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Article published In:
Dialogic Matters: Interrelating Dialogue, the Material, and Social Change
Edited by Theresa Castor
[Language and Dialogue 11:1] 2021
► pp. 83–106

Dialogical approach to a highly controlled discourse

The case of accountants referring to their experience in an international audit firm

| PSL Paris-Dauphine University , France

This paper sets out the results of an analysis of a corpus of interviews with certified accountants who work or have worked for a major international audit group (one of the Big 4). It uses a dialogical and enunciative approach to show how highly controlled discourses are employed to criticize the “affective temporality” in these large firms. The interviewees all mention the difficulty of living with certain emotions within these Big 4 firms (in particular with the following “temporal emotions”: boredom with repetitive tasks, cold relationships, stress and pressure). We use the pedagogical context of data collection and the professional context of the interviewees to interpret these controlled discourses, while strongly mobilizing the responsive dimension of dialogism.

Keywords: French enunciation, temporal emotion, controlled discourse, accountant
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical-methodological framework
    • 2.1Dialogism and dynamics of renewal
    • 2.2Embedding between enunciations
    • 2.3Temporal emotions and narrative temporality
    • 2.4Enunciative markers
  • 3.Context of data collection and professional context
  • 4.Overall results and comments on extracts
    • 4.1An insistent and indirect criticism of the temporal emotions imposed by the Bigs
      • 4.1.1A controlled criticism of the boredom lived in the Bigs
        • Extracts from interview 1, small firm, director
        • Extracts from interview 3, small firm, director
        • Extracts from interview 10, Big 4, Assistant grade 1
      • 4.1.2A controlled criticism of the aggressiveness of customer relations
        • Extract from interview 2, small firm, director
        • Extract from interview 5, small firm, trainee manager
      • 4.1.3A controlled criticism of the pressure suffered in the bigs
        • Extract from interview 2, small firm, director
        • Extract from interview 5, small firm, trainee manager
    • 4.2Ways of wording criticism in the discourse of those who work at the highest grades of the Bigs
      • Extract from interview 6, big 4, manager
      • Extract from interview 7, big 4, senior
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00085.car
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Cited by 1 other publications

Castor, Theresa R.
2021. Dialogic matters. Language and Dialogue 11:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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