Deixis in discourse of corporate social responsibility: the relation between utterance and enunciation

Abstract

This article presents some of the results obtained in an investigation surrounding the polemic relationship which constitutes the discursive practice about corporate social responsibility by the analysis of linguistic traits identified in the manuals Corporate Social Responsibility for Micro and Medium Enterprises – Step by step (2003) and Ethos - Sebrae Indicators of Corporate Social Responsibility for Micro and Small Enterprises (2012), such as the selection of verbs and its relationship to the objects of discourse related to them and adverbial adjuncts that indicate the parameters of the actions that the verbs relate. The documents prescribe model actions that are attested as socially responsible to guide businesses to promote enterprises in the competitive market. The linguistic materiality reveals the coexistence of two poles of the semantic constituent discursive practice about social responsibility, the poles are the competitiveness and the solidarity in a relationship in which solidarity actions serve as a means for companies to become more competitive, according to the manual. Therefore this study investigates the internal organization of a text in relation to the determinations of the socio-historical order in institutional spaces. The analysis of discursive materiality is based on the postulates of French Discourse Analysis such as Discursive Practice, Polemic as inter-incomprehension, Enunciation Scene, Global Semantic and Discursive Dêixis.