Specialized Discourse about Mergers and Acquisitions: Exploring a Cross-Border Deal

This chapter investigates specialized discourse about mergers and acquisitions by focusing on a friendly cross-border deal involving a Malaysian automotive manufacturer and an Italian motorcycle manufacturer. To explore the ways aspects of the deal, the companies and their performance are represented in different texts covering a span of about one year, the chapter examines implicit and explicit evaluation (Thompson / Hunston 2000), underlying values and presuppositions about shared knowledge. It also investigates references to the deal, the firms, their products, the countries and the people involved, especially through the use of personal pronouns (we, you and I). In addition, the chapter gives attention to the way parts of press releases and news wire reports are incorporated into other texts. The approach is that of a case study based on a qualitative analysis of a limited amount of data: by examining diverse texts connected to a single deal, the chapter explores interconnections between more ‘traditional’ genres such as press releases and newer ones such as online forums and blogs and provides insights into the role of specialized discourse in such genres.