Abstract
In the last seven years, several corporate scandals have shaken public confidence in Chilean corporations. Considering this scenario and the fact that business ethics is an under-researched area in Chile, this study set out to examine one corporate genre, namely, codes of ethics. The codes of ethics from eight Chilean companies were analyzed. This sample offers both typicality and systematic variety as the eight texts have been produced by large-sized companies, five of which have been involved in media scandals. Each sentence was analyzed in order to determine what function it serves. The functions that exhibit the highest occurrence frequency in the corpus are educational (35.8% of sentences) and regulatory (33.9%). The other functions which emerge from the data are self-promotional (8.8%), inspirational (8.5%), commissive (7.8%), and aspirational (4.9%). The predominance of educational and regulatory functions evidences a deontological, compliance-based approach, while the striking salience of the self-promotional function, which ranks third, suggests the strong sense of pride which, according to some Chilean scholars, characterizes the Chilean entrepreneurial class. A critical analysis of the quantitative results and the language used in these documents points to some rhetorical flaws, which may render these texts ineffective.
About the author
Millaray Salas earned her PhD in Linguistics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso in Chile where she is currently Associate Professor at the Linguistics Department. She teaches Discourse Analysis and Genre Analysis at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research interests include Critical Discourse Analysis, Corpus Linguistics, and Second Language Acquisition. Her current research focuses on corporate discourse in Chile. Her publications have appeared in Discourse and Communication and Journal of Pragmatics.
A Appendix
As mentioned in the Methods section, the unit of analysis was the sentence, but here I offer more detailed information about the procedure followed in counting sentences. With that purpose in mind, I will use excerpts from the examined texts that are not cited in the current article (except for Excerpt [2]).
In all of the cases, the three coders read one sentence at a time with the aim of identifying the function of that statement. Thus, in the case of Excerpt [1], the function of the sentence is to regulate the action of employees.
(Chilectra)
Los contratos y los encargos de trabajo deberán llevarse a cabo conforme a lo establecido conscientemente por las partes.
‘Contracts and work assignments must be carried out in accordance with what has been agreed upon by the parties.’
In the case of long sentences, with one main clause and several embedded clauses, the procedure was as follows. We set out to determine if the embedded clauses were paratactic (independent) or hypotactic (subordinate). In the case of hypotaxis, the whole sentence – with all its embedded subordinate clauses – was counted as one unit, as the example below illustrates. Excerpt (2) has a regulatory function. The subordinate clauses serve the purpose of clarifying the extent of the prohibition regarding the action of giving and accepting gifts from public and private officials:
(Celco)
Se prohíbe al Personal de Arauco el ofrecer o dar regalos a funcionarios públicos y/o privados, así como recibirlos por parte de los mismos, cuando dichos regalos pudieran ser razonablemente percibidos como incentivos, cuando tal acción represente una violación a las leyes, regulaciones y políticas de Arauco y sus filiales, o cuando tal acción pudiera incomodar o afectar la buena imagen y reputación de la Compañía.
‘Arauco staff members are forbidden from requesting, offering or giving gifts to public and/or private officials, nor may they receive such gifts or payment, when such gifts could reasonably be perceived as incentives, when such action represents a violation of the laws, regulations and policies upheld by Arauco and its subsidiaries, or when such action could negatively affect the image and reputation of the Company.’
Turning now to the case of parataxis, the coders found that in some cases, within a sentence, different clauses served different functions. In this case, each individual clause was counted separately. The following example shows how this (run-on) sentence had to be broken down into segments as the first clause serves an educational function, while the second and third one serve a commissive function.
(Banmédica)
La dependencia de drogas, sustancias tóxicas y el alcoholismo, son absolutamente contrarios a los valores y principios éticos de la compañía, la que se preocupará de lograr una mejor calidad de vida del trabajador y de su familia, para lo cual, en caso de ser requerido por algún colaborador, buscará entregarles apoyo, capacitación, asistencia y control en esta materia.
‘Dependence on drugs, toxic substances and alcohol is absolutely contrary to the values and ethical principles of the company [educational function], which will strive to provide a better quality of life for the worker and his/her family [commissive function]. So, if required by a collaborator, the company will seek to offer support, training, assistance and monitoring in this area [commissive function].’
The only exception to this procedure was hypothetical case scenarios. We counted the whole scenario as one sentence. I argue that the whole segment performs the same educational/didactic function, namely, illustrating an ethical dilemma, and so the whole paragraph should count as one unit.
(Cencosud)
En un evento social, conocí a un amigable vendedor de la competencia, quien luego de compartir experiencias y anécdotas de la profesión, sugirió que adelantándonos a los desafíos de la próxima temporada, acordáramos distribuir los segmentos de mercado en los cuales nos enfocaríamos, para cumplir con nuestras metas de forma más holgada y eficiente. ¿Debería aprovechar esta oportunidad? No. Acordar por adelantado la distribución de clientes, mercados, cuotas de producción, licitaciones o límites de producción, va contra los valores de CENCOSUD e infringe las leyes de defensa de la competencia.
‘At a social function, I met a friendly sales rep from the competition, who, after sharing experiences and anecdotes of the profession, suggested that we got a headstart on next season’s challenges, that we divide the market segments on which we would each focus in order to meet our goals more efficiently and effortlessly. Should I take this opportunity? No. Agreeing in advance to the distribution of customers, markets, production quotas, procurement or production limits goes against the values of CENCOSUD and violates the laws of competition.’
Appendix B: Distribution of functions across the eight texts (% of total)
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