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Article published In: Language and Dialogue
Vol. 15:2 (2025) ► pp.282–304

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Negotiating the good and bad in CSR reports

Sustainability in the railway sector

 | University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
 | University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

Published online: 15 May 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00196.bon
Abstract
The paper investigates how companies in the transport industry communicate their sustainability policies and practices in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, the reports of British and American railway companies will be examined to identify the range of concessive markers used and their role in the generic structure of the report. Concessive constructions balance positive and negative aspects in presenting the general strategies of the company, reporting its sustainability performance and assessing its performance. By apparently opening up to alternative, conflicting or even negative aspects, concessives pre-empt or offset criticism, thereby legitimizing corporate activities and creating an image of transparency and trustworthiness, key elements for the reputation and success of a company.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Concessive clauses
  • 3.Materials and methodology
    • 3.1Corpus
    • 3.2Methods
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Concessive markers and constructions in our corpus
    • 4.2Communicative functions of concessive constructions in CSR reports
      • 4.2.1Leadership statements
      • 4.2.2The whole report
      • 4.2.3Markers and discourse preference
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • References
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Lu, Rickey & Paul Baker
2025. Holistic, nurturing and sustainable: Discursive shift in corporate social responsibility reporting. Discourse & Society DOI logo

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