - Interdiscursivity index: corpus average I = 0.834 with dispersion σ = 0.166, indicating strong interdiscursivity among identities. Across sampled texts, I ranges approximately 0.739–0.858, close to the corpus average, showing robust interdiscursive engagement. - Observed variation suggests socio-pragmatic strategies: for instance, greater public relations involvement in firms with poorer performance is posited as image repair pressure.

The findings demonstrate that a stylometric approach can identify distinct writer identities embedded in MD&A discourse and quantitatively gauge their interdiscursive relations. The mapping between local stylistic factors and global identity-linked styles substantiates the style-identity connection. The dominance of financial analysts aligns with the MD&A’s primary analytical and evaluative purpose, while auditors’ and public relations specialists’ contributions reflect regulatory oversight and image management functions. The high interdiscursivity index across texts indicates that MD&A discourse is inherently hybrid, constructed through the interaction and blending of styles associated with different professional practices. Variation in identity dispersion across companies likely reflects strategic adaptation to contextual pressures (e.g., heightened public relations voice when performance is weak), showing the approach’s sensitivity to socio-pragmatic dynamics. Overall, the results address the research question by linking textual stylistic patterns to contextual professional identities and providing a quantitative measure of their interdiscursive interplay.

The study proposes and validates a stylometric method to measure interdiscursivity of professional practice in MD&As by linking stylistic representations to professional identities. It identifies three salient identities—public relations specialists, auditors, and financial analysts—and their characteristic styles. Financial analysis emerges as the most prominent function, followed by regulatory and public relations roles. The interdiscursivity index shows strong identity interaction as fundamental to MD&A discourse realization. Methodologically, the work bridges interdiscursivity and stylistics, extending stylometry into professional discourse research and providing quantitative validation over sizable data. Future research is suggested to quantify typologies of interdiscursivity (mixing, embedding, bending) using this framework.

The study notes that not all global stylistic features are compatible with the local styles detected in MD&As, partly because some global features may not be present in MD&As and partly because certain global presentations are insufficiently salient to be detected by factor analysis. Thus, some identity-related stylistic presentations may be underrepresented or missed in the local factor analysis.