CORPORATE ANNUAL REPORTS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE LINGUISTIC MEANS USED TO SUPPORT CRISIS ECONOMIC COMMUNICATION
The aim of this article is to analyze specific linguistic means and techniques commonly employed by corporations in crisis and difficult business situations to explain both negative corporate developments and poor performance results to external audience groups in an attempt to protect their positive corporate images. The corpus of material gathered for the analysis includes 50 annual reports published between 1991-2011 by big European and U.S. banking institutions.