An SFL Approach to Promotional Practices in the Sentence Examples of Mission and Vision Statements

Abstract

This study concerns the use of promotional rhetoric reflected in mission and
vision statements of international corporate firms. It mainly used transitivity
system in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to analyse the use of
experiential processes in enacting promotional rhetorical moves. Based on
hundred international companies’ mission and vision statements, we
analysed the most recurrent experiential processes associated with each
rhetorical move. Because companies aim to establish their social role in the
corporate discourse community, they largely focus on promotional agendas.
This requires them to write mission statements that define their nature,
beliefs, and values. In conclusion, we found that mental and relational
process are favoured linguistic practices used by corporate firms to write
mission statements that focus on building public image.
Iman Aib is a PhD scholar of English Linguistics in the Department of English
at Air University Islamabad, Pakistan. Her research interests include
ecolinguistics, genre analysis and critical discourse studies, and has
published articles in Social Media + Society.
Prof. Dr. Wasima Shehzad is serving as a professor in the Faculty of Social
Sciences, Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan. She completed her PhD from
University of Michigan under the supervision of John Swales. Her research
interests are genre analysx1is, corpus linguistics and language policy, and
has published numerous articles in journals such as Journal of Technical
Writing and Communication. She is the author of the book Corpus
Linguistics beyond the Word.