The language of numerical data and figures in internal company communications: The processes of subjectivization and relevance-making

This paper looks at the language used to talk about numerical data and igures as part of in-house, computer-mediated audio-conferencing between managers and their staff in corporate settings. The data consist of a sub-corpus of oral presentations taken from a much larger self-compiled multi-document corpus of business communications. The research is aimed at describing the predominant pragma-linguistic features of these accounts of graphical and numerical data, the most appropriate and effective means of identifying and tracing these, together with the ways participants subjectivize their information and create relevance for their interlocutors, in this speciic multi-medial, multi-modal business con-text. The features focused on include temporal and locational deixis, visual and spatial imagery and the use of time and tense. Findings show that these discourse creation pro-cesses play a signiicant part in the multi-functional character of the presentations, in enacting evaluation, persuasion and the construal of corporate-professional roles and identities. They also reveal something about the nature of virtual professional, commu-nicative space, and the socially-situated creation of corporate-managerial discourse.