Browsing by Author "Bernard, Taryn"

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    A critical analysis of corporate reports that articulate corporate social responsibility
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-04) Bernard, Taryn; Anthonissen, Christine; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the last 15 years, growing public awareness of the negative impact of corporate activities has prompted big corporations in the mining, manufacturing and retail sectors to publish reports that communicate their awareness of environmental and social issues. These reports typically take the form of standalone corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports or integrated annual (IA) reports. The publication of these reports is not an isolated event or practice on behalf of each company; the structure and content of the reports are informed by stock exchange policies such as the King Code in South Africa, and reporting frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) on an international level. The nature of corporate social responsibility and CSR reporting has captured the interest of researchers in diverse disciplines. Scholars such as Jones (1995) and Pedersen (2006), working within business and marketing-related fields, have praised CSR reports as a “win-win” concept which encourages corporations to focus on both their financial and social performance. Conversely, scholars such as Banerjee (2003, 2007) and Redclift (2002, 2005) have criticised CSR for being a new form of “greenwashing” and a mechanism that promotes the continued dominance of financially strong institutions. Critical scholars typically adopt a neo-Marxist perspective of neoliberalism and assert that legitimate environmental protection or social transformation and equality cannot take place within the reigning economic paradigm (see Pepper 1984, 1996). This study is a contribution to applied linguistic research into CSR and IA reports, particularly those originating from the Global South. It draws on methods developed within critical discourse analysis (CDA), systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and corpus linguistics to investigate the 2011, 2012 and 2013 CSR and IA reports of six South African companies located in the mining, retail and food manufacturing industries. Drawing on Halliday’s (1978) three metafunctions of texts, Fairclough’s (1989, 2002) three dimensional framework, as well as the Appraisal Framework (White 2001; Martin and White 2005) this study investigates the textual, representational and interpersonal meanings of the selected reports as ones that represent a new, gradually conventionalised genre within modern corporate discourse. In summary, the study contributes to an understanding of CSR and IA reports in three ways: First, it highlights the significant role of the GRI in prescribing, and thus restricting, the structural and discursive features of CSR and IA reports. Second, the study shows how the six companies draw on a limited set of discourses in the reports which all, in some way or another, embed neoliberal ideologies. This suggests that the South African CSR and IA reports function to maintain an established, dominant ideological and discursive order. Third, the degree of reliability of the information in the reports is dependent on how the companies construct themselves in this report. In this regard, the analysis reveals that the companies use a limited set of linguistic resources to construct themselves as strategic, moral and responsible social actors. In a country marked by widespread social inequality and diminishing resources, the findings ultimately suggest that social transformation and environmental protection are unlikely to be achieved if the sustainability discourses of corporate institutions are not publically challenged.
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    The discursive construction of foundation programmes in South African media texts
    (UNISA Press, 2015) Bernard, Taryn
    This article reports on research that investigated public perceptions of transformation within South African universities, with a particular focus on the incorporation of foundation programmes into university curricula. Foundation programmes are an initiative on behalf of both governmental and higher education institutions (HEIs) to grant wider and equal access to higher education (HE). However, it is evident that public views regarding university plans and admission policies are varied and the actions on behalf of both governmental bodies and universities are interpreted in diverse ways. These interpretations are problematic if they are misinformed, yet are able to influence or limit participation in HE. The study utilised methods developed within critical discourse analysis (CDA) to closely analyse three media texts that articulate various perceptions regarding the changing HE system. In line with Gee’s (1996) model of CDA, these three texts are viewed as individual instances of societal discourses about HE, but also provide insight to ideologies relating to education and access.
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    Justificatory discourse of the perpetrator in TRC testimonies : a discourse-historical analysis
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009-03) Bernard, Taryn; Anthonissen, Christine; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    This study investigates the ways in which former South African Police (SAP) perpetrators of human rights violations justify their criminal actions in testifying before the Amnesty Committee (AC) of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In particular, attention goes to the testimonies of former Commissioner of Police Johan van der Merwe, and former member of the Security Branch section of the SAP, Jeffrey Benzien. A key assumption in the study is that the justification of human rights violations is a discursive practice that is largely language dependent (Reisigl & Wodak 200: xi). The research draws on the theoretical aims and methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It refers largely to Benke and Wodak’s (2003) discourse–historical study on the justificatory discourse of ex-Wehrmacht officers of the Austrian army. This study therefore takes a discourse-historical approach to discourse and the data, an approach which takes into consideration the surrounding political and historical context of the selected texts, which are, in this case, the testimonies of perpetrators at the AC hearings. Besides an analysis of the justificatory discourses produced by two former police officers, the study reflects on how the discursive strategies of the apartheid perpetrators compare with one another and with the ex- Wehrmacht officers. CDA and the discourse-historical approach provide interdisciplinary angles on linguistic analysis of a text. For this reason, a review is given of literature which relates the study to political, historical and philosophical insights. The analysis particularly makes use of Foster et al.’s (2005) socio-political study of apartheid perpetrator narratives. The study reveals that perpetrators used a fixed set of justificatory discursive strategies to talk about human rights violations, and their role in such violations. These linguistic strategies are used for a number of different reasons, including reducing personal responsibility, avoiding talking about past atrocities, saving face where personal malicious and degenerate behaviour is made public and diverting feelings of personal guilt. On a discourse theoretical level the study eventually convinces that there are generic strategies typically used in justificatory discourse, whether it be in response to Wehrmacht atrocities of the Second World War or to security force excesses in repressing aspirations of disenfranchised citizens during the last thirty years of the Nationalist government in South Africa. Some stories don’t want to be told. They walk away, carrying their suitcases held together with grey string. Look at their disappearing curved spines. Hunch-backs. Harmed ones. Hold alls. Some stories refuse to be danced or mimed, drop their scuffed canes and clattering tap-shoes, erase their traces in nursery rhymes or ancient games like blind man’s bluff. Excerpt from “Parts of Speech” by Ingrid de Kok
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    They came there as workers : Voice, dialogicality and identity construction in textual representations of the 2012 Marikana miner’s strike
    (Stellenbosch University, Department of General Linguistics, 2016) Bernard, Taryn
    In August and September 2012, a mineworkers’ strike took place at a mine operated by Lonmin, a British producer of platinum metals, in the Marikana area of the South African platinum belt. The strike received international attention after over 70 Lonmin employees were injured, 34 of whom suffered fatal wounds. Drawing on a social constructivist view of language and discourse, this research critically investigates how social actors are represented in two contrasting text types; namely Lonmin Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports and transcripts of verbal testimonies given at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry. Van Leeuwen’s (2008) socio-semantic categories for the representation of social actors, as well as Bakhtin’s (1981) notions of ‘dialogicality’ and ‘voice’, are incorporated as key methodological tools. A critical analysis of the texts reveals that although the strikes were symbolic acts against a repressive economic and social system, during their testimonies, the mineworkers often adopt the same representational devices used by the corporate actors they are reacting against. Since linguistic and discursive features are representative of ideologies (see Wodak 1989, Wodak 1996, Fairclough 2003 and van Dijk 2006), the research highlights the dominance of neoliberal ideologies in the South African mining industry and comments on the implications this may have for future transformation in this sector.