“Incorporating Corporate Discourse Into ESP: A Comparative Study of Chairman’s Statements of Sustainability Reports”

Co-presenting with Maggie Leung

As global corporations increasingly communicate their sustainability initiatives to a broad range of stakeholders, understanding the strategic use of language in corporate communication becomes essential. Chairman’s statements in corporate reports serve both informational and promotional purposes and represent a key genre within professional and business communication. In this talk, we explore how corporate leaders engage their audiences, present corporate identity, and manage public perception within the context of sustainability reporting through the use of chairman’s statements. Adopting the ESP genre approach and drawing on Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse, we examine the use of rhetorical moves and metadiscourse (i.e. linguistic resources that help organise the text and guide the reader’s interpretation of the text) in chairman’s statements of sustainability reports from listed companies in Hong Kong and Taiwan—two distinct business environments within Asia. While both regions have highly developed economies, they are characterised by differing economic structures and market orientations. The study highlights similarities and differences in their approaches to corporate communication in terms of the content and rhetorical strategies. We will also discuss the implications of these findings for genre-based instruction in ESP. Given the growing emphasis on corporate sustainability and the rhetorical potential of the chairman’s statements, integrating such genre into ESP curricula equips students with the ability to critically analyse and effectively participate in corporate discourse.